Microsoft Corp.’s Macintosh Business Unit (MacBU)
hsa released Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
Service Pack 2 (SP2) — a midcycle free update
designed to improve the Office 2008’s speed,
stability and compatibility.
SP2 delivers requested features throughout the
suite as well as a new tool, Document Connection
for Mac, that helps improve access and browsing
to documents on SharePoint Products and
Technologies and Microsoft Office Live Workspace.
According to Mike Tedesco, senior product manager
for MacBU at Microsoft, highlights of the release
include:
° Two new highly requested features in Microsoft
PowerPoint 2008 for Mac: Custom Path Animation
(which adds the ability to author motion-path
animations; users previously could only play back
motion paths) and Default Theme (which lets users
define their default theme, including fonts,
color scheme and slide layouts);
° Increased speed in Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac
(launch and scroll times) as well as Microsoft
Excel 2008 for Mac with features such as
calculation performance;
° Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Document
Connection enables a more seamless experience for
Office 2008 users to save and open documents to
Microsoft Office Live Workspace from Microsoft
Office applications, including Word, Excel and
PowerPoint, says Tedesco. In addition, the
Microsoft Office Live Workspace today announced
expanded Mac browser support to include Safari 4
along with existing support for Firefox 2.0
(required for Mac OS X 10.2.x or later);
° SharePoint. Document Connection also improves
the SharePoint experience for Mac users, allowing
for easier collaboration within a SharePoint
environment by simplifying how users can browse,
access and manage files online and offline, says
Tedesco. Customers can download SP2 for free
today at 10 a.m. (Pacific) at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx, and
it also will be available from Microsoft
AutoUpdate. Mac users also can access a full
trial version of Office 2008 for free at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/trial-download.mspx