The world used to divide sharply into two tribes – you were a Windows person or an Apple person, and that was it. Today, that barrier has all but dissolved. Plenty of people are mixing and matching hardware, working with a mix of PCs, Macs and mobile devices, as suits the context or task at hand. Your choice of computer has never been less important: all that really matters is that you can access and work with your data.
Even in these enlightened times, however, that isn’t something you can always take for granted. Different file formats and ways of working can trip you up as you hop between platforms. If you’re running Windows and macOS side by side, or working alongside someone on a different platform, here’s our rundown of recommendations for working on PCs and Macs together – and most of them can be applied to Linux, too.
Productivity tools
The easiest way to work across platforms is to use an online office suite, such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho Office or the iCloud versions of Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote applications.
That’s not your only option, however. Microsoft Office is available for both Windows and macOS (plus iPadOS), and can conveniently synchronise documents via OneDrive. As a free alternative, LibreOffice also
