Microsoft releases XML fix for Mac Office, Open XML converter tool

Microsoft on Thursday released a pair of updates to fix a problem with Open XL documents: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.1 Update and Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter 1.1.1.

According to Microsoft's Knowledge Base article of the issue,  users of MS Office 2008 for Mac couldn't open Open XLM documents or templates. They found an error message like this:

Microsoft Excel cannot open the file. You may have to download the latest updates for Office for Mac. Do you want to visit the Microsoft Web site for more information?

Of course, visiting the Microsoft Web site really wasn't what they wanted.

The Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter is a stand-along tool that lets users of older versions of MS Office open and edit documents created in Office 2008 for Mac or Windows 2007 Office.