I as wrote earlier today on my blog, Microsoft was to release Office 2007 SP2 today. And so they did! The service pack delivers significant stability, performance and interoperability improvements for us endusers (more than 600 fixes and improvements). Two key additions include support for the Open Document formats (ODF 1.1) in Word (.odt), Excel (.ods), and Powerpoint (.odp) and the option to save as PDF in all applications. Other big enhancements are made for Microsoft Office Outlook, such as fixes related to slow IMAP access, a number of issues related to RSS feeds, improved calendaring reliability and general performance.

Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) includes two types of fixes:

1. Previously unreleased fixes that were made specifically for this service pack. In addition to general product fixes, this includes improvements in stability, performance, and security. You can find out more information in Knowledge Base Article 953195.
2. All of the Public Updates, Security Updates, Cumulative Updates, and Hotfixes released through February 2009. You’ve kept your system up to date. So this package are for loosers. Right? I guess not. But there are many that will benefit from these last patches being added.

Microsoft recommends that we read 953195 before installing the package. This article in the knowledge base describes all the improvements introduced by SP2, but also comes with some important information that you should be aware of before installing.

Microsoft has also posted to blog posts worth looking at: Working with ODF in Word 2007 SP2 and Office 2007 Service Pack 2 Kiosk, and a Q & A with Group Program Manager Jane Liles.

To download Office 2007 SP2, visit the Microsoft web site.

If you are an Outlook user, you will see this the first time you start it after the upgrade: