Microsoft has posted a flash-based site previewing Office 2008 for Mac OS X, outlining the following features, along with Microsoft's descriptions:

• Elements Gallery "The new Elements Gallery user interface gives users quick access to tools and formatting options within applications in a simple and visually appealing way."
• Document Elements "Document Elements in Word 2008 demonstrates the power of Elements Gallery by simplifying and automating some of the most common but often difficult and tedious document tasks, such as adding a table of contents, bibliographies and headers and footers, so users can easily build professional reports and papers."
• Publishing Layout View "This new specialised workspace in Word empowers users to create graphics-rich document layouts such as newsletters and brochures with ease."
• OfficeArt: "The OfficeArt graphics engine provides users the ability to apply stunning graphic effects like 3D, reflections and shadows with a simple click of a button."
• SmartArt Graphics "SmartArt graphics are a set of professional-quality graphics that lets users quickly transform bulleted lists into charts, diagrams, graphs and tables to visually communicate ideas."
• Building Charts (Excel) "Utilizing the new OfficeArt graphics engine, new chart templates help users easily create modern charts and modify their look and feel with the click of a button. Excel charts can easily be integrated with Word and PowerPoint."

My Day "My Day is a standalone application that provides an at-a-glance view of daily schedule and tasks to help users stay on top of priorities."

In August, Craig Eisler, general manager at Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, has posted a blog entry announcing that Office 2008 for Mac, previously targeted for "the second half of 2007", will now be delivered "in the first quarter of 2008".

Microsoft has already released two revisions of a tool for converting Office Open XML files (as are generated by Office 2007 for Windows and the forthcoming Office 2008 for Mac OS X) to a format that is compatible with Office 2004.