7.3. Exchanging Data with Windows PCs

It's no surprise that the Mac is great at transferring information among Mac programs. The big news is how easy Mac OS X makes it to transfer files between Macs and Windows computers.

Documents can take one of several roads between your Mac and a Windows machine, many of which are the same as Mac-to-Mac transfers. For example, you can transfer a file on a disk (such as a CD or Zip disk), on a flash drive, via network, by Bluetooth, on an iPod, as an attachment to an email message, via Web page, as an FTP download, and so on. The following pages offer some pointers on these various transfer schemes.

7.3.1. Preparing the Document for Transfer

Without special adapters, you can't plug an American appliance into a European power outlet, play a CD on a cassette deck, or open a Macintosh file in Windows. Therefore, before sending a document to a colleague who uses Windows, you must be able to answer "yes" to both of the questions below.

7.3.1.1. Is the document in a file format Windows understands?

Most popular programs are sold in both Mac and Windows flavors, and the documents they create are freely interchangeable. For example, documents created by recent versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, FileMaker, FreeHand, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and many other Mac programs don't need any conversion. The corresponding Windows versions of those programs open such documents with nary a hiccup.

Files in one of the 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), HTML (raw Web page documents before they're posted on the Internet), Rich Text Format (a word-processor exchange format that maintains bold, italic, and other formatting), plain text (no formatting at all), QIF (Quicken Interchange Format), MIDI files (for music), and so on.

But what about documents made by Mac programs that don't exist on the typical Windows PC hard drive, such as AppleWorks 6? It's available to educators in a Windows version, but you certainly can't count on your recipient having it.

Do your recipients the favor of first saving such documents into one of the formats listed in the previous paragraphs. In AppleWorks, for example, choose File Save As; from the File Type pop-up menu, choose "Word Win 97, 2000." Now name this special version of the document (remember the .doc suffix), and then click Save.

7.3.1.2. Does the file have the correct three-letter file name suffix?

As noted in Chapter 5, every document on your hard drive has some kind of tag to tell the computer what program is supposed to open it: either a pair of invisible four-letter codes or a file name suffix like .doc .

Microsoft Windows uses only the latter system for identifying documents. Here are some of the most common such codes:

Table 7-1.

Kind of document	Suffix	Example
Microsoft Word	.doc	Letter to Mom.doc
Excel	.xls	Profit Projection.xls
PowerPoint	.ppt	Slide Show.ppt
JPEG photo	.jpg	Baby Portrait.jpg
GIF graphic	.gif	Logo.gif
Web page	.htm	Index.htm

The beauty of Mac OS X is that most programs add these file name suffixes automatically and invisibly , every time you save a new document. You and your Windows comrades can freely exchange documents without ever worrying about this former snag in the Macintosh/Windowst relationship.

7.3.2. Notes on Disk Swapping

Once you've created a document destined for a Windows machine, your next challenge is to get it onto that machine. One way is to put the file on a disk ”a CD you've burned, for example ”which you then hand to the Windows user .

Fortunately, although Windows can't read Mac disks, the Mac can read (and save onto) Windows disks. When you insert a Windows-formatted floppy, Zip, or CD into your Mac, its icon appears onscreen just like a Mac disk. You can drag files to and from this disk (or its window), rename files, delete files, and so on, exactly as though you're working with a Mac disk (only slower).

7.3.2.1. Creating a Windows disk on the Mac

You can even create a Windows disk on your Macintosh. CDs that you burn on the Mac, for example, are Windows compatible right out of the gate.

To share a floppy or Zip disk, you must first erase it using Disk Utility (in your Applications Utilities folder). (This example assumes that you have a floppy or a Zip drive, either of which you can buy for any USB Mac. Honestly, though, these days buying a flash drive makes a heck of a lot more sense.)

Insert the disk so that its icon shows up in the list at the left side of the window, and then click the Erase tab. Click the disk's name, use the pop-up menu to specify MS-DOS File System format, and then click Erase. After the erasing process is over, you can insert the floppy into both Macs and PCs with equal success.

7.3.3. Network Notes

Mac OS X can "see" shared disks and folders on Windows PCs that are on the same network. Complete instructions are in Chapter 13.

7.3.4. Via the Internet

Chapter 22 offers details on FTP and Web sharing, two ways to make your Mac available to other computers ”Windows PCs or not ”on the Internet.