Microsoft Office 2008 posts

Microsoft has just released updates to the 2004 and 2008 versions of Microsoft Office. According to the company, the updates, which weigh in at 9.7 MB and 221.5 MB respectively, provide "fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code" as well as improvements to stability and performance.

The update for Microsoft Office 2004 can be downloaded here, while those with the 2008 version can find it at this link.

As with most Mac OS X-related updates, whether from a third party app or a system update, you should consider backing up your data before proceeding.

Keep in mind, as you install this update, that right around the corner is Microsoft Office for Mac 2011. Notable updates for the next version of the suite for the Mac include the replacement of Entourage with Outlook, the return of VBA and, gasp (or hurrah!), a more ribbon-oriented user interface, à la the Windows version of Office.

If you haven't yet upgraded to Microsoft Office 2008, you're probably intimately familiar with the problem of receiving Office 2008 .docx (Word 2008) files; they're not natively supported by Office 2004. If you have updated that older version of Office to 11.5.0 and installed the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, you'll be able to open .docx files in Word 2004.

Both the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.0 Update Package and the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac are available for free. Another way that you can resolve the .docx dilemma is to use Zamzar's online file converter (see screenshot below) to downgrade the .docx file to the .doc format. Choose the .docx file, select the file format (.doc) that you wish to convert the file to, enter your email address so that Zamzar can send the converted file to you, and then click the Convert button. You'll receive the converted file shortly.


This tip comes to you via Jenny Kortina over at The Apple Blog.

Welcome to the 3rd Microsoft Office 2008 automation post. Previously we covered automating Excel 2008 and Word 2008, now we shine the spotlight on PowerPoint 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an Automator workflow to automate the daunting task of applying animations to the slides and converting a presentation into a QuickTime movie file.

For this workflow, you'll need the following Automator actions (in the same order):

• Apply Animation to PowerPoint Slide Parts
• Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Movies
• Play Movies

Continue reading to learn how to create this workflow.

When Microsoft released Office 2008 for Mac, they did something that I must applaud -- they joined the ranks of Mac developers creating Automator-able applications. When you do a search in Automator for "Microsoft," it will reveal all of the Automator actions that ship with Microsoft Office 2008. There is lots of great stuff included, so we'll be covering some of it in this four part Mac Automation series. I will take you through how to automate each of the Microsoft Office applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage.

First off, let's take a look at what you can automate in Word 2008. Doing a search for "Word" in Automator will display the available actions for Microsoft Word. As you can see, there are plenty of actions that you can automate. For this how-to, we'll focus on a workflow that does the following:

• Creates a new document
• Sets document properties
• Gathers text from the clipboard
  
• Places a watermark in the document
• Saves the document
• Prints the document

Continue reading to learn how to create this workflow.

Happy Friday everyone! From Down Under it emerges (via APC, the Aussie computer magazine): a preview article on Office 2008, including the tempting tidbit that the suite is now in private beta, with the 'Escher' graphics engine and plenty of shiny bits. MBU managers also admit that the initial attempts at a new, more Windows-ish interface for the Mac productivity suite met with blank stares and frustration:

"[T]he Mac developers had already had one radical redesign tested and rejected after user feedback, said MacBU group product manager Mary Starman. 'We had what we thought was going to be this perfect UI solution, and the first time we put it in the labs, no-one understood it! It was so different they were completely confused!'"

I don't know whether to be happy that they listened to the test groups, or discouraged that they were surprised when a radical UI change caused user confusion. *sigh* Check out the full APC article for screenshots and more.

Thanks Dave and Bryce!