Microsoft has, as promised, released a beta version of a file format converter to convert Office documents saved in Office 2007’s native format, the XML-based docx, to RTF, so that they can be read in Mac versions of Office.

The announcement was made on Mac Mojo Microsoft’s MacBU blog. There are a few key things to note. The blog post describes Office 2008 as the ‘largest undertaking in our ten year history as an independent team’ - which I guess means it’s a bigger deal than Office 98, Office X and Office 2004. It also confirms that Office 2008 is on schedule for release later this year.

The File Format Converter is a standalone application which can be invoked by dropping docx documents onto its icon, or by double-clicking a docx document. It supports batch conversion, but is read only because ‘we do not want …to see you inadvertently mess up any critical documents you are working with.’

The reason for using RTF, rather than, say, .doc, is that it’s ‘a highly convenient intermediate format for the beta converter to use’. That’s not much of an explanation but I’d wager it has something to do with the fact that the FFC supports both Office X and Office 2004 and that the .doc format is different in each version.

Currently the FFC only supports Word documents, but updates promised during the summer will add support for Excel and PowerPoint. The final version of the FFC and an integrated version for Office 2004 will be available six to eight weeks after Office 2008 ships.

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