The Mind of Dr. Mac

The Microsoft Mac Business Unit today released Service Pack 2 (SP2), which increases performance and reliability across applications as well as a new utility, Document Connection for Mac.

According to a press release issued this morning, :

SP2 provides several updates across the Microsoft Office 2008 suite for an improved experience. The team incorporated customer feedback received through a variety of channels to prioritize updates and maximize the potential of the suite with increased compatibility and speed. Highlights of the release include the following:

• (PowerPoint) Custom Path Animation adds the ability to author motion-path animations. Users previously could only play back motion paths.
• (PowerPoint) Default Theme lets users define their default theme, including fonts, color scheme and slide layouts.
• (Word) Increased launch and scroll speed.
• (Excel) calculation performance.
• (Document Connection) Enables a more seamless experience for Office 2008 users to save and open documents to Microsoft Office Live Workspace from Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• (Microsoft Office Live Workspace) Expanded Mac browser support to include Safari 4 along with existing support for Firefox 2.0 (required for Mac OS X 10.2.x or later).
• (Document Connection) Improves the SharePoint experience for Mac users, allowing for easier collaboration within a SharePoint environment by simplifying how users can browse, access and manage files online and offline.

To download the 300MB updater, click here.