You use all this software that runs fine on a PC, but less than great on macOS. A Windows PC is just a flat out better tool for your job.
Do what I do, I work on a PC all day but have my iPad in a keyboard case right next to me for my personal stuff.
That’s because Acrobat is a spawn of Satan.
With the OS supporting PDF natively already, why bother with Acrobat? I avoid that thing like the plague. It’s the only way I know of to make Mac-based PDF usage suck.
As far as I can tell, exporting pdf as PowerPoint is difficult unless you use a third-party application like Acrobat DC. I occasionally have to do this and it is pretty easy to do in Acrobat.
Yup, holding the cmd button and scrolling works. Why I need to do this makes no sense to me, but oh well, I will adjust!
This is probably true, but I am testing if I can survive with a Mac. At the end of the 30 days I will determine if continuing with a Mac makes any sense.
The Mac’s “Print to PDF” is excellent. If all you need it for is to export PDFs, in the Print dialog, click “save as PDF.”
Actually in the opposite direction. For example, I might get a pdf that is a slide presentation that I want to convert from pdf to PowerPoint. That is, as far as I can tell, difficult to do with native MacOS and requires a third-party solution like Acrobat DC.
Try looking at maybe something like Smile’s PDF expert can do a better job.
Just out of curiosity, at least on the PC, how are the results of the conversion?
You can also use command-` (right above tab) to cycle through the windows of the application in the foreground. For instance, if you have multiple Word docs open, that will cycle through them.
Copy / Paste is your friend. Use select-all from the top Edit menu without anything being selected in the main document, then copy from Preview and paste into Powerpoint.
How good that looks depends on the complexity of the source. Forms tend to get compressed. Simpler layouts seem to work fine. If it’s static content shown a page at a time, it’s easy to copy it as an image (shift-control-4, draw the box around your content, and hold Control while releasing the mouse button to copy to clipboard instead of creating a screenshot.
My bias against Acrobat goes way back, though, as performance was always inexcusably terrible, coming in around 10% of the native PDF handling in macOS when scrolling around and utterly failing to smoothly and continuously zoom in & out the way macOS did. Add that to an atrocious UI and I have no idea if it ever got better because I really did not care. YMMV :-)
They are pretty good. The only problems that occur (for me) are slides that have a lot of equations on them. Some of the equations will require manual editing.
Like I said, the Mac way is a bit complicated. In Acrobat, I just hit “export to” and it comes out looking pretty good as far as I can tell.
Day 4 Observations:
My MBP 16 worked very nicely during a 25 person 4-hour Zoom video conference. No issues to report and was easy to setup and use. My current concern is all of these NTFS external drives I have and an iPad Pro that cannot read them. I use that NTFS for Mac utility, so it is no issue on my MBP 16. No such utility exists for the iPad Pro that I’ve found, so its back to note taking for that device.
I have to admit that I am feeling like the MBP 16 is a wife and that sexy Windows PC is the other woman flirting and enticing me with her icon minimizing ways. I can see living in a loveless marriage with MacOS and being somewhat happy, but the thrills and excitement (for me) are with the PC.
Also, just found out today in another Zoom meeting that I need to dive into Microsoft Power BI, so I may need to divorce lawyer up sooner than 30 days and run away with my PC!
I for one am shocked at this outcome. Shocked! :-P
We’ll stay together for the kids at least for the time being, hehe.
That’s what happens when you indulge your Microsoft Power BI-curiousity.
No offense to Chris (and this was a fun ride), almost all of these 30-day challenges usually end up the same. Granted, most of the ones I’ve read are people trying to use the iPad as their only device.
Usually, someone’s workflow is so OS centric that it’s a challenge to switch. To be fair, he lasted longer than I would have if I had to go PC-only and ditch my Mac.
