Mac vs Windows

[Anonymous]

I'm new to AutoCad for MAC but not new to AutoCad.  I teach AutoCad at a local Community College where they are using Windows machines. I have recently migrated to a MAC for my personal use.  I loaded AutoCad 2015 for MAC on my computer recently and was surprised at how much different it looks than AutoCad 2013 for Windows.

I guess my question is: Has the MAC version of AutoCad always been that much different or is 2015 a major revision?

Can anyone help?  Thanks.

[maxim_k]

Welcome to Autodesk Forums!

Hi,

Yes, it always has been different.
As AutoCAD for Mac is native Mac application, it has Mac-look user interface. Or at least, AutoCAD for Mac developers tried to make the application UI corresponding to the operating system.

There are also other differences between PC and Mac version of AutoCAD, you can read more about them here:
http://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad/compare/compare-platforms

Maxim

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much. That really helps. I guess I’m going to need to get another Windows machine so that I can stay current with what I’m teaching.

[maxim_k]

You can run AutoCAD inside Parallels Desktop virtual machine on your Mac. If you can afford to spend $ 80 - this could be a good solution.

Maxim

[Anonymous]

Thanks again.  I've never heard of Parallels Desktop.  I checked it out and it looks like I would actually need the Windows OS to go with it.  Is that your understanding of how it works?

[maxim_k]

Yes, you need Windows OS.
You create virtual machine with Parallels Desktop application - a special environment which emulates PC machine on your Mac, than you install Windows on this virtual machine and install AutoCAD in it.

Maxim

[Anonymous]

I have used Autocad for PC on a Mac using VMware and windows.  It runs really well. In fact when I am ready to upgrade Autocad next if some of the features aren't brought into the Mac version I will run it on a virtual machine.  The only tricky thing about doing it that way is making sure you can plot print to pdf properly.  I am out of the loop on that issue, i used Cutepdf for PC back then. There are plenty of resources and experts here to help guide you.

In fact when I ran AC 4 PC on my mac. it ran better than on my PC with similar specs.

[Anonymous]

Wow, that is very interesting.  I certainly need to look into this approach.  Never heard of it before.  I'm really learning a lot on this site.  Thanks.