Apple on Wednesday afternoon posted Mac OS X 10.7.3 (release notes). The Lion upgrade adds several languages, including Catalan for Spaniards as well as Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian. RAW photo compatibility has expanded to several new cameras, including the Nikon J1 and V1, Olympus' current PEN cameras, and current Sony Alpha and NEX cameras, such as the NEX-5N.
A new app, CloudOn, is offering use of Microsoft Office on the iPad without having to connect to a remote desktop PC. This includes access to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint via a Windows-style interface, and support for many major tasks and features. Among these are things like commenting, spellchecking, and running PowerPoint presentations.
Microsoft has released new updates for the 2011 and 2008 editions of Office for Mac. The 2011 update, v14.1.3, solves a bevy of problems, including documents not opening in some browsers. The bulk of fixes appear to be directed at Outlook, targeting issues such as contact images not displaying in the Contacts Search box. The email client has had import from Mail disabled under Lion, however, since the option "does not work as expected" under Apple's new OS, according to Microsoft.
Several days after the release of iWork 9.1, Apple has at last published a list of security fixes in its productivity suite. Only three have been made, all revolving around files from Microsoft Office. Two of the closed vulnerabilities are attached to Excel files; prior to the v9.1 update, it was possible to code Excel files to trigger certain buffer overflows or memory corruptions in Numbers, in turn creating crashes or allowing system hijacks.
Microsoft on Tuesday announced the launch of its cloud-based Office 365. Available in 40 markets, it includes Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online. All apps are always up to date and accessing them costs $6 per month, though service plans range from $2 to $27 per user per month. This full-blown launch follows a beta release launched last fall.
Microsoft has released a new version of Office 2008 for Mac, 12.2.9. The patch is mostly a maintenance update, fixing security vulnerabilities in Excel, PowerPoint and the suite as whole. It likewise copes with issues that can potentially trigger program crashes.
As promised last week, Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Office for Mac 2011. Changes to the suite primarily revolve around Outlook, which can now communicate with Sync Services in Mac OS X and exchange calendars, notes and tasks with other apps. Resend and Redirect buttons have also been added, and the updated software can make use of Exchange-based server-side rules.
Microsoft has rolled out a new trial version of Office for Mac 2011. The release contains all of the apps in the Home and Business edition of the suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the first Mac version of Outlook. Although the trial expires after 30 days, a valid product key unlocks the full program.
Microsoft has posted its first-ever update for Office 2011 for Mac, v14.0.1. The patch is 110.5MB, and deals mainly with stability problems that could lead to programs freezing, or simply quitting entirely. Only Outlook has not received any stability tweaks.
Thomson Reuters has launched a new version of its bibliography software, EndNote X4. The app enables users to create notes and compile references, as well as develop multiple bibliographies within Word documents. In the latest release additional PDF management tools have been added, which makes it possible to now import a file or folder of PDFs directly into the library. The update also supports references transfers up to 10,000 between the desktop and EndNote Web, as well a new Cite While You Write feature.
Solid Documents has launched Solid PDF to Word for Mac. The PDF converter arrives on the Mac platform with the ability to export to formats compatible with Word, Excel, Pages, HTML and text, giving a user numerous choices when editing a PDF document is necessary. The converter recognizes headers and footers, retains formatting, recovers tables and recognizes hyperlinks. It can also recover rotated text and recognize and reconstruct PDF forms.
Some early screenshots of Microsoft's Office 2011 for Mac have been leaked, a report claims. Not the least because the updated software is only due late this year, the shots are said to represent early code, still in transition to a final Cocoa-based form. Of special note may be Outlook, which is replacing Entourage and employs a streamlined design paired with the ribbon interface first introduced for Office on Windows. Several of the screenshots can be seen below.
Recosoft has released PDF2Office Personal 5.0 for the Mac platform. The program rebuilds the layout of PDF documents for Microsoft Word. It automatically reforms paragraphs, preserves styles and regroups independent graphic elements. It also creates tables, and processes headers and footers, endnotes and footnotes, and columns and sections. The software operates as a plug-in.
Recosoft has updated its Mac-based PDF conversion tool for Microsoft Office, PDF2Office Professional. The software converts PDF documents into formats such as Excel, Word, PowerPoint and HTML. It automatically recreates the original layout of a document, detecting styles, forming paragraphs and regrouping graphics. It can also extract images, and supports tables, headers and footers, column formatting and endnotes and footnotes.
Word for the Mac will soon be patched in order to comply with a recent court ruling, says Microsoft. In an unusual turn the update will actually remove functionality, specifically some custom XML support. "While Office for Mac products were not accused of infringement, we are changing the product to allay any potential concerns about compliance with the [court] injunction," explains Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz.
Microsoft has acted quickly on its promise to keep Office on shelves by pushing an Office update to computer builders. The supplement, intended for an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) version of Office 2007 from October, removes the support for reading custom-generated XML within DOCX, DOCM and pure XML files. It should continue to open files with the code inside but will no longer show the code to comply with patent infringement claims.
Microsoft on Tuesday lost its appeal against a $290 million infringement verdict that threatens to remove Word and the Office suite from the market. The US Court of Appeals has upheld a verdict that claims XML code in Word 2003 and 2007 violates patents developed by Toronto, Canada-based i4i for XML plugins. It also removes a temporary stay and would ban all sales of infringing copies of Word as of January 11th unless changes are made by Microsoft.
Microsoft has posted a fresh update for Office 2008 for Mac, v12.2.3. The patch primarily addresses stability problems, such as one affecting the entire suite which could result in application crashes after a program was opened. Several unique crash scenarios have been fixed in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Document Connection. Security has also been upgraded, closing a hole which could be used to overwrite memory with malicious code.
