The Office for Mac 2011 is only the first upgrade of the suite released in January 2008. It features a renamed e-mail client, Visual Basic-based macros, a full-screen view mode for optimized reading or writing and a Dynamic Reorder for visually shufflling layers of a presentation or document.

The launch speed of each app is also faster than the previous version of the suite, according to Kurt Schmucker of the Mac Office team.

The Office for Mac 2011 has a Home and Student edition that include Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Amazon.com priced them at $120 and $150 for a three-license edition, respectively.

The Home and Business edition featuring the Outlook e-mail client, is priced at $200 with a two-license version at $280.

An academic edition will sell for $99 for college students, faculty and staff but not at general retail.

Another option to experience the revamped suite is by buying the $130 current version of the Office for Mac Home and Student 2008, which can be freely upgraded on Microsoft's website.