MacBook Pro won't read CD

[chscag]

It could also be that the publisher of the CD is using a non standard compression method to place all that info on one disc. But like member "krs" stated, the publisher may not be aware of the 64 bit requirement of Catalina. Windows 10 still runs 32 bit programs and the vast majority of computer users are running Windows. Most publishers today such as the National Geographic archive and others offer both Windows and Mac formats on the same disc.

 

[Rod]

It would be handy if billwill could get someone to check the CD on a Windows device, just to see if it’s a Catalina or a CD issue. If it works on Windows then we can assume there is a program on the disk that won’t run on Catalina.


Sent from my iPhone using Mac-Forums

 

[Rod]

Just as a follow up. Reverting to Mojave is a long exhaustive process, I feel like I should write a document on the process even though it is covered on so many web sites.
The point is, it involves a lot of work, especially if you do not have a viable backup of the HD prior to the upgrade (Time Machine backup of Mojave). If not it becomes a "clean instal" procedure which, dependent on the volume of data, could take a month to get back to where you were, if you tackle a few apps a day. Fine if you've got the time.
Or no choice.

 

[stefanmaine]

"I also cannot create a new WORD document or use any of the OFFICE apps"

As MacInWin wrote, "there are alternatives to MS products to read/write Word documents."
I recently upgraded to Catalina (which I have grown to like), but in that process, I, like you, lost the use of Word & Excel.
I am now using SoftMaker Office 2018. A couple of other just as good alternatives are LibreOffice and OpenOffice. All three of those have free versions, all of them will open & edit documents with Microsoft extensions (doc, docx, xls, xlxs) as well as Save documents retaining their existing Microsoft extensions. I do not use that option, but if I were sharing documents with others who might be discomfited by the sight of an "alien" extension, I probably would.

 

[Rod]

I know it's a pain this MS thing. I've seen people describe it as extortion on the Apple App Store, having to pay $98.00 a year to open their own documents etc. but lets face it, it's just another paid-for app out of many. I definitely don't like Office 365, I have always steered well clear of subscription based apps but I did purchase the stand alone MS Office Home and Student version for Mac OS back in 2018. It seemed like a worthwhile investment at the time considering how much I use its apps and I still think it was. To have a word processor app plus Excel synced with One Drive across all my devices and free mobile apps, with a free 5Gb storage and a secondary email address has been well worth the AU $150.00 I paid at the time. I use Skype quite a bit o/seas too so you could say I'm maximising the value of my MS account.
Having said that it was a pain to instal. It took two calls to MS Australia to finalise the installation and activate the package despite the fact that I already had a MS account.
I did try all of the alternatives first, Libre Office, Open Office etc, all of which are great products considering they are free, I have great respect for the developers and their devotion to maintaining a free alternative to MS, I even persisted with Apple's Pages app for a time and still use it for some personal documents but in the end I came back to MS Word. I hope I do not need to buy it again and if not it will seem like a pretty cheap investment after 3 or 4 years. That just leaves my wife who is still stuck on the 2016 version.
I suppose my suggestion would be to do what i did, try the alternatives and start saving up for MS Office.

 

[krs]

Rod,

Did you try Free Office?
I tried Libre Office and Open Office a while back and didn't like them
Free Office seems to be the closest to MS Office

 

[Rod]

I did and I was impressed but that was more recently. The big drawback for me is the lack of mobile app. I'm tend to move from one device to another a lot, I'm a big Handoff and Continuity user.

 

[stefanmaine]

I did and I was impressed but that was more recently. The big drawback for me is the lack of mobile app. I'm tend to move from one device to another a lot, I'm a big Handoff and Continuity user.

When I upgraded to Catalina, and had to migrate from Microsoft Word and Excel, I tried several of the options, and have settled on SoftMaker Office. Like the others, it has a free version. The only disadvantage I have experienced, is it seems sometimes a little slow. Thus, for example, File>Save, which was pretty nearly instantaneous in Word and Excel, sometimes takes a couple of seconds to complete. I want to get used to it, because its two apps I use (wordprocessing and spreadsheets) are nice, nicer I think than OpenOffice, LibreOffice, FreeOffice.

To your question: SoftMaker Office describes itself as "The only complete office suite for Android tablets". I do not use that capability, so I do not know how easy (or even possible) it would be to swap work back and forth between a Mac computer and an Android mobile device. SoftMaker has a decent Support Forum where you might be able to get an answer to that.

 

[krs]

Just to make sure there is no confusion by anyone - Softmaker Office as mentioned in the post above and FreeOffice are the same applications.

 

[pm-r]

Just to make sure there is no confusion by anyone - Softmaker Office as mentioned in the post above and FreeOffice are the same applications.

Just to make things more confusing, softmaker office isn't even listed at Macupdate.com and a few other Mac software sites.



Patrick
---------

 

[stefanmaine]

To take things beyond confusing, I was first introduced to SoftMaker in a much earlier thread when I was considering upgrading to Catalina to cure an unrelated issue, but was concerned about losing the use of Word & Excel, and chscag suggested "take a look at SoftMaker Free Office".

Clearly, krs, you are correct. The full name is indeed "SoftMaker Free Office".

An amusing tangent ... SoftMaker comes in a variety of languages, and of course, there is provision for a user to choose. After selecting "English (US)" I noticed that on a couple of dialog boxes, the choices were in German; for example at File>Save As, the options display as Abbrechen and Sichern (which, thanks to Google Translate, I confirmed mean Cancel and Save). I asked about that at their Forum, assuming I had missed a toggle switch, to which a SoftMaker representative replied "Thank you for your report. I was also able to reproduce it, and I'm going to report it to the developers!"

 

[chscag]

SoftMaker also has an office suite which is not free that offers more than their Free Office. Free Office can open older MS documents but can not edit them and save in that same format, however, their pay version does have that ability.

I have their pay version (purchased when it was on sale). I tested it on some of my older MS documents and even on some newer ones. The only problem I ran into was with older documents that contained special formatting and some very long documents. The margins and indents had to be redone. Also, SoftMaker both the Free and pay versions do not always recognize MS fonts. That's another problem because of kerning.

All in all, I highly recommend either their Free or pay versions as an excellent substitute for MS Office. I no longer recommend LibreOffice or Open Office.

 

[stefanmaine]

I have their pay version (purchased when it was on sale).

Thank you again for your original recommendation.

Shortly after downloading, I received an email with a "special offer" to upgrade ... for about $20, which I did.

There are a few, minor (to my needs) differences from Microsoft, but once you get those into your head, it is really nice.