14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has confirmed the upcoming availability of Office for Mac 2011 Service Pack 1 (SP1) which focuses on providing increased stability, security, as well as new features, including improved Outlook syncing support.
According to Pat Fox, writing at the Office for Mac blog, SP1 will enable calendar syncing between Apple’s Sync Services and Outlook for Mac.
“This will let you sync your Outlook calendar as well as contacts, notes and tasks with any service or device that supports Sync Services, including your iPhone and iPad,” Pat explains.
According to the Microsoft staffer, this has been one of the top requests from Office for Mac users. “…hopefully this is good news to many of you,” the blogger writes.
Particularly noteworthy for those relying on MobileMe to sync their documents between their devices, Microsoft reminds users that the service will no longer sync with MacOS Sync Services as of May 5th.
Those who have already moved their account to the new version of MobileMe Calendar have already seen these changes take effect.
“As a result, Outlook 2011 SP1 calendars that sync with Sync Services on the Mac, will NOT be synced with MobileMe calendars,” Pat notes.
A table outlining the supported services in Outlook for Mac 2011 SP1 is provided (displayed above).
“Office for Mac SP1 is a big step forward,” Pat continues. “But we know we have more work to do, specifically around better integration with additional services.”
The post ends with a list of several other new features coming next week, including: Outlook support for Exchange based server-side rules; Outlook Redirect button (you can redirect the message to the intended recipient and the replies will go to the original sender); Outlook Resend button; Outlook edit of existing messages; and Solver integration support in Excel.
Mac users can download a free, 30-day trial version of Office for Mac 2011 using the link below.
The suite’s entire range of features is fully enabled. In other words, Office for Mac 2011 trial version works for a full month without any restrictions.