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I was a Mac user for years and switched to Windows about four years ago because of software availability etc. Lately I have regretted that decision and am considering getting the new G5 system. My concern now is whether all my images, Word documents etc. can be moved to an OS X based machine. Can any of these documents be converted or am I just SOL?
Your files should be compatible cross platform as long as you have the equivalent software installed.
Your Photoshop files certainly will be OK.
There was sometimes an issue with some file types going the other way, from Mac to PC. Usually it was the lack of file suffix.
Hey Lee, as I swing both ways (in terms of OS only, foo! [slick] ), I can tell you that going PC to Mac is a lot smoother than going the other way. As Al says PS is straight forward. It's the MS stuff that can be a bit belligerent, I've had to turn to a third party solutions, and have used VirtualPC in some cases.
Another question about switching. Will all my Photoshop Actions, Styles, Brushes etc that I've collected be compatible? Can I just copy and move the folders from my Win PS to the Mac PS?
Also, can my plug-ins be moved from Win PS to Mac PS without having to buy new ones?
All your Photoshop brushes, styles etc are cross platform. Plug-ins are not, as all applications are platform specific. Adobe is quite helpful in allowing people to change platforms at a nominal cost to switch the software but they are one of the few vendors to be so accomodating. (Contact Customer Support for help.)
If you do go back to Mac, I can heartily endorse OS X. It is fully mature now, and an incredibly solid OS. There will be a learning curve, of course, so if you do switch let us know. I can provide links galore to making the switch less painlfull and some direct advice on how to eliminate some issues which cause people difficulties.
I just recently made the switch to OS X from PC (Still have both) I Love my G5 and everything switched over beautifully for me. (including the PC fonts that I have.) [righton]
I'm glad to hear the switch was relatively painless. I have a suggestion which I make to all the folks who set up new Macs in my neighborhood (I do local Mac tech support) and who don't wish to become nerds. There are maintenance routines which UNIX systems are designed to run on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. These will run automatically at 3:00AM (or there about) if your computer is on 24/7. If you turn your computer off at night this function is disrupted and those maintenance routines need to be run 'by hand'. To avoid thinking about such routine maintenance, there is a great little piece of shareware called Macaroni which runs those maintenance routines for you, rebuilds permissions once a week, and eliminates extra language resources once a month...which can save a gigabyte of drive space.
Windows to Mac 
Linear Mode
