Facebook's new in-box brings MS Office support | Microsoft - CNET News

Image via CrunchBaseFacebook's new in-box brings MS Office support | Microsoft - CNET News

Confirmation arrived this morning for earlier reports of Microsoft's Office Web apps product being integrated into Facebook's new in-box product.

At Facebook's San Francisco press event this morning about the overhaul of its messaging service, the company detailed how users can now view and share attachments on the service. Included on that list is Microsoft's Office Web Apps service, which means Facebook users will be able to open up Word, Excel, and PowerPoint attachments without having to have Microsoft's software installed locally.

The "view on Office.com" feature appears below each file attachment as an option, and opens up documents within Microsoft's Office Web App viewer in a new browser tab. Presumably more partnered services will be added to this list as time goes by, but for now this is the only option on these file types.

Last week, Microsoft pushed out support of its Docs.com service within Facebook's recently introduced Groups feature, adding sharing for MS Office docs and PDF files within groups.

Facebook began rolling out its new messaging system to select users and members of the press earlier this morning, and intends to bring it to the rest of its users over the next few months.

Related articles

• Facebook's new in-box brings MS Office support (news.cnet.com)

Microsoft Explains Missing Mac Office Patches - PCWorld

Microsoft Explains Missing Mac Office Patches - PCWorld

Microsoft today explained why it has not patched older versions of its Office for Mac, but would not disclose a release schedule for doing so.

"We cannot give an exact date, but we expect to provide these updates during one of our normal monthly update cycles very soon," said Jerry Bryant, a group manager in the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).

Bryant was responding to questions raised Tuesday when Microsoft issued a multi-patch update for all versions of Office on Windows, including Office XP, 2003, 2007 and 2010, and Office for Mac 2011.

However, Microsoft did not deliver patches for the vulnerabilities in Office for Mac 2004 and Office for Mac 2008.

"The updates for Mac Office 2004 and 2008 were not ready for broad distribution at the same time as the updates for the affected products used by the vast majority of our customers," said Bryant in an e-mail reply to Computerworld queries.

The majority of Office users run the Windows editions of the suite, which greatly outsells the same software for Mac OS X.

According to the MS10-087 security bulletin associated with the Office updates, Office 2007 and Office 2010 users are most at risk because attackers can hijack their machines simply by getting them to view a specially-crafted message in the Outlook preview pane.

In a second e-mail Wednesday, Bryant said that Office for Mac users were not vulnerable to the same types of attacks, although hackers could try to dupe them into opening malicious RTF (rich text format) documents attached to e-mail messages.

Microsoft has delayed security updates for the Mac version of Office before.

In May 2009, Microsoft shipped patches for the Windows version of PowerPoint -- Office's presentation maker -- but delayed fixes for the same flaws in its Mac software until the following month.

At the time, Microsoft's security team defended the decision by saying that fixes for Windows were finished, but were still being tested on the Mac.

Today, Bryant said it was a matter of priorities, both in the number of users running Windows software compared to the Mac, and in the threat posed to each group. "Normally, we release updates for all affected products at the same time, [but] in cases where the vast majority of our customers are at potential risk and we can provide protections, we may decide to release updates for those products, if ready, ahead of products where the risk is very low," he said.

Last year, Microsoft took heat over the PowerPoint patch delay, with one security expert saying it put Mac users at risk. Others agreed with Microsoft's decision at the time.

Today, HD Moore, the chief security officer at Rapid7 -- and the creator of the popular Metasploit penetration toolkit -- dissed Microsoft's decision, up to a point.

"It's a bit surprising because on one hand they're giving away the key," he said. "The information in Microsoft's security bulletins isn't remotely useful to researchers, but now they're free, since Microsoft has officially patched the vulnerabilities [in Windows and Office for Mac 2011], to disclose technical information to the public."

More...

Related articles

• Microsoft explains missing Mac Office patches (macworld.com)
• Microsoft forgets to patch Mac Office 2004, 2008 (macworld.com)

Office 2011 Update Boosts Security, Stability - PCWorld

Office 2011 Update Boosts Security, Stability - PCWorld

Two weeks after launching Office 2011, Microsoft has rolled out an update that aims to improve the security and stability of the latest version of its office productivity suite.

