MS Word Docs created on PC platform and burned onto a CD, can they be used by people with both Mac and PC?

Question

I am wanting to create and sell wedding invitation templates. I plan to create the custom templates and burn them onto CD, then ship the disks out to customers. What I do not know is: if I create these documents in MS Word on my platform (which is PC), do the customers have to have PC, or can they use MAC to open and use the files? Another option I am considering is to post the MS Word documents onto my website and having the customers click on them and download them. Will I encounter any platform problems with this? I hope my question is clear...if it is not, please feel free to email me with any request for additional clarification. [e-mail]

Thank you in advance for all help.

Answer 1

As long as they have Office or just Word, it doesn't matter what platform you created it on. If they don't have Office then they can download OpenOffice (available for PC, Mac and Linux) and it will be able to handle ~95% of the stuff created in Office. However, templates may look a little off under OpenOffice when opening an MS Office document.

You could also consider creating a PDF, that way, the formatting will be the same for all of them and you could just post the PDF file to your website. CutePDF will save files as PDF, http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp for free. But you will have to "print" them. File > Print then select CutePDF, select an output directory and file name and it will output a PDF file.

A PDF is the best way to ensure it appears the same to everyone. Though you may have to consider purchasing professional PDF software if you intend to do this very often.

Answer 2

Using windows vista go to start menu and then click "Default Programs" on the right hand side below "Control pannel" then when the new window opens click "Associate a file type or protocol with a program" If your document is saved as a .doc it needs to be used in microsoft word 2003 and can also be used in microsoft office 2007, However if you created the document in microsoft office 2007 the file will now be .dotx this means you cant use this file in previous versions of microsoft word. Scroll down the list and find the file type your file is and check that if it is a .dot file that the "current default" is set as "Microsoft office word" and the same for .dotx files If the "current default" is not set as this click the change default button at the top right and locate your microsoft word directory. once you have done this.. assuming your CD is a data CD with documents stored on it copy and paste your documents onto your desktop (or other place) and then open it.

Answer 3

Some people can actually get ms word on a mac, especially newer macs. You might want to look into some other program, though, if you want to make them readily available to both mac and pc users.

Answer 4

For your first question, I don't think that you'll have any issues provided that the Mac users have Microsoft Office for Mac.
Try saving them in Rich Text Format (*.rtf); I'm pretty sure that Macs support that.
As for the Internet, I don't think that you'll have any issues.
Good luck!

Answer 5

i was just at the mac store and they said word docs can be imported into pages