Document Conversion Issues
Most big-name programs are sold in both Mac and Windows flavors, and the documents they create are freely interchangeable.
Files in standard exchange formats don’t need conversion, either. These formats include JPEG (the photo format used on web pages), GIF (the cartoon/logo format used on web pages), PNG (a newer image format used on web pages), HTML (raw web page documents), Rich Text Format (a word-processor exchange format), plain text (no formatting), QIF (Quicken Interchange Format), MIDI files (for music), and so on.
One reason: both Windows and OS X use filename extensions to identify documents. (“Letter to the Editor.doc,” for example, is a Microsoft Word document on either operating system.) Common suffixes include these:
Kind of document | Suffix | Example |
|---|---|---|
Microsoft Word | .doc, .docx | Letter to Mom.doc |
text | .txt | Database Export.txt |
Rich Text Format | .rtf | Senior Thesis.rtf |
Excel | .xls, .xlsx | Profit Projection.xls |
PowerPoint | .ppt, .pptx | Slide Show.ppt |
FileMaker Pro | .fp5, .fp6, .fp7… | Recipe file.fp7 |
JPEG photo | .jpg, .jpeg | Baby Portrait.jpg |
GIF graphic | .gif | Logo.gif |
PNG graphic | .png | Dried fish.png |
web page | .htm, .html | Index.htm |
Note
Recent versions of Microsoft Office for Mac and Windows offer a more compact file format ending with the letter x. For example, Word files are .docx, Excel files are .xlsx, and so on. The older, more widely compatible formats don’t have the x (.doc, .xls, and so on).
The beauty of OS X is that most Mac programs add these file name suffixes automatically and invisibly—and ...
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