Microsoft adds iPhone, iPod sync to Office 2008

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac will let users port PowerPoint presentations to iPhones and video-equipped iPods, Microsoft said yesterday as it unveiled the latest details of the suite scheduled to ship in January.

PowerPoint 2008, the presentation maker included in the bundle, can export creations as a series of pictures -- but not video -- to iPhoto '06 and later. Alternately, users can save the slides to the Mac's Pictures folder.

"From there, sync pictures to your iPod or iPhone through iTunes as usual, then use the built-in photos or slide-show program on your iPod or iPhone to show your presentation," said Blair Neumann, a program manager in Microsoft's Mac development group, in a post to the team's blog Tuesday. IPhones and iPods that boast video viewing -- the iPod touch, the newest iPod nano and the iPod classic -- can also connect to a larger screen television or a projector using Apple's US$49 component AV cable.

Apple Inc.'s own Keynote presentation maker, one of the three applications in the US$99 iWorks '08 suite, can also export its slide shows to iTunes. From there, Keynote presentations can be synced to iPods or iPhones.

Microsoft will release Office 2008 for Mac on January 15 at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco in several editions priced from US$150 to US$500.