AppleInsider StaffMicrosoft on Tuesday released the first update to Office 2008 for Mac in the form of a maintenance and security patch which the company is recommending for all users of the relatively new productivity suite.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant also outlined about a half dozen improvements to each of the suite's component applications. For instance, it said Word will no longer quit unexpectedly during launch or during spell check, and that blank pages are no longer printed when using a high resolution printer. Improvements to citation deletion and font substitution were also implemented.
Meanwhile, Excel will also see improvements that will also prevent unexpected quits. In addition, the new version will feature more reliable ledger sheets, present better support for secondary displays, fix formatting issues for rotated text, and respond more reliably when receiving copy and pastes of linked data and charts.
For Entourage users, the update should improve IMAP connections to servers running IBM's Lotus Domino and synchronization with Exchange Server. It should also correct problems with notification sounds under Leopard, import rules, and the stability of Database Utility when used to rebuild large identity databases.
Rounding out the fixes in the Office 2008 for Mac 12.0.1 Update are those targeting the suite's presentation software, PowerPoint. After applying the update, users should experience faster launches of PowerPoint, better character spacing and layout, and improvements to saving files to an SMB network volume, as well as saving files in PowerPoint 97-2004 formats.
Tuesday update is the first for Office 2008 for Mac since the software launched in January at Macworld Expo.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
68 Comments
It looks like Spaces compatibility was fixed but it's not mentioned anywhere in the release notes. I'd still say that's some shoddy QA; Leopard was out for 3 months when Office 2008 was released!
Great, Microsoft Office 2008 is as buggy as all hell, not to mention slow. I hope that Excel plotting now can be at least as fast as it was on Excel 2004 running under Rosetta.
I don't know what MS was thinking when they released Office 2008 for Mac. It is the worst product I have ever seen! During my 20 years working with computers this is the first time that I have seen a product upgrade that actually a downgrade from the previous version. The only thing they did was make the interface look better. The only reason I need office was for cross platform compatibility related to macros and now thats out. The second issue I have with office 08 is limited charts options. I am still using Office 2004.
Hey MS, how hard is it to have video calls enabled on your Messenger for Mac?
WOW - hope the 23 people who bought the suite don't crash their servers while they all rush to download it all at once.
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?