Jumsoft has announced Keynote Objects FX 4.0, an update to its 3D image collection for Apple’s iWork suite. The upgrade brings the total number of objects up to 150, covering items ranging from classic furniture to gift boxes. The 50 new ones are geared towards sports and leisure. Each image is optimized for Keynote presentation use, at a resolution of 1024x768.
DataViz has launched the latest version of its Documents To Go app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Following through with the company's earlier promises, v2.0 adds full support for creating and editing Excel documents. The previous release limited users to just viewing the spreadsheet content.
The US federal Court of Appeals today granted Microsoft a temporary stay on an injunction that would have banned sales of Word until the conclusion of an appeal against the successful lawsuit filed by Canadian firm i4i. Originally, the developer would have had to stop sales on October 10th and would have forced Microsoft to shut down sales of virtually all copies of Office unless it could plead its case.
Thomson Reuters has released an update to its bibliography software, EndNote. The latest edition, X3, adds a variety of new referencing options and styles. Users can create multiple bibliographies within a single Word document, while references can be organized with both custom and smart groups. For chemistry journals, the software now allows composite styles that group citations by number and letter.
Microsoft today used its Windows Partners Conference to expand the details of Office 2010, including its web version. Initially considered separate, Microsoft now says Office Web is a counterpart to 2010 but will make it freely available to anyone with a Windows Live account. It will also be free to use on the local network for companies that buy volume licenses of Office 2010, though companies that just want the web app component will also have the option of a subscription.
Microsoft's Monday event should mark a more formal debut for the company's Office Web suite, tipsters said on Thursday. Although announced nine months ago, the suite is now said by Neowin to be getting a demonstration. It's not known if Microsoft will commit to a public release at the gathering.
Pages has always been a decent word processor, but it’s never been powerful enough to replace Microsoft Word. Apple has, fortunately, boosted Pages '09 with more features in order to make it a better word processor, and an easier desktop publishing program. It may still not match Word feature-for-feature, but that could be a good thing, as what it does offer may be what you really need.
Jumsoft is shipping Keynote Objects FX 3.0, its latest art collection for Mac apps. Objects FX is in particular aimed at both Keynote and Pages, and supplies a variety of pre-rendered 3D images for inclusion in presentations or documents. Version 3.0 doubles the collection size from 50 to 100, in categories including the likes of parties, plants, and soft or metallic objects.
Nisus has released a v1.2 update to Writer Pro, its flagship word processing software. Pro differentiates itself from Express with features such as comments, mail merges, and the ability to create indexes and tables of contents. New to v1.2 is an upgraded import component, said to improve the accuracy of file translations, particularly in terms of Microsoft Word documents.
You Software says it has released v1.7 of You Control, its utility for Mac OS X. The program lets people create custom menus in the operating system, which can be placed in locations such as the Menu Bar, a corner of the screen, or in the middle when triggered by a hotkey. Users can launch any file, folder or application present on their Mac.
RedleX has released Mellel 2.5, a significant update to the leading word processor for Mac OS X. The new release adds robust cross referencing capabilities, allowing users to refer from one point in the text to another (e.g., "see page 15"). Mellel's reference entry dialogue allows, accordingly, to create reference formats, composed of different elements such as reference to the page number, position in the text (above, next page, below, etc.), page range, and so on. Users can also save and re-use such formats again and again, making the necessary modifications as they go along.
Nisus Software has announced the upcoming release of Nisus Writer Pro 1.1 Preview, the latest version of the company's alternative word processor. This release adds several new features including Comments, Mail Merge, Go to Page, and more. Also added is a Large Caret option, as well as several additions and enhancements to the Nisus Macro Language. Nisus Writer Pro 1.1 will be available later this Spring for only $80. A CD version is available for an additional $10. A three license Family Pack is available for $100. Nisus Writer Pro uses the same core as Nisus Writer Express, but sports several additional or expanded features including a Table of Contents generator, indexing, bookmarks. There's also attribute sensitive search, that allows you to locate items in documents based on their formatting.
Having shipped the Professional version in February, Recosoft is now launching the Personal edition of PDF2Office 4.0. The plug-in reconstructs the elements of PDF documents within Microsoft Word, maintaining paragraphs, headers and footers, while generating tables and regrouping graphic elements. It additionally builds columns and sections, and incorporates endnotes and footnotes.
Nisus Software has released Nisus Writer Pro 1.0.3 and Nisus Writer Express 3.0.2. These new releases, which are free to existing users of Pro and Express 3, fix some image display and footnote issues. Writer Express is a scaled-back version of Writer Pro, missing features such as indexing and tables of contents; it nevertheless shares common elements, such as the ability to open Word, WordPerfect and AbiWord documents, as well as view text in scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Hebrew. One of the major upgrades from earlier versions of Express is "floating" graphics, enabling text wrap around them.
Users eagerly await the release of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, especially those that use Intel-based Macs, as this will be the first incarnation of the suite to include Universal application support. The suite has been redesigned to be more “available” to users, introducing a number of new elements, as well as reconfiguring old features to make them more obvious to new and regular users alike. While Office 2008 doesn’t ship until the start of Macworld on January 15th, Microsoft has provided MacNN with a preview of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage ahead of the announcement.
Microsoft has released a new beta of its Open XML File Format Converter for Mac OS X. The utility converts Open XML documents into a format readable by Office v. X or Office 2004 for Mac, and supports batch operations in addition to single-file use. Five different file types can be altered: these include standard and macro-enabled Word documents (.DOCX and .DOCM), as well as PowerPoint shows, templates and presentations (.PPSX, .POTX and .PPTX files).