For someone to really make the switch, at least from my personal experience, it takes months to do. First, you need a workflow that involves Mac based software, not ports of Windows programs that run on a Mac. Most Windows software is just plain better on Windows, especially Office. Second a person has to get over the “Windows does it this way” mentality and learn to do it on the Mac. Even if you don’t like it at first, you have to get used to the way it’s done on a Mac. Third, macOS is just plain better without a mouse IMO. Keyboard shortcuts and trackpad gestures are amazingly fast and easy to do, but it takes a long time to learn them and then get in the habit of using them.
I remember my first Mac was painful to use. I was so used to Windows, that the way OS X worked just seemed counter-intuitive. It was a battle until I just went all-in, accepting that I put all this money into the thing, it was time to learn it. I have converted some friends and family into Mac users, but its a painful process in most cases.
Running Bootcamp with Windows installed and then being able to load that partition into VMWare or Parallels is the best of both worlds on the Mac. No, you’re not going to be playing fancy games in Windows that is running in a VM, but you can boot straight into Windows when you want to do that. I’ve been running this setup for 10+ years and it’s been great for me.
What NTFS for Mac utility are you using? Anyone else have thoughts on thus?
Yup, that is what I use.
I think you can stop right there. Most people that I know that advocate for Mac use make the assumption that there is a Mac solution that improves performance over, well, anything. I am not saying that is what you are arguing, but that is the implication. There are plenty of things that simply work better on a PC. I am sure there are things that simply work better on a Mac, but it seems that I do not use them.
I just find using keyboard shortcuts to do computer work so 1970s. We had to use these in the DOS days but now I love not having to use the keyboard as a major portion of the OS. So again, if that is the attraction of using a Mac, then that is not an argument that will win the day with someone like me.
Now, the Mac (my MBP 16) does many things that are better than my PC laptops across the board. I only put computers to sleep while using a Mac because on the PC side, you don’t know what is going to happen (or if that laptop is now going to burn a hole through your briefcase). It is very nice to simply be able to pick up a laptop, open the lid, have the Apple Watch open the screen, and getting to work.
The other argument is just use Windows on a Mac and get the best of both worlds! That is not my experience. From disappearing bootcamp folders, to needing to update two OS’ on the same computer, making the mistake of restarting MacOS to have it boot into Windows, who knows how and which Windows driver updates work in bootcamp, etc. So yeah it can be done, but in that instance I am adding to the work I need to do as opposed to gaining utility from using the Mac.
I am still using the MBP 16 but I am also upgrading my desktop PC to 64 GB RAM so that I can play with Power BI because it is one of the industry standard software packages that simply will not work in MacOS. Well, also so that I can play with R and other programs, but those do run fine on my MBP.
I am not anti-MacOS. I just don’t have a lot of use for it, to be honest. However, I am sure there are very legitimate reasons for someone to feel the opposite way.
Edit: I should also point out that everybody in my immediate family is on a Mac, so I do some technical support for them. This current challenge is informative for them as well. I am the lone PC user and they also look at me strangely when I do stuff in Windows.
That is not what I am saying. My point was if the major tools I used for work were Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc, I would just use a PC. They are far better on a PC than Mac (and no Mac user would disagree with that, they would more likely ask, “Why are you still using those?”). When I want to do more than data entry in Excel, I get on my PC. On the other hand, I think Mac software in general is better than PC software (outside of Office and other Pro stuff I don’t use). I don’t use Adobe Acrobat, I use PDFPen, etc.
I also like Windows and it does things better than a Mac, like the mouse and Windows management. I just prefer macOS (I enjoy using it and all the software that integrates with it).
It was pretty obvious in the last thread that this wasn’t for you. As soon as you posted this, I figured you wouldn’t last a week. Not a knock against you, but all your software is better on Windows, it’s like using the wrong tool for the job.
Which is fair enough, but a lot of Mac users really like them. That’s kind of macOS’s thing, tons of keyboard shortcuts, and then throw in programs like Alfred and you don’t have to use your mouse much, if at all.