Release notes for the Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.0.1 Update say that the release fixes "critical issues" in the latest version of Office that could cause components of the suite to stop responding or quit unexpectedly. Microsoft says the update also fixes a security vulnerability that could allow an attack to overwrite the contents of a computer's memory with malicious code.

As for performance and stability improvements in the 14.0.1 update, the company says that the update includes form-based authentication for connecting to Microsoft Office SharePoint Servers, allowing user credentials to be transmitted through HTML forms that users complete. The update also allows images copied from an Office for Mac application to be edited when copied back to ChemDraw; previously, images were locked when copied to the molecule editor.

Excel for Mac 2011 gets fixes that stop the spreadsheet program from crashing when a macro is enabled and allow cells to update when revisions are made to related data. The update also improves reliability when the FORMAT macro command is used. The update improves the stability of Word 2011 when users build equations, while bolstering stability of PowerPoint 2011 slideshows. Microsoft also improved compatibility with the Windows versions of its presentation software that now allows numbered lists to be displayed correctly in PowerPoint 2011.

Outlook 2011 gets a number of improvements in this update, including better reliability for deleting messages from multiple IMAP accounts, a Sync Services fix, and improved reliability for importing Office 2008 identities into the new version of the suite. The update also allows Outlook to retain e-mail passwords in the keychain after users import new accounts into the mail client.

Related articles

• Office 2011 update boosts security, stability (macworld.com)

Office Updates Fix Vulnerabilities in Word, Excel - PCWorld

Image via CrunchBaseOffice Updates Fix Vulnerabilities in Word, Excel - PCWorld

Microsoft rolled out a trio of updates on Tuesday that fix security vulnerabilities in its last two Office productivity suites.

According to security bulletins posted by the software giant, the vulnerabilities involve the Word and Excel components of Office. In both cases, the reported vulnerabilities could have allowed remote code execution if a user opened specially crafted Word or Excel files. The security update fixes 11 vulnerabilities in Word and 13 in Excel, Microsoft says.

Affected Mac products include Office 2004, Office 2008, and Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, which lets users open files created in Office 2008 in earlier versions of the productivity suite.

Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.7 weighs in at 333MB and requires OS X 10.4.9 or later. In addition to the security fixes, the Office 2008 update also promises stability improvements involving Excel crashes at launch and improved reliability for when Entourage connects with a Microsoft Exchange Server.

As for the other updates released Tuesday, Office 2004 for Mac 11.6.1 is a 16MB update that runs on OS X 10.2.8 or later. Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.1.7 is a 45MB update.

In addition to the three security updates, Microsoft on Tuesday also released a 64MB update for Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition. The release notes promise calendaring improvements as well as the ability to synchronize notes, tasks, and categories with Exchange Server. Microsoft says the update also enables logging that can be used for diagnostic purposes.

Later this month, Microsoft will ship a massive overhaul to its collection of productivity applications. Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 will feature new versions of Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Messenger, while Office for Mac Home and Business will offer those updates plus the new Outlook for Mac 2001.

Related articles

• Office updates fix vulnerabilities in Word, Excel (macworld.com)
• Microsoft Updates Office 2004, 2008 for Mac (pcworld.com)

