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Calling all Mac people......Help! (please)

Dargo

Like a bad penny...
GOLD Site Supporter
Since buying a 27" Mac with a 3.4GHz Intel Core I7 processor with 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM and a 2TB Serial ATA Drive being backed up with the 2TB Time Machine something or another, I think I've been getting along relatively well. I've had to purchase some new software I hadn't planned on such as the latest version of Office for Mac, Quickbooks for Mac and OmniPro X. I seem to have the networking part down (my downfall with my MacBook Pro a year or so ago) but am having a real devil of a time with Excel.

I'm told that Excel is Excel; whether it's on a Mac or a PC and I just need to know Excel. Well, I know Excel to the point where I created the programs I needed for keeping track of customers and doing payroll (read; the most important issue - payroll - must be done tomorrow). I get my entire agency data downloaded to me by a company and I have to slice and dice and sort out who, out of just 9 people now, get paid what on which producers. The good thing is that my program still does that for me on my Mac. The bad, really, really, really, really bad thing is that I seem to be unable to move and delete columns like I used to be. Now it won't allow me to move columns because it says they are "merged" with other cells or columns or something. Humph! It never did that before and the company says they haven't changed anything.

I easily found the little place in the toolbar where I could mark "un-merge" cells. Yeah, problem solved!......not! :hammer: That turns my entire worksheet into gibberish that does me no good. Do any of you smart guys know why this is now happening to me? The company who sends me the data tried to help, but basically said they are sending me the same thing they've sent me for the last 15 years and it must be moving from Microsoft Office 2004 (I think) to Microsoft 2011 for Mac that is causing the problem.

So, if anyone could possibly explain to me why my data goes to gibberish when I un-merge it and how I can prevent such, it would make my life so much better! My employees are the type that just may want to burn my home down if they don't get paid on time. (Not really, but I do pride myself in paying on time every time). There you have it. I need to move complete columns of data and just delete other columns of data really. The rest of the stuff seems to work with my formulas I created 12 years ago. I typed in about 10 lines of the 1251 lines in the sheet and my little program worked like a champ and paid the right person the right percentage each time. You see, sometimes an account is split between up to 3 different people and the percentage each person earns varies greatly depending on other factors that really aren't important now. That part of my formula appears to work just fine. I just can't figure out how to get past this merge/un-merge thing and move my data to the places I need it.

Many, many thanks and rep points will be gladly sent out for any and all who even attempt to help with my dilemma. Oh, for what it's worth, after forcing me to only use the iMac for 3 weeks, I think I can get used to it and like it. :flowers:
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I'm a Mac guy but I don't really know Excel.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
Unfortunately, they forked Office a few years ago. Mac Office does not equal Windows Office especially if your Excel file has any complicated macros or VB code in it.

If you are going to have to do lots of swapping of files between Mac and Windows on Office then I would recommend getting something like VMWare Fusion and running Windows in Unity Mode which allows you to run Windows Excel and have it "appear" as a standard app (although with a Windows UI).

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html

UnityMultipleApps-large.jpg


You can email me the Excel file and I can save it out as different versions and you can see if any of them work for you.
 

JEV

Mr. Congeniality
GOLD Site Supporter
I have a MakBook with Microsoft office, but it's an earlier version. What you might try is to download a free cope of Open Office, and opens the spreadsheet in that software. It may be more forgiving than the new version of Office. I recently had a problem doing a cut n paste into Excel, but to opened in Open Office with no problem. Www.openoffice.org
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
I have a MakBook with Microsoft office, but it's an earlier version. What you might try is to download a free cope of Open Office, and opens the spreadsheet in that software. It may be more forgiving than the new version of Office. I recently had a problem doing a cut n paste into Excel, but to opened in Open Office with no problem. Www.openoffice.org

Good suggestion! Open Office is pretty good these days.
 

Dargo

Like a bad penny...
GOLD Site Supporter
Unfortunately, they forked Office a few years ago. Mac Office does not equal Windows Office especially if your Excel file has any complicated macros or VB code in it.

If you are going to have to do lots of swapping of files between Mac and Windows on Office then I would recommend getting something like VMWare Fusion and running Windows in Unity Mode which allows you to run Windows Excel and have it "appear" as a standard app (although with a Windows UI).

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html

UnityMultipleApps-large.jpg


You can email me the Excel file and I can save it out as different versions and you can see if any of them work for you.


I tried something like that called "wine box" or something to do with "wine" in the name. It was supposed to let you run Windows programs in their own little environment. Needless to say, it was over my head and I never got that to work. I would like to get something like that to work though because there is no Mac version of the database program called ACT!. I've used ACT! since version 1.0 came out on a 720k floppy (not the fancy little 3 1/2" 1.2 floppy, but the big ole floppy floppy discs. I have thousands of contacts in there and I really would like to be able to run that within it's own little area on my computer.

I don't want to partition my drive and make it dual boot and all that work. If I'm not so dumb as being mistaken on this as well, there are some programs that allow Windows programs to be 'fooled' into thinking they are running in a Windows environment and are contained in their own little playground. If you have info on how someone like me could do that, that may solve all of the remaining issues.

BTW, I haven't the slightest clue what all that crap means about the iMac I bought. I just typed it as I read it off the box that's still sitting next to me. I don't know if it's a very high end iMac, but it seems speedy enough for me. :smile:
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
WINE is pretty old school.

VMWare is super easy to use. I run my main system in VMWare Workstation on Windows and can copy the files over and boot it on my MacBook when I travel. I also have about 10 different OS virtual machines that are totally portable and easy to backup.

Go to the link above and read up on it. I think you will be happy but then again you may not. ;)
 
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