Microsoft announces Word converter for Office 2004 for Mac

Microsoft's Mac BU continues to work in the development on Office 2008 for Mac, but in the meantime they have just announced the release of its standalone, drag and drop Word converter for Office 2004 for Mac and v. X users.

To aid customers during the period of transition to the Office Open XML file format, the standalone, drag and drop converter was developed as a provisional solution until the final, integrated converter is available.

The converter provides read-only access to Office Open XML files and converts Word documents to a Rich Text File (.rtf), offering both individual and batch file conversion.

PowerPoint and Excel drag and drop updates to the converter will be released this winter.

The Word converter is available for download on the Mac BU Web site with PowerPoint and Excel updates being available via AutoUpdate later when released.

The final Office 2004 for Mac converter will be a fully integrated solution providing both read and write functionality, and will be available six to eight weeks after the release of Office 2008 for Mac.