Microsoft Office 2011 For Mac CNET.Com

In spite of being viewed as the "other guys" in some Mac users' minds, Microsoft has generally put out an excellent productivity suite for the Mac with Microsoft Office. Though the latest package is still not on par with the Windows version (you get only the four main programs--a big difference when you consider the Windows version has 10), Microsoft made a big leap with this latest version for the Mac in several other ways. Not only has it nearly reached feature parity (and cross compatibility) with the Mac counterparts to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but it has finally added Outlook, the e-mail and scheduling client Mac business fans have been clamoring for for years.
Once we dug deep into the feature set of Office 2011 for Mac, we saw there were several enhancements that made the whole suite better, and some of the niftier tweaks are even Mac-exclusive. Certainly many Mac users will look first at Apple's iWork for a productivity suite, and it is a great office suite in its own right. But if you work with primarily Windows users who use Office, it's tough to beat the automatic compatibility of using the same programs. Add the ease of compatibility with a strong feature set across the entire suite and you have a desktop office package that's almost a must-have in both large and small businesses, and even home productivity settings.
One of the major new changes to the suite (on the Windows side, too) is the ability to collaborate and share your work using Web apps. New Coauthoring requires that you use SharePoint Foundation 2010 for enterprise use, but for personal or small businesses, you can save and access files over SkyDrive (25GB of available online storage) on Windows Live with a free registration.
All of the new tweaks to the interface and each of the apps in the suite make Office 2011 for Mac a great option, but with the rise of cloud-based computing and online office suites like Google Docs, we wonder how long the big desktop apps like Office will remain on top. This latest Office client for Mac is definitely a solid offering, but how long can Microsoft hold on to its dominance?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Office 2011: Should you upgrade? (macworld.com)
• Microsoft Touts Mac-Windows Compatibility in Office 2011 (pcworld.com)

PowerPoint 2011 for Mac Office Software Review | Macworld

PowerPoint 2011 for Mac Office Software Review | Macworld

Although it’s never been the dominant program in Microsoft’s Office suite, PowerPoint for Mac has enjoyed considerable success riding on the coattails of its Windows counterpart. But I was disappointed that PowerPoint 2008 (), the last major upgrade, missed opportunities to leapfrog Keynote (), Apple’s homegrown slideshow software.

PowerPoint for Mac 2011 remedies many of my complaints by combining compelling new features with a revamped interface that makes it easier than before to develop dazzling presentations quickly.

A better interface

Microsoft's Ribbon is a core user interface element in all of the Office programs. The Ribbon sits at the top of the document window and provides quick access to the most commonly used tools. Its toolset changes based on what you're working on in the document.

I haven’t been a fan of the Ribbon in any of the Office apps for Windows, so I was pleasantly surprised by its implementation in PowerPoint for Mac 2011—the Ribbon provides instant access to most of PowerPoint’s tools and functions without being too obtrusive. Unlike the Windows implementation of the Ribbon, which you can hide only by clicking an arrow at the top right, the Mac version disappears when you click on any active tab.

A handy new control lets you adjust the size of slides in the Normal and Slide Sorter views. That’s much more convenient than the toolbar’s magnification menu, which is still there. For users who prefer not to reach for the mouse, new keyboard shortcuts let you zoom in or out in 15 percent increments. With these changes, PowerPoint’s view options are considerably more flexible than Keynote’s.

Another interface enhancement makes it easier to work with busy slides that contain multiple overlapping objects. In addition to conventional commands that let you move individual elements forward or backward, PowerPoint 2011 sports a clever new view that displays every object on the slide on a series of translucent sheets that appear to float on the screen. As you mouse over each one, it lights up and a number indicating its position appears in the corner. You drag the pane to move the object on it toward the front or back.

In addition to helping you keep track of objects on individual slides, PowerPoint 2011 helps you organize complex presentations by placing related slides in sections in the navigation pane. Although you can similarly arrange slides hierarchically in Keynote, only PowerPoint lets you name each group of slides.

UI redesign: A new graphical interface makes it easy to rearrange items on a slide.

Enhanced media

A new Media Browser conveniently consolidates access to photos, sounds, clip art, symbols, and shapes in one place, and PowerPoint offers a dizzying array of ways to manipulate the size and appearance of graphics that you import or generate within the program. Like Keynote’s Instant Alpha, which lets you make an image’s background transparent, PowerPoint 2011’s Remove Background tool lets you select which parts of a picture to retain and which to clear.

New options let you crop, color correct, rotate, and add other effects to movies, which are now imported into presentations by default instead of being linked to. You can even choose a picture file as the movie’s poster frame, and you can pause and scrub through movies during a slideshow, a feature that was missing from PowerPoint 2008. Annoyingly, though, you still can’t trim movies by adjusting their starting and ending points, nor can you add sounds that play across a specific set of slides.

