Compatibility between Office for Windows <-> Mac

[New Daddy]

I don't think I've ever been this impressed with a piece of machine -- iMac Retina 5K is STUNNING! I gotta have this!!!

Provided that I clear one thing: the compatibility between MS Office for Windows & MS Office for Mac.

How compatible are they in terms of the template files, third-party add-ins, dictionary, and macros?

[HansV]

Documents, workbooks and presentations should be pretty much interchangeable between Windows and Mac OS.

Office for Mac has supported VBA again since the 2011 version (Office 2008 didn't), so macros created in the Windows version should mostly run under Mac OS too. They may need minor adaptions for the Mac file system.

Warning: if you use Windows API functions in your code, it will obviously not run on Mac OS.

Many add-ins work on both platforms, but you should check the developers' website for the system requirements.

[Jay Freedman]

The first release of Office 2016 for Mac was announced about a week ago (https://products.office.com/en-us/mac/l ... ce-for-mac).

Some of the customization features are not yet complete, so you may want to hold off from upgrading for a few months, or just get the free trial and see what it's like. Likewise, some third-party add-ins won't be available for the 2016 version until Microsoft releases the necessary bits. Welcome to the new world of never-finished software!

An alternative, if the Mac version isn't sufficiently compatible, is to run Windows in a virtual machine such as Parallels and put Office for Windows on it. Of course, that requires buying a separate license for Windows.

[macropod]

How compatible are they in terms of the template files, third-party add-ins, dictionary, and macros?

Unless the add-in vendors produce mac-specific versions, don't be surprised if they don't work, because the VBA in Macs is crippleware by comparison to the PC versions (i.e. not even fully up to Office XP capability). You also won't find Access for Macs, or support for ActiveX & content controls. The Mac mailmerge tools for Excel are primitive, too.