Microsoft Introduces Office 2007 SP2 Early 2009

Microsoft has announced that SP2 for Office 2007 will be released between February and April 2009. In the update, Microsoft includes support for the file formats odf, xps and pdf.

In addition to the previously announced addition of support for these file formats, Microsoft has further details on the contents of the second service pack for Office 2007 on its Office blog. announced. For example, the update will improve the speed of Outlook and make the calendar function of that application more reliable, and Excel’s charting functionality will be improved.

Furthermore, all cryptographic algorithms that Windows can handle are now also supported in Office. In addition, the Charts functionality in Word and Powerpoint will have object model support at its disposal. The grouping of ‘Smart Art’ graphics can be undone after installing SP2, there is the possibility to add animations in Powerpoint and with Visio uml models can be exported to an xml file that conforms to the xmi standard .

For servers, the changes will include improved performance and management of Enterprise Content Management, faster processing of Office Project Web Access status approvals in Office Project Professional 2007, and faster access to data in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 databases. Within a few days, the first customers will be invited to a private beta test of the service pack.