Office

According to ZDNet, Microsoft could release Office 2007 SP1 the week of December 10. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley cites sources claiming familiarity with Microsoft’s release window. Microsoft’s previous official statements leaned towards an early 2008 release, making this an early Christmas (or late Hanukkah) present for users.

Last week, the SharePoint Server 2007 team blog suggested that SP1 was ready, leaving some to speculate an early release. A clarifying blog post re-stated the early-2008 release plan, adding that the product could be released anytime between now and Q1 2008.

So hedging release date issues aside what will be new in Office 2007 SP1? Well, although the beta has been unusually secretive (something we can attest), the SharePoint blog post and this post (also from ZDNet) give us some ideas.

In addition to the usual bug fixes and compatibility issues, WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) and Office SharePoint Server 2007 SP1 are reported to include AJAX support and new STSAdm commands. Looking at the list of SharePoint Server SP1 hotfixes, it looks like some of the bugs in Outlook/Exchange server, for example, the delayed event timers due to DST, have also been fixed.

Hopefully, these rumors are true, and Office 2007 SP1 will be out before the end of the year. As we mentioned in episode 3 of the Squadcast, we think it is in Microsoft’s best interest to get the SP1 product updates (across the board) out sooner rather than later, as their release can only spur companies to upgrade their office suites, which like Vista, have lagged in comparison to prior releases. Furthermore, meeting or even beating an estimated release date can create an enormous amount of customer goodwill, especially since Microsoft is notorious for being late to the party, and not early.

A few months ago, Microsoft accidentally published the download link for an updated version of Office Mobile and then quickly removed the file, which had not been meant for public release yet.

But now it looks like Office Mobile 6.1 is ready for prime time. If you’ve got a Windows Mobile 5.0 or Windows Mobile 6 phone or PDA, you’ll want to grab this update.

The update is free for anyone who has an existing copy of Office Mobile, which should cover most Windows Mobile users. it adds support for Office 2007 documents including DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files. There’s also enhanced viewing capabilities for Excel Mobile, the ability to add SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile. Users can also view and extract files from ZIP folders.

If you don’t have a previous version of Office Mobile, you can buy a full version of Office Mobile 6.1. This is the first time Microsoft will be offering a full version of Office Mobile for sale. We can’t find a purchase link right now, so we’re not sure how much Microsoft will be charging for Office Mobile 6.1 But odds are you can get it for free anyway.

[via msmobiles]

Microsoft plans to launch a free plugin next year for Microsoft Word 2003 and 2007 next year that will add a “Save as DAISY” feature to the word processor.

What’s DAISY? It stands for Digital Accessible Information System, and it’s essentially a format for converting text to speech. This isn’t one of those parlor tricks for getting your computer to say “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Rather, DAISY is an open format used by computer programs and hardware devices like the PlexTalk PTN1 that blind people can use to listen to books and text.

Microsoft plans to host the Open XML to DAISY XML translator on open-source project management site SourceForge, meaning independent developers will be able to look at the code and come up with their own translators and plugins.

[via CNet]

It’s happened to everyone at one time or another. You buy a shiny new computer, take it home, and realize that it doesn’t have Microsoft Office installed. How are you going to write your term paper, letters, or other office documents?

So you fish around in the box and find a copy of Microsoft Works. The computer maker must have thrown it in there as a freebie. And hey, it’s got a word processor and spreadsheet. What more could you need?

Well, for basic office tasks, Works does fine. But if and when you decide you need a bit more oomph, you’ll find that many other office suites just don’t know what to do with documents created in Works. Fortunately, Microsoft has updated its free Works Converter to support Works 6-9.

Now the real problems arise when you find old Works 2.0 documents lying around on a floppy disk. Sure, you can open those documents in Excel or Word. But where are you going to find a floppy disk drive?

[via ActiveWin]

Our hands-on journey with the beta for Office 2008 continues. What about compatibility with Office 2007 for Windows? Specifically Outlook/Exchange and XML files?

Office 2004 has given our Intel Mac contingent much to complain about ; speed, interface, did we mention speed? Beyond that, compatibility problems with previous and current versions of Office for Windows — especially in the area of Outlook PST files — have plagued all Office for Mac users. With the introduction of the new Office Open XML file type in Office 2007 for Windows, these compatibility problems expanded to all files in the Office family.

