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This comparison of the differences between Microsoft Office on Mac, Windows, and iOS devices was put together by Kurt Schmucker who (disclaimer) works for Parallels — the company that makes slick virtual machine apps for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac — but he also happens to know a thing or two about the subject after his previous role as Senior Mac Evangelist at Microsoft and on the Office team. So what exactly is missing on Mac and iOS devices compared to Windows when it comes to the Office suite?

Download Microsoft Remote Desktop 10 for macOS 10.11 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. Use the new Microsoft Remote Desktop app to connect to a remote PC or virtual apps and desktops made available by your administrator. Apr 17, 2018  The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 8.0 update lets you use the new Remote Desktop Services features that were introduced in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. These features are now available for computers that are running Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1). To quickly zoom in to any part of your screen, hit the Windows key and +. By default, the Magnifier will zoom in 100% increments, but you can change this in the tool settings.

In the charts below, Schmucker breaks down feature-by-feature exactly what you get (and don’t get) in each of the different versions of the productivity suite including Office 2016 and 2013 for Windows, Office 2016 and 2011 for Mac, and Office for iPad.

Windows

The full charts (below) show suite-wide differences between the versions such as missing apps, lack of support for Visual Basic and ActiveX, right-to-left language support, accessibility features, AppleScript and much more. Other charts in the study show feature variations for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, with the majority of the features listed unavailable for iPad users and a mixed bag for the other versions.

And Schmucker points out two things regarding the iPad specifically. One positive is support for right-to-left languages, which he notes is something that Mac users have bene asking for but have yet to receive, while a negative for the iPad is lack of multiple selection support in PowerPoint, something Schmucker notes is a pretty basic but crucial function for the app.

In the end, he concludes that a mix of the various Office suites is the best approach but admits that his main, go-to version is MacOffice 2011 (apart from using the latest version of Outlook due to enhanced performance):

“I worked for the MacOffice team at Microsoft for several years, and at that time I also worked closely with colleagues on the WinOffice teams. Because of this background, I am often able to pick just the right Office app that will make a given task the easiest to do. One task might be particularly well suited to MacWord 2011 because Publishing Layout View— a feature only in that one Word version— will make this task easy. Another task might be suited to WinPPT because of the Animation Painter, which is not in any MacPPT version. Yet another task might be best suited to WInPPT 2013 because it needs an Office extension not available in other Office suites.”

And this is what Schmucker’s setup looks like with various versions of Office installed on Mac and using virtual machines:

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  • MacOffice 2011 is my main productivity suite and is installed on my El Capitan MacBook Pro. MacOutlook 2016 came out long before the entire MacOffice 2016 suite, and because of the vastly improved performance of MacOutlook 2016, I use it as my main email client, instead of MacOutlook 2011.
  • WinOffice 2013 is installed in a Windows 7 virtual machine (VM) (under Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition) on my MacBook Pro.
  • iPad Office is installed on my iPad. As you saw in the tables above, iPad Office is lacking many of the features of WinOffice and MacOffice, so I also have Parallels Access on my iPad which lets me access and run the full featured versions of any Office suite (or any other application) on my computers and use them with natural iPad gestures. (You can download a free trial of Parallels Access for iOS and Android to access your Mac and/or PC at www.parallels.com/access).w
  • MacOffice 2016 is installed in an El Capitan VM (under Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition) on my MacBook Pro.
  • WinOffice 2016 is installed in a Windows 10 VM (under Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition) on my MacBook Pro.

Click the charts below to view them in full size:

If accessing Windows-only or version specific features on your Mac is the goal, Schmucker notes that with Parallels you can easily run different versions of Windows and Office on one Mac using Parallels Desktop for Mac and a subscription to Office 365 Home (which will give you five installs of the Office suites of your choice). That’s how he accomplished the setup above using various virtual machine installs.

If you like to use your Mac computer as your main machine, but still need Windows for occasional tasks, then it might be useful to setup remote desktop so that you can connect from your Mac to your PC remotely.

Luckily, Microsoft provides all the parts for remote desktop to work properly between a Mac and a PC. In this article, I’m going to walk you through the steps for setting up remote desktop on a Mac and PC.

Setup Remote Desktop Assistant on PC

The first thing you’ll need to do is setup remote desktop assistant on your PC. This program will basically enable remote desktop, open the ports in the firewall and configure anything else that is required for remote desktop.

When you download the file and run it, it’ll ask for your permission to connect to the Internet to download all the setup files. Once you approve that and the program is installed, go ahead and run it.

It’s a very simple and straight-forward program. All you do is click Get Started and it will change a few settings on your PC so that the computer can accept incoming remote desktop connections. Once completed, it will show you a summary and give you the option to scan a QR code (if using a mobile device like an iPad), copy the info to the clipboard or save the connection as a file, which you can open on another computer.

Once you have the info you need, go ahead and close the window. It’s worth noting that if you want to connect to your computer from outside the local network, you’ll have to open the ports on the router manually and forward those ports to your PC. You’ll also have to setup dynamic DNS so that you can use a DNS name rather than your public IP address, which changes often, to connect. It’s definitely more complicated, but totally doable.

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Setup Remote Desktop on Mac

Now that you are setup on the PC side, it’s time to get remote desktop installed on your Mac. You’ll want to go to the App Store and search for remote desktop. The first app should be Microsoft Remote Desktop.

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Click the Get button and once downloaded, click the Open button. The main screen is just a couple of buttons across the top: New, Start, Edit, Preferences and Remote Resources.

Click on the New button to start a new remote desktop connection. Here you will type in all the information that was listed out on the PC when you setup remote desktop assistant.

Give your connection a name, type in the IP address under PC Name, configure a gateway if required and then type in the credentials for the remote PC. Note that the PC will need to have an account with a password in order for all this to work. If the account doesn’t have a password, you won’t be able to connect.

Also, to save the connection, you just have to press the red X button at the top left of the screen. For some odd reason, there is no Add and Save button on the dialog. However, once you click the X, you’ll see the new connection listed.

Click on it and then click on Start to connect to the remote PC. You’ll probably see a warning about the certificate not being verified, which is OK. Just click Continue to make the connection.

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That’s about it! After a few moments, the PC desktop should load full screen onto your Mac. If you need to make any changes to the connection, just select it and click on Edit. Also, you can click on Preferences to add a gateway or to specify the display resolution manually. If you have any trouble, let us know in the comments. Enjoy!

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Bonus: If you use Google Chrome a lot, you might be interested in knowing that you can access any PC (Linux, Mac, Windows) remotely using just the Chrome Remote Desktop extension from Google.