Office 2007 SP2 – What You Need to Know

Office 2007 Service Pack 2 was released today and aside from rolling up all the hotfixes released since SP1 there are some additional changes provided by this update.  There are three key changes in Office 2007 with SP2.

1. Interoperability – Office 2007 SP2 adds support for read, write and save capabilities for the ODF 1.1 file format.  There is a great blog post on Working with ODF in Office 2007 SP2 you should check out, as well as these resources for more specific information on what Word, Excel and PowerPoint support.
• What Word 2007 SP2 supports in the OpenDocument Text (.odt) format: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA102835631033.aspx?pid=CH100626291033
• What Excel 2007 SP2 supports in the OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods) format: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA102877221033.aspx?pid=CH100648071033
• What PowerPoint 2007 SP2 supports in the OpenDocument presentation(.odp) format: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/HA102877231033.aspx?pid=CH101956361033

Performance – Office 2007 SP2 also adds increased performance and reliability to Office client applications and servers.  Outlook 2007 SP2 as an example, includes improved calendaring reliability and performance enhancements which has been a pain for users and administrators.  I’ve noticed a significant improvement in performance since I installed SP2.

Converter API – Office 2007 SP2 adds a new API, called the Converter API, which will allow Office developers to include support and conversion options for the ODF 1.1 file format in their Office add-ons and applications.

The Office Sustained Engineering blog has a list of all the changes to the Office client applications and servers posted on their blog but I pulled out a few I think will be of interest to most..

• Save as PDF or XPS add-in has been built in to SP2
• Outlook startup, shutdown, view rendering, and folder switching performance has been improved
• WSS and SharePoint add support for FireFox 2.x and 3.x

Office 2007 SP2 will support Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 once they are released as well.

For more information on Office 2007 SP2 please see the following links:

• Download the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2
• Download the 2007 Office Service Pack 2 Changes Excel Spreadsheet (coming soon)
• KB Article 953195 - Description of 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007 SP2
• KB Article 970357 - Technical details about the 2007 Microsoft Office System Service Pack 2 (SP2) releases