It's all about Microsoft Outlook

.PST! Microsoft Outlook is in. Entourage is out.

We're sorry to anyone who was rooting for another version of Entourage, but Microsoft Outlook has finally arrived on the Mac (with full Exchange support!).

Microsoft Outlook is all about Windows compatibility and organisation. Integrated Calendar tools show your schedule in your Inbox so, rather than leaving you to flick back-and-forth between the calendar and email, you can see exactly what you've got planned right there in your messages.

Microsoft Outlook also comes with Conversation View that sorts emails into 'Threads' - great for looking back over previous messages - and there's support for Time Machine and Spotlight.

And if you're already working in Microsoft Outlook for Windows but setting up a new Mac, rejoice! Microsoft Outlook for Mac imports Windows .PST files, so you won't have to manually transfer all your contacts and calendar entries.

Take that Entourage! Bam!

New collaboration tools

Hallo, Salut, Namaste...

PowerPoint for Mac lets you present slides to anyone, anywhere, over the Web, with full control of the pace and flow of the presentation. Just make sure your audience has an Internet connection. PowerPoint generates a URL that you can share, and they'll be able to view your slides from wherever they are. We'd rather you asked them to keep PowerPoint out of the bathroom though. It's just basic hygiene.

In the spirit of easy communication and togetherness, Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 supports SharePoint and includes new cloud-based Web apps. Plus, multiple authors can now share and edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents at the same time, no matter how many of you there are or where you are. You can also keep track of different versions of a document, and Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 locks different paragraphs to each user and saves them all in one file.

We also like that it is 100% compatible with the Windows version of Office so, whether you are working on a Mac or a PC, your work will look exactly the same. Lovely.

Improved presentation

Makes you better looking

Oh. Wait. That should be makes you look better (at work). Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 lets you quickly pick a template from the built-in gallery or from thousands of online templates, so you can create great looking professional documents.

Even if looks aren't important to you, you will find something to love in the snazzily named 'Sparklines'; the new addition to Excel that lets you create charts and graphs that summarise your data in a single cell. There are also improvements to PivotTable reports and Excel Tables that provide new feature-rich tools to help you quickly display relevant information.

Our favourite time-saver is the new addition of in-application image editing. This means that, without having to leave PowerPoint, Excel or Word, you can re-colour images, apply filters and corrections, and even remove unnecessary background imagery. Who said beauty is just skin deep?

In other news... If you missed Visual Basic support for Macros, you're in luck. There's also the ribbon and Tool Bar interface, which are customisable and minimisable and, if you are easily distracted, you can now avail yourself of the ever-so-clever full screen view in Word.