Although “total integration with Windows Office users” has always been a promised feature — and chief selling point — of Office for Mac, longtime users know that compatibility is easier said than done. While pre-Office 2007 Word, Excel and Access files created in Office for Windows may be viewable or editable on the Mac, the same cannot be said for e-mail data files created in Outlook for Windows. Considering the importance of e-mail in the office, we find the lack of platform synergy both confusing and irritating.So, how does the Office 2008 beta handle these two hurdles? The results, sadly, are mixed.

On the one hand, we are pleased as punch to access our *docx files natively with write-access and, all formatting correct and intact.

On the other hand, we are frustrated that PST support is still non-existent in Entourage.

The late stage of this beta doesn’t give us much hope this is an issue which will be resolved. On the plus side, for Exchange users, Entourage 2008, even in beta, is much, much better at integrating with Exchange Server 2007 than any previous version. For users who rely on server-side storage as opposed to localized PST files, the integration with Entourage 2008 is closer to the corresponding version of Outlook (in this case, Outlook 2007) than ever before.

Microsoft Office 2007 may include a bunch of nifty updates from previous versions of Microsoft’s office suite. But it also includes new document formats for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. In other words, it causes a bunch of headaches when an Office 2007 user sends files to Office 2003 or OpenOffice.org users.

There are a bunch of services that will convert the new .xlsx, .docx, and .pptx files to old fashioned .xls, .doc, and .ppt files. But Microsoft has a solution for anyone who just needs to read documents without editing them.

This summer Microsoft release a compatibility update allowing Office 2003 and earlier customers to open the new file formats. It turns out that update also lets you use the free Word Viewer 2003 to read .docx files. Now Microsoft has also released PowerPoint Viewer 2007 with support for .pptx files.

There’s no update to Excel Viewer 2003 yet, but we’re guessing it’s just a matter of time.

[via ActiveWin]

Call us silly, but one of the things we’ve come to expect from spreadsheet applications is accurate math. But a few weeks ago a number of users started reporting that there was a bug in Microsoft Excel 2007 that caused the number 100,000 to pop up any time you entered an equation that should have equaled 65,535 or 65,536. For example, 850 x 77.1 = 100,000.

As it turns out, if you perform other functions on that cell, Excel will spit out the correct numbers. But on-screen it displays the wrong number.

Two weeks later, Microsoft has issued a fix for Excel 2007, and the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Excel Services 2007. The update will eventually be pushed to Excel 2007 users through Windows Update. But if you want to download it now, you can download the appropriate update from Microsoft.

[via Digital Inspiration]

While some members of the Download Squad team may be math whizzes, some are lucky if they can find the Windows calculator. But once it’s up and running, we’re pretty sure that when you multiply 850 by 77.1, the answer should be 65,535. But for some reason when you perform the same calculation using Microsoft Excel 2007, you get 100,000.

Now, 100,000 is a nice round number. Generally speaking, we like it. But in this particular instance it’s wrong. And that’s not something we like to see in a spreadsheet application. As it turns out, any time you enter an equation that should result in 65,535, you’ll get 100,000.

Microsoft has been made aware of the problem and is developing a fix. But it’s a bit surprising that the software’s been on the shelves as long as it has been without anyone discovering this flaw. Anyone find any other calculations that come up wrong?

[via AppScout]

OpenOffice.org is finally getting native Mac OS X support. The open source office suit has been available for Windows and Linux for years. And since 2005, you’ve been able to run OpenOffice.org on OS X, but you needed to install the resource-intensive X11 environment to get it working.

This summer, the development team offered the first alpha of a native version of OpenOffice.org for OS X. In other words, there’s a standalone installer and you the applications are themed to look like native Mac apps. But as with any alpha software, install at your own risk and expect many bugs. For example, you couldn’t print documents at first. That might be a dealbreaker.

Now the team has announced that they plan to have a fully functional version working for OS X by the time OpenOffice.org 3.0 is released in September 2008. The new version will include support for Apple’s Aqua interface.

Of course, if you can’t wait that long, you might want to check out NeoOffice, an independently produced OS X port of OpenOffice.org.

[via ComputerWorld]

Its Moo’s one year birthday, and they are celebrating by giving everyone a 25% discount!

Moo, the online printer, and creator of the famous MiniCards is now offering a pretty sweet 25% discount for everyone that orders before September 30th. Simply login and enter the code “BIRTHDAYMOO” when prompted.

Current prices for Moo’s MiniCards sit at a very reasonable $19.99 for 100 custom high quality cards. (with $4.99 global shipping.)

If you were ever thinking about trying out the Moo service, now is the perfect time.