Animation and transitions

As in PowerPoint 2008, you define the timing, duration, and order of animations by using the Custom Animation tab in the Toolbox. PowerPoint 2011 fills a huge gap in the previous version’s animation repertoire by adding motion paths, which let you move objects along tracks that are predefined or that you draw from scratch. PowerPoint’s path animation tools exceed Keynote’s in some respects (PowerPoint’s paths are much easier to define and edit) and bring PowerPoint 2011 closer to PowerPoint 2010 for Windows. But I was disappointed that, unlike PowerPoint 2010, the new Mac version doesn’t include an advanced timeline, which displays all the animations on a slide in a graphical timeline format. That’s an unfortunate omission; it’s much easier to choreograph multiple animations graphically than it is to drag them up and down in a list.

I was also frustrated to see that PowerPoint’s library of transitions, the special effects that morph one slide into the next during a presentation, still aren’t up to Keynote’s standard. PowerPoint’s dissolve transition is coarser than Keynote’s, and PowerPoint lacks equivalents to many of the stunning effects in Apple’s software. For example, Magic Move, a versatile Keynote transition that moves objects as one slide replaces another, is absent from PowerPoint. Although you can duplicate the effect with custom animations in PowerPoint, it takes considerably more effort.

More...

_________________________________________

Apple's Keynote still is a better choice for Mac users. It's interface and transitions are compelling.

John H. Armwood

Microsoft Offers Web Embeddable PowerPoint, Excel - PCWorld

Microsoft Offers Web Embeddable PowerPoint, Excel - PCWorld

Microsoft has added new capabilities to its online Microsoft Office companion service that allow users to embed PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets on their own websites.

Launched in June, Microsoft Office Web Apps has already been used, the company claims, by 20 million people, despite some negative reviews. The service offers the ability to make quick edits to Excel, Word, OneNote and PowerPoint documents.

Since the launch, the company has received more than 25,000 suggestions for how to improve the service, according to Microsoft senior product manager Evan Lew, in a video accompanying the blog announcement of the new features.

The timing of the upgrade is fortuitous for Microsoft insofar as Oracle announced at its Open World conference this week that its cloud-based Office productivity suite, based on Open Office, is nearing release as well.

With Microsoft Office Web Apps, users will now be able to embed PowerPoint presentations and Excel worksheets, tables and charts on an external website or blog page. With Excel, as the original document is updated, the embedded version will change as well.

Improvements have been made to the user's ability to edit files online as well. Spreadsheet users can now add lines, pies and bar charts to their worksheets directly from their browser. Microsoft has also opened up the Office.com image library so users can add images to their PowerPoint presentations.

And Excel worksheets now join Word and PowerPoint documents in their ability to be easily viewed from a mobile phone.

The company is also expanding the global availability of the Office apps to seven additional countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Russia and Switzerland.

In addition to adding muscle to Microsoft Office Web Apps, the company has also boosted capabilities of Windows companion online service, Windows Live.

More...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Microsoft updates Office Web Apps, Facebook Docs (news.cnet.com)

Microsoft Previews More of Office 2011 - PCWorld

Microsoft Previews More of Office 2011 - PCWorld

Microsoft continues to dole out the tidbits about Office for Mac 2011. As it did in August and July, the company has released a video highlighting some of the update's new features. This third entry in the Behind-the-Scenes series focuses on co-authoring tools, the software's connection to Office's Web apps, and PowerPoint's Broadcast Slideshow feature.

Taking a shot across the bow of Google Docs, Office for Mac 2011 will allow multiple users to collaborate on Word documents, PowerPoint slideshows, and Excel spreadsheets. They can edit simultaneously, even from separate locations, and documents can either be stored in SkyDrive (for regular consumers) or SharePoint (for business users).

More...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Microsoft previews more of Office 2011 (macworld.com)
• Video previews Microsoft's Office 2011 plans (macworld.com)