Microsoft Updates Mac Office File Converter

Microsoft Corp.'s Mac group Tuesday refreshed its preview Office 2007 file converter, allowing Mac Office users to now work with PowerPoint presentations.

The latest beta, version 0.2 of the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, adds PowerPoint presentation (.pptx), show (.ppsx) and template (.potx) files to the Word documents it could translate out the gate when it first appeared in May.

Other changes to the beta include improved conversion of Word documents that contain inline or linked graphics, WMF/EMF-formatted images, SmartArt and tracked edits in the header and footer. It also can now convert Word 2007 files that contain bibliography and citation fields or include complex tables.

Intended as a stop-gap, the stand-alone converter will be replaced with an add-in to Microsoft's existing Mac Office suites six to eight weeks after the company launches Office 2008 for Mac.

Office 2008 for Mac, which Microsoft still expect to release sometime before the end of the year, will use the same default Open XML file formats as Windows Office 2007. The 2008 edition, which will be the first written by Microsoft for Intel-based Macs and the last to support older machines running PowerPC processors, will also use a variation of Office 2007's Ribbon-like interface.

The 0.2 file converter works with Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.4 or later, or Office v. X for Mac 10.1.9 or later, and can be downloaded from the Mactopia Web site