How similar is Microsoft Excel for Mac to Excel for Windows?

My Excel in the Mac doesn't open some password-protected files of my Windows ExceL: in Windows, the Excel passwords can have an almos limitless number of caracters, but in the Mac the password must be 16 or less.

The only solution I found was to reduce the number of characters in the password of the Windows files.

If you have Office for Mac 2011, there is a 100 percent compatibility ratio, as described on the BrightHub review.

I work with both and personally, I find Excel for Windows much more intuitive and more user friendly, but basically you can do (almost) the same with both versions.

But the most important part is, the two versions are 100% compatible with each other.

I have Excel for Mac 11 and also use Excel 97, Excel 07 and Excel 10 on various Windows machines. Needless to say, there is confusion all over the place with the different menus, shortcuts, ribbons. Shortcuts are different, keyboards are different. They do the same things, and that really depends on how complex your spreadsheets are as I think even with newer software, most people don't get too complex with Excel, be prepared that it will have to be done differently from machine to machine. I think MS will let you do a trial so can get get a feel for it.