officelogoMicrosoft today released Service Pack 2 for Office for Mac 2011, the most recent edition of Microsoft's hugely popular productivity suite. Outlook was the priority for the Mac Office team, with a number of enhancements and performance upgrades included for the other applications as well:

As the newest member of the Office for Mac family, Outlook 2011 continues to get the most requests from consumers and businesses alike; therefore, our top priority for this release was Outlook, and this service pack resolves many of the most common requests. The more notable Outlook enhancements include:

- Sync performance with Exchange server,
- Performance improvements while deleting multiple items,
- Displaying email message content, and sending email.

Outlook performance is also improved in IMAP account sync and the database rebuild utility. New capabilities include:
- Scheduling resources in the calendar,
- Distribution list expansion,
- Day number display in the calendar.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have improved performance with additional modest improvements. For example, we updated PowerPoint to take advantage of full screen view in Lion, and we improved grammar checkers for Italian and German languages. We also made it easier to work with Office documents on SkyDrive and addressed several smaller issues in response to your feedback.

The complete list of fixes and updates is also available. The Office 14.2.0 update is available via Microsoft's download page or through the updater built into Office.

Top Rated Comments

Stridder44 Avatar
Stridder44
145 months ago
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who actually likes Office for Mac a lot
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CleFuh Avatar
CleFuh
145 months ago
Full Screen works with Word and Excel, too. Not only Powerpoint. Thumb up!
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr-Stabby Avatar
Mr-Stabby
145 months ago
Yet, somehow, beyond all comprehension, they still don't support Lion's full screen, auto-save and versions.


Mind blowing.
Maybe because they realise that Versions is at best an acquired taste. And lets be honest, Microsoft still haven't managed to get files to save without issue on the decades old 'Save' and 'Save as' system. Would you trust Versions to work with Microsoft software?

That's not just me being anti-Microsoft. It's well known that especially when it comes to networked folders, there are still so many issues with saving MS Office documents on a Mac. Adding versions would just complicate things.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Stridder44 Avatar
Stridder44
145 months ago
I love Word and Excel. I think Word 2011 is a lot better than Word 2010, a huge improvement over 2008, and is way better than Pages for what I do. I tried using Pages to write a paper once and it was a disaster. Pages is fine for writing letters and short documents but Word is a work horse.

Word 2011 is extremely stable for me, easier to use, very powerful. It is my 2nd most used program and I think that Microsoft did a great job.

Also, I hope Microsoft doesn't implement Versions until Apple gets its head out of its ass. Versions paradigm is way too dangerous when you are working on important documents and need to be in control. I haven't lost a document due to not saving in over 2 years, but in less than 3 months with Lion I had three sets of data corrupted and had to find an alternative to TextEdit just to keep my data safe.
Oh god, that "versions" crap was one of the worst ideas Apple has had in a long time. I absolutely hate it. Save and Save As work perfectly fine, you don't need to innovate on that. I'm fine with them bringing these iOS ideas on to OS X, but that was one aspect that REALLY didn't need to be messed with in the first place. Ugh, anyway- I digress.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrono1081 Avatar
chrono1081
145 months ago
I wish they had a version that just sold Word for the few times a year I need it :/
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MRU Avatar
MRU
145 months ago
Maybe because they realise that Versions is at best an acquired taste. And lets be honest, Microsoft still haven't managed to get files to save without issue on the decades old 'Save' and 'Save as' system. Would you trust Versions to work with Microsoft software?

That's not just me being anti-Microsoft. It's well known that especially when it comes to networked folders, there are still so many issues with saving MS Office documents on a Mac. Adding versions would just complicate things.
I tend to agree with you. I prefer the option to save and save as.

The whole save a version is a pain the hoLe, requiring user to duplicate file to re-edit rather than just the previous and much better way of choosing to 'save as' and rename the file and save as a new file.

Pages irritates me profoundly now with the lack of the save as option.

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Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who actually likes Office for Mac a lot
I use it daily :-) and really like it. iWork 09 in OSX Lion is not very good at all. Apple need a new iWork ASAP, since lion it's performance leaves a lot o be desired. Prior to that I'd use it more over office, but since Lion, office offers better performance and less issues for me. Neither are perfect however.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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