As promised, Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for Office for Mac 2011. Changes to the suite primarily revolve around Outlook, which can now communicate with Sync Services in Mac OS X and Exchange calendars, notes and tasks with other apps. Resend and Redirect buttons have also been added, and the updated software can make use of Exchange-based server-side rules.
Excel has been upgraded to support Solver analysis tools, while PowerPoint has gained password protection for presentation files. Office as a whole has been fixed to improve security, halt reported crashes and enable Alt Text authoring. Alternate text can be associated with a variety of objects, such as shapes, pictures, tables and movies.
The Service Pack is a 246.2MB download. Microsoft warns though that because of Apple changes to MobileMe, the new Outlook sync functions will not share calendars or tasks with the updated MobileMe Calendar. Mail, notes and contacts should still be supported.
