PowerPoint: Mac or PC

Jul 03, 2014

I need to acquire Powerpoint for a number of reasons and my preferred platform is Mac.  However, an assignment in the development stages includes creating a number of E-learning classes for users that will undoubtedly be PC based.  If I acquire the PowerPoint  for Mac will the PC users be able to use my coursework with absolutely no difficulty?  Thanks!!

7 Replies
Ashley Chiasson

I've never encountered any issues using PowerPoint for mac. I often go between PC and mac (developing on mac and presenting on PC), with no issue, so your PC users should have no issues.

I will share a recent issue I encountered - well. A faculty member encountered this issue: They developed their PPT on a PC, embedding audio narration; however, some students using mac OS experienced issues as the audio wanted to natively open in Windows Media Player. If the mac user doesn't have something like VLC player installed, they may miss out on audio narration that has been embedded.

Dave Ward

john faulkes said:

I would be interested also in hearing of experiences with PowerPoint for mac. I have used it before and I found that it was almost perfect, but not 100%. In particular, when a file created in Windows PowerPoint had a highly designed template, the Mac powerPoint version would screw that up occasionally.

John, do you mean the Mac users had the same experience as Ashley refers to?

Dave Ward

Ashley Chiasson said:

I've never encountered any issues using PowerPoint for mac. I often go between PC and mac (developing on mac and presenting on PC), with no issue, so your PC users should have no issues.

I will share a recent issue I encountered - well. A faculty member encountered this issue: They developed their PPT on a PC, embedding audio narration; however, some students using mac OS experienced issues as the audio wanted to natively open in Windows Media Player. If the mac user doesn't have something like VLC player installed, they may miss out on audio narration that has been embedded.


Ashley, very helpful anecdote.  I suspect that example will occur occasionally...but as long as Mac Users and PC users can access my Mac developed presentation or class...I think I'll be OK.  Thanks!

Sergey Snegirev branchtrack.com

I love Mac and I use PP for Mac. I haven't had any problems except not all Windows fonts being present on Mac and vice versa (so watch out or embed). However, I do find PP for Mac slow (I have latest 2.8GHz i7 Macbook Pro) and I don't like the semi-Windows semi-Mac UI. Windows MS PP is much, much better.

john faulkes

To clarify - I never saw the issues that Ashley referred to, but I wasn't using any audio. I was using my mac to project some PowerPoints with highly designed templates, that had been developed on corporate windows PCs. Various of the graphics displayed out of place, at different sizes etc. Especially if I had re-edited and saved in the mac version.

One thing somebody told me was that there is a difference between the home/student edition of MS Office, which I had on the mac, and the full version; I never was able to test this.

David Price

I use PPT on my Mac with very little trouble, however there are a few things that I prefer on the Windows version (unless I just can't find them on the Mac version).  Virtually all of the PPT's I create on my Mac are delivered on Windows PC's with no problems at all.  The only issue we have is around fonts displaying slightly differently.

The layer view on a Mac is excellent and is great for working with layers however on the Windows version you can show and hide layers which can be really useful when working with a lot of content and animations on a single slide.  There are a few little differences here and there but nothing you can't get around.  One big issue for me though is when you put it into presenter mode on dual screens (or with a projector).  Ever since I upgraded to OS Mavericks the slide show view is really buggy and often crashes.  I am assuming this is something to do with the way it handles multiple desktops in Mavericks but you can get around it by switching the presentation mode to 'Window'.

I do also find it quite laggy on my MaBook even thought I'm running a 2.4GHz i7 with 16GB RAM however I find this with all Microsoft software on a Mac.

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.