Office 2008 for Mac (or Office 12, if you prefer) may still be months away, but the Microsoft Mac BU team is still working to improve Office 2004 and Office v.X while we wait.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.3 Update and Microsoft Office v. X for Mac 10.1.9 Update include a variety of security and stability fixes, including a fix for the annoying DST bug in Entourage 2004 that caused calendar events scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 to be an hour off, thanks to the decision to change the start and end of Daylight Time (aka Standard Time) in the US.

The specific fixes in these updates are:

• Improvements for all Office 2004 & Office v. X applications - fixes vulnerabilities in that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code.
  

• Improvements for Word 2004 - improves compatibility with recent changes to the way Rich Text Format (RTF) documents are created by Microsoft Office Word 2003 for Windows.

• Improvements for Excel 2004 - fixes an issue that causes standard deviation calculations to produce inaccurate results when the calculations are used in PivotTable reports.

• Improvements for Entourage 2004 - fixes an issue for users of Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later that causes any calendar event scheduled on or after March 11, 2007 to display on a time slot that is one hour ahead of its original start time. This issue affects all meetings that occur on or after March 11, 2007, including recurring meetings. The Japanese postal code dictionary has also been updated with the latest information as of June 2006.

Grab them from Microsoft AutoUpdate or from the downloads page. I just installed the 2004 update and nothing is broken yet, so hopefully you'll be just as lucky.

After being punked on the Office 2004 11.3.1 update, I'm guessing there won't be a mad dash to grab the Office 2004 11.3.2 update, but just in case you have a change of heart -- the Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.2 Update claims to offer "several improvements for PowerPoint and Entourage" and is recommended for all Office 2004 users. But it doesn't appear to address any of the security issues that 11.3.1 was supposed to address before 11.3.1 was disappeared.

Specific Improvements from the Read Me:

PowerPoint 2004
Stability is improved -- This update fixes an issue that causes PowerPoint to quit unexpectedly when you open a presentation.

Entourage 2004
Contact names that contain special characters are handled correctly -- This update fixes an issue that causes meeting requests to display incorrectly when sent to contacts with names that contain single quotation marks ('), double quotation marks ("), and parentheses.

Public folder messages are not duplicated -- This update fixes an issue that causes duplicate messages to appear in public folders.

Compatibility with Mirapoint Message Server is improved -- This update fixes an issue that causes Entourage to quit unexpectedly when accessing mail folders on a Mirapoint Message Server.

If you decide to proceed, make sure you're at Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.0 Update already, because 11.3.2 is not a "combo" updater. And since Office Updates change the version number on some Office apps, but not all Office apps, the best way confirm what version you actually have is to check the version number of the Microsoft Component Plugin file in the Microsoft Office 2004 folder, which is always updated even if other apps aren't.

The following post appears now on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog, in response to the disppearing Office security updates.

Information on accidental posting of pre-release security updates for Office for Mac

We've seen some questions from customers about some security updates that posted for a while today for Office for Mac that they didn't see any security bulletins for.

I wanted to let you know that these weren't security updates related to this month's release or the two Word issues we've written about in Security Advisory 929433 and on our weblog: those investigations are still underway and we'll release updates for those issues once we've met the appropriate quality bar. The updates posted in error were pre-release binaries that had been staged internally as part of our testing for an upcoming release. Due to human error, they were accidentally published to the public websites before our full testing release process was complete. As soon as we discovered the error, we moved quickly to address it and remove the pre-release binaries from our public sites. Once our investigation into this issue is complete and we have security updates that meet our quality bar for release, we'll release those final security updates for all products affected along with a security bulletin. We're also taking steps to ensure a mistake like this doesn't happen again. We recommend that anyone who may have installed these pre-release updates to uninstall them. I'm sorry for any confusion this might have caused.

Thanks.
Mike

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. *
Published Wednesday, December 13, 2006 2:09 AM by MSRCTEAM

Well isn't that lovely? By the way - there is no way to "uninstall" an Office update. If you did install the update that briefly appeared yesterday, the only way to revert is to restore your Microsoft Office application folder from a recent backup or just drag a fresh copy from your original Office install CD, and then apply the most recent available updates (recent as of the day before yesterday, that is). If you did install the update before it was pulled yesterday, and you don't notice any problems, you could just wait it out until the next valid update is released.

Thanks, Steve!

Delayed or not, the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac can't come soon enough for those who have little choice but to stick with Office in corporate environments. Although we have enjoyed reasonable (but still far from perfect) compatibility with our Windows Office brethren for some time now, that all changes with Office 2007 for Windows, which uses a file format incompatible with Mac Office by default. Out of the box, Office 2007 saves documents in "Microsoft Office Open XML." The saved file formats are docx for Word, xlsx for Excel and pptx for PowerPoint.

The good news is that Novell has promised that it will release code for OpenOffice that will support the new file format, but it'll be at least another month or two before that's a viable option for end users, and there are still many corporate users who will be stuck since many of them don't have the option to use or install OpenOffice. Also, just because Novell releases the code to the open-source community, it doesn't mean it will actually get integrated into the OpenOffice suite, although it's a good bet.

Windows users with Office 2003 will, of course, be able to download a compatibility pack that will let them open Office 2007 files, but Mac users are being left in the cold, probably for months, while the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft takes their time in making a similar solution available to Mac users.

I know the comment section will now be flooded with comments about how Mac users should ditch Office completely and use OpenOffice, NeoOffice, ThinkFree, iWork or a host of other Office alternatives, and that's fine and dandy for many people. I encourage people who have the choice to explore other options on their personal or work computers that aren't completely locked down, to do so, with gusto. But the fact remains that the majority of corporate IT departments don't see it that way and since many of them still resent having to support Macs to begin with, these compatibility issues just make matters worse for Mac users in those environments and it makes it that much harder for them to do their jobs.

I'm as anxious about a Universal version of Office as you are (plus, I'm really looking forward to some of the new features in Office 2007 that might make it into the Mac version) but I thought it quite odd when I kept reading, 'OMG!!11!!, Office is totally delayed! Smooth move, Microsoft!' I hadn't heard an official launch date, so how could Office be delayed?

Luckily, those kooky folks over at the MacBU (you know, the people that are actually coding Office for the Mac) have a blog. They just posted the news that Office isn't delayed. Hurrah! Though, sadly, there is still no release date. They mention that Office for the Mac ships 6 - 8 months after Office for Windows and they are on track for that goal. Let's all wait until the new Windows version ships to start rumors that Office for the Mac is delayed, or even better, that old chestnut that Office for the Mac will be discontinued.

My friend Chris sent me some info from a Microsoft e-mail, offering Office:Mac Student and Teacher edition for $99 ($149 minus a $50 mail-in rebate). The deal runs from June 13th to September 12th and applies to any purchase (retail or online) of the Student/Teacher version of Office:Mac. If you're headed to school or have a loved one that is, better jump on this deal -- compared to the "Standard" version's $400 price tag, this seems like a steal.