Windows-Mac compatibility

users
#1

Dear all,
I'm interested in experiences for cross compatibility between Windows and Mac for Calc. Is it fully compatible or only partially? I have a file on dropbox and I’m wondering if I’d be able to edit it both from my work pc and my personal mac with the same version of libreoffice. I know the best and clever way would be to try it myself, fact is my file has quite some sheets and I would like to avoid to start saving it with both machines and eventually find out in a month or so that something went bad in the process.

Thanks a lot

Lorenz

#2

Hi,

I can't vouch for Mac compatibility, but using the same version of LO on
both Windows and Linux never gave me any trouble, except for fonts issues.
If you are careful about using only fonts available on all your systems (or
if you don't care much about this point) you can expect a smooth transition
between both OS.

#3

Hi. I have Linux and macs and have no cross-compatibility issues with LO.
With my work colleagues there is no compatibility issues windows-Linux.
I do however standardise fonts across machines, for instance I found the Arial on mac was different to the one on Linux causing text to flow differently, so I copied my Linux font to my mac.
Steve

#4

Steve Edmonds wrote:

Dear all,
I'm interested in experiences for cross compatibility between Windows
and Mac for Calc. Is it fully compatible or only partially? I have a
file on dropbox and I’m wondering if I’d be able to edit it both from
my work pc and my personal mac with the same version of libreoffice. I
know the best and clever way would be to try it myself, fact is my
file has quite some sheets and I would like to avoid to start saving
it with both machines and eventually find out in a month or so that
something went bad in the process.

Thanks a lot

Lorenz

Hi. I have Linux and macs and have no cross-compatibility issues with LO.
With my work colleagues there is no compatibility issues windows-Linux.
I do however standardise fonts across machines, for instance I found the
Arial on mac was different to the one on Linux causing text to flow
differently, so I copied my Linux font to my mac.
Steve

Have you tried the "Embed fonts in the document" option under the "Font"
tab of the document "Properties" dialog?

In some cases this can "bloat" the file size, but I have found it useful.

Dave

#5

I might just hold of on that for a while. The version we run doesn't support embedding, and from discussions on the list back in 2011, embedding fonts for use in editing documents was pretty much not going to happen. When it is included in the ISO certified standard for ODF I might decide to rely on it but want to wait for any repercussions on inclusion and sharing of of non licensed fonts through ODF.
steve

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
It is better to just install the same fonts on all machines.

Some fonts, particularly ones on Mac and Windows are copyrighted using
many many different weird licenses.

The standard MS fonts, such as "Times New Roman", Arial, Trebuchet,
Verdana all have a standard very interesting copyright. It's
difficult to know if MS could enforce it through court-action since
those fonts are used so widely elsewhere with little or no attempt by
MS to enforce the copyright. On the other hand it might be unpleasant
to become a test-case against the might of MS. There are a lot of
Free fonts that are closely equivalent and pretty much all distros of
Gnu&Linux contain tons. They usually allow you to add the non-Free MS
ones that are so widely used but it's at the user's own risk.

So, my tactic would be to copy the fonts from your Gnu&Linux to your
Mac to save the hassle of looking through licenses.

This is my recommendation, at lease for the present. I don't know if LO uses the embedded font in preference to the system font where the embedded font exists on the system. I overwrite the fonts on the windows/mac machine with the GNU font where there is a clash because as I mentioned the Arial on the mac (and windows to lesser degree) has different metrics to linux. Consequently you also notice differences between windows and mac.
steve

#7

Hi :slight_smile:
It is better to just install the same fonts on all machines.

Some fonts, particularly ones on Mac and Windows are copyrighted using
many many different weird licenses.

The standard MS fonts, such as "Times New Roman", Arial, Trebuchet,
Verdana all have a standard very interesting copyright. It's
difficult to know if MS could enforce it through court-action since
those fonts are used so widely elsewhere with little or no attempt by
MS to enforce the copyright. On the other hand it might be unpleasant
to become a test-case against the might of MS. There are a lot of
Free fonts that are closely equivalent and pretty much all distros of
Gnu&Linux contain tons. They usually allow you to add the non-Free MS
ones that are so widely used but it's at the user's own risk.

So, my tactic would be to copy the fonts from your Gnu&Linux to your
Mac to save the hassle of looking through licenses.

Apart from the fonts issue there should be no compatibility issues
between LO on Mac and Gnu&Linux (or between either of those and
Gnu&Hurd, Bsd, Solaris or any other platform LibreOffice works on).
It's only the Windows one that has to be re-written in places so if
you are avoiding Windows then there's no difference between the
version on different platforms. The version on Mac is the same as the
version on Gnu&Linux

Even the version on Windows is not all that different so you'll not
have compatibility issues between Mac and Windows or Gnu&Linux and
Windows.

Even between different versions of LO on the different platforms and
even between different programs on different platforms you will still
find a distinct lack of problems.

It's only MS Office that creates incompatibility between versions,
programs and platforms.

Ironic really because most people out in the world often think the
exact opposite of what is really true. Very few actually try it out
and as soon as they do they find the reality but then become ignored
and labelled as being too geeky.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile: