Chapter 7. Special Software, Special Problems

Be glad you waited so long to switch to the 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 no matter what you think of Windows, one fact is unassailable: There are more software programs available for Windows than there are for the Mac. Sooner or later, you'll probably run into a familiar Windows program for which there's no equivalent on the Mac.

The purpose of this chapter is to make that discovery less painful: to identify the Mac equivalents of the most popular Windows programs, to suggest replacements when no precise equivalents are available, and to guide you in bringing over your settings from Windows to the Mac whenever possible.