Redhat to SuSE -> passwords

Hello I have a redhat 7.0 server and am planning to replace it with SuSE 8.1 pro'. One question that I want to ask is about the users on the redhat system and there passwords. The system uses shadowed passwords and I would like to have the same users with the same passwords on the new SuSE system. Is this a simple task? I figure that all I would need to do (after creating the users) would be to copy the old /etc/shadow file (or at least part of it) to the new system. Am I wrong? Would it be better to create a temporary password for each user and ask them to change there passwords? tia t.irvine