Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 02:00 pm PT (05:00 pm ET)

Microsoft updates Office 2004 and Office 2008 for Mac

By Katie Marsal

Microsoft on Tuesday released stability and performance updates for Office 2004 and Office 2008 for Mac, both of which also patch vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to overwrite the contents of a computer's memory by using malicious code.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.1 Update

Aside from the security fix, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.1 Update [14.5MB] also updates the Japanese postal code dictionary in Entourage and fixes an issue that causes Word 2004 to close unexpectedly when opening a document that contains a numbered list.

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.2 Update

The 12.1.2 update for Office 2008 for Mac [159.6MB] is more substantial, repairing a global issue that prevented all Office 2008 applications from running AppleScript scripts from the Script menu, while also delivering a number of individual fixes for Word, Excel and Entourage.

More specifically, Microsoft said Word should now launch more quickly and tables will no longer included random instances of bold text. Other changes improve the display of form fields and the reliability of headers & footers in the word processing application.

Meanwhile, Excel should now open spreadsheet files that contain invalid characters and see improvements to the overall performance of calculations. Number formatting for some international languages and stability when saving workbooks that contain PivotTable reports has also been improved.

One of the major focus areas for Entourage was to improve stability when using Microsoft Sync Services, Microsoft said. In particular, Tuesday's update fixes an issue that where all contacts in Entourage or in the Apple Address Book would be deleted and re-created when you use Microsoft Sync Services. It should also prevent duplication of events and other items in Entourage or in iCal.

Other changes to Entourage focused on improving junk mail filtering, recurring calendar events, time zone information, embedded images, and the reliability when Entourage establishes a encrypted channel.

Student Office 2008 deal

Earlier Tuesday, Microsoft said it has teamed with a select few Apple authorized resellers like Amazon.com to offer students up to 30 percent off its various Office 2008 productivity suites when they're purchased alongside a new Mac before September 8th.

The offer translates into $15 off Office 2008 Home and Student Edition, $80 off Office 2008 Standard Edition, and $150 off Office 2008 Special Media Edition..

Amazon is also offering between $50 and $200 rebates on Apple's entire Mac line through August 25th.

AppleInsider last year published its Road to Mac Office 2008 series covering the new suite and its roots in great detail.