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apple lap top and iMac exchange info automatically

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I am part way into my life story for my children. I want to buy a lap top (apple of course) so that I can, if possible, load it up with my MS Word as is on my iMac and type up the story when in the kitchen or lounge and have it tranferred to my iMac at the other end of the house so that the Word on my iMac is updated with input from the laptop. This way I can write additions to the story any time in the other end of the house without having to disappear to my office room to add content. I hope I have made myself clear. Can it be done and, if so, how ? Thank you very much.
Brian
 
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The best way would be to create a cloud drive. You can use your iCloud drive or sign up for a Dropbox or Google drive. Then when you save the document you can access it on any apple computer signed into your apple id and iCloud drive.

I have used iCloud and I also use Google drive. Both work well and you can edit and save documents and the changes will be available immediately on the other computer as long as your internet is working. ;) Since I have more experience with Google drive I will tell you it saves a copy of the document on your computer as well as the cloud. When you edit it the google drive app syncs it to the newest one and if there is any issues it makes a second copy of the document.

Now if you want to not use the cloud but would like to set up a share to access the document over your network this can also be done. Post back and I will try to help you set it up.

The advantage to a cloud drive is you can take your laptop anywhere and work on the document where as a share drive means one computer - hopefully the laptop - has the document and the other accessed it on the laptop through the share.

Lisa
 
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You can do that with any document you save in the cloud, using iCloud, OneDrive, Box, DropBox, Google Drive or any other cloud drive service.
 
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The best way would be to create a cloud drive. You can use your iCloud drive or sign up for a Dropbox or Google drive. Then when you save the document you can access it on any apple computer signed into your apple id and iCloud drive.

I have used iCloud and I also use Google drive. Both work well and you can edit and save documents and the changes will be available immediately on the other computer as long as your internet is working. ;) Since I have more experience with Google drive I will tell you it saves a copy of the document on your computer as well as the cloud. When you edit it the google drive app syncs it to the newest one and if there is any issues it makes a second copy of the document.

Now if you want to not use the cloud but would like to set up a share to access the document over your network this can also be done. Post back and I will try to help you set it up.

The advantage to a cloud drive is you can take your laptop anywhere and work on the document where as a share drive means one computer - hopefully the laptop - has the document and the other accessed it on the laptop through the share.

Lisa
Hi Lisa. Thank you. I would prefer to do a share but my main computer is the iMac an it is there where I will add photos etc but the text will mostly done in the lounge on the laptop as and when I remember things. So, share from the laptop to the iMac in ms Word, I hope, and the two documents will be identical. but main storage, printing and alteration etc on the iMac. Got to go out now. Sorry ! Thank you. Brian
 
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Easy to do, Brian. My wife and I share a Dropbox folder where we can both get to the documents. I set up the Dropbox account, gave her access to the folder and it's easy to share because we can just open the doc in Word and blaze away. The only thing we have to watch is that only one copy is write-able at a time, so we have to remember to close the doc so the other can open and edit. In your case, it's one DB account on both machines, you just need to remember to save and close the doc on the one machine before opening it on the other. I tried iCloud, but wasn't thrilled with how it worked. I also tried MS OneDrive, but went back to Dropbox because it just was easier to set up, IMHO. Now, if the iMac is on all the time, you can, as Lisa said, set up a share from there that the laptop gets to over your network, but one advantage of having the document in the cloud somewhere is that if you have a failure of one or both of the machines, the document is safe in the cloud.
 
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Hi Jake and thank you. The dropbox sounds the best way for me (I'm always dropping things). I have an iPad with MS Word version 2.5 I wonder if that would work - just a thoughtette. I will copy and paste what you have said and set up the one account for the laptop, my iMac and, with a bit of luck and a folling wind, my iPad. Thanks again Jake and thanks also to Lisa and Bob. Much appreciated.
Brian
 

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