Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Snow Leopard Edition

Chapter 7. Special Software, Special Problems

Be glad you waited so long to get a Mac. By now, all the big-name programs look and work almost exactly the same on the Mac as they do on the PC. Once you’ve mastered the basic differences between the Mac and Windows (keyboard shortcuts, the menu bar, and so on), you’ll find that programs from Microsoft, Adobe, and other major software companies feel distinctly familiar in their Mac incarnations. In fact, the documents that they create are in the same format and generally need no conversion.

But one fact is unassailable: There are more software programs available for Windows than for the Mac. Sooner or later, you’ll probably run into a familiar Windows program for which there’s no equivalent on the Mac.

One solution is simply to run those Windows programs on the Mac, as described in Chapter 8. For thousands of people, that’s the screamingly obvious, and extremely convenient, approach. Each time you read, “There’s no Mac equivalent of this program” in this chapter, add, in your head, “but you can always run the Windows version.”

Still, in other cases, you may not want to fool around with Windows anymore. You may prefer to identify Mac replacements for your favorite Windows programs. That’s the purpose of this chapter: to guide you in finding Mac equivalents for the most popular Windows programs (listed here alphabetically), and to guide you in bringing over your data and settings from Windows to the Mac whenever possible.

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