As the minority platform, Mac users have to try harder. As a result,
Apple has included the ability to read PC-formatted diskettes since
Apple File Exchange shipped with System 6 in the late 1980s.
Mac users have had to learn to live with the quirks of PC file
naming - up until 1995, limiting file names to cryptic 8 letters, and
even today remembering to add 3-letter file extensions to email
attachments and other documents destined to be read by a Windows
PC.
Sometimes, though, the shoe is on the other foot. Once in a while a
Windows PC user has to work with disks or files designed for the Mac.
This is the often case for users who have a Mac at home but have to use
a Windows system at work, for example.
DataViz is a company
with a long tradition of helping Mac users read documents when they
don't have the application that created it. Limited versions of their
MacLink Plus filters have been included by Apple with some versions of
ClarisWorks/AppleWorks - and even with some operating system versions -
to help users open a wide range of documents.
Early versions of MacLink Plus included primitive (by today's
standards) connectivity between Macs and PCs; I have a version that
includes a serial cable with an oblong PC connector at one end and a
round Mac serial connector at the other. Software for DOS and Windows
3.1 and for the Mac allowed the two systems to connect and transfer
files, which the MacLink filters translated into commonly used Mac
formats.
Currently, Apple is once again including a limited subset of
DataViz's MacLink file translators with AppleWorks, providing users of
that program the ability to open files created with Mac and Windows
versions of Microsoft Office and other programs. And DataViz continues
to market the full version of MacLink
Plus (no longer including a serial transfer cable), giving
users a the ability to view, open, and translate a wide range of Mac
and PC data files without needing the program that originally created
them. The company claims to have sold over 10 million copies of MacLink
over the years.
They've taken this long tradition of producing high quality data
translators and concerns with Mac/Windows compatibility and produced a
product for Windows users. Their MacOpener
2000 (US$50, $30 upgrade) and Conversions
Plus (US$70, $40 upgrade) programs give Windows users abilities
that Mac users take for granted - the ability to read Mac-formatted
disks. In addition to Mac-formatted diskettes, CDs, and SCSI drives,
the latest versions let Windows users read Mac-formatted FireWire hard
drives, including the hard disk in Mac versions of Apple's iPod.
While Conversions Plus includes all of MacOpener's abilities to read
Mac-formatted storage media, it adds the same range of file
translators; this allows Windows PC users to, for example, open old
documents created in MacWrite or the PC AmiPro in their current version
of Microsoft
Word. (Conversions Plus - but not MacOpener - includes a copy of
EphPod, a music management program that allows Windows users to send
music files to the Mac-formatted iPod).
Both MacLink and Conversions Plus include a large list of word
processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphics file filters, but they
lack the ability to read page layout documents. (Too bad - I'm sure
there is a niche market for the ability to open, say, old Ready-Set-Go
documents in PageMaker or Quark XPress or Word. Or even to open
PageMaker 3 documents in modern versions of PageMaker). Check
Dataviz's list for a full list of included translators.
While complex documents - complete with imbedded graphics, tables,
and special formatting - will inevitably pose problems, Conversions
Plus (and the Mac-equivalent MacLink Plus) does as good a job as
possible, allowing users to deal with a wide range of documents,
whether created on the other platform or with older, and often no
longer easily available software versions.
DataViz has recently dropped prices, making these admittedly niche
products more attractive, though they may still seem expensive for
casual users who might only need them once in a while. Moreover, the
company tends to require customers to pay full upgrade price for what I
consider fairly minor revisions.
There are a number of competing products to allow Windows PCs to
read Mac-formatted media, but if you need to also read a wide range of
Mac (or older PC) document formats, DataViz's Conversions Plus is your
best bet. 
