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TidBITS Watchlist: Notable Software Updates for 29 August 2016

Microsoft Office 2016 15.25 and Office 2011 14.6.7 — Microsoft has issued version 15.25 of its Office 2016 application suite, updating Excel, Outlook, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word to 64-bit applications for improved performance. Excel, PowerPoint, and Word now enable you to find and fix accessibility issues in documents by using the Accessibility Checker on the Review tab. In Outlook, Microsoft fixed a Calendar view bug to ensure the correct day and event are displayed, and removed a duplicate organizer from the schedule assistant view. Office 365 subscribers get a few new additions, including
the capability to add an animated background image in PowerPoint and new simplified summary cards in travel confirmation and package delivery emails (these require a new or upgraded Outlook.com account).

On the security front, both Office 2016 and Office 2011, which Microsoft has updated to version 14.6.7, once again resolve a memory corruption vulnerability (this time in Word), which could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code via a maliciously crafted file. ($149.99 for one-time purchase, free update through Microsoft AutoUpdate, release notes, 10.10+)

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Fantastical 2.2.5 — Flexibits has released Fantastical 2.2.5, adding support for setting Mailplane as your default email client and ensuring that a very long list of single-day events prints correctly across multiple pages. The calendar app also fixes a bug that prevented deletion of a recurring floating time zone event, resolves an issue where Google push updates could stop working after the Mac woke from sleep, fixes a bug that prevented some birthday alerts from appearing, and rectifies a problem with event details not appearing immediately after opening a .ics file. Regularly priced $49.99, Fantastical is on sale for
$39.99 (a 20 percent savings) for a limited time from both Flexibits and the Mac App Store. ($49.99 new from Flexibits and the Mac App Store, free update, 13.4 MB, release notes, 10.10+)

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Pixelmator 3.5.1 — The Pixelmator Team has released Pixelmator 3.5.1, a maintenance release with improvements and bug fixes for the image editing app. The edge-smoothing algorithm for the Magic Wand, Paint Bucket, and Magic Eraser introduced in the previous version wasn’t working properly (see “Pixelmator 3.5,” 30 May 2016), so the previous algorithm has been reinstated for now. The update fixes a bug where larger images would sometimes disappear when editing using the Pixelmator Photos extension, improves zooming speed and smoothing with the Pixelmator Photos extension, and
fixes several instances of crashes (including when opening Photoshop files containing the Color Overlay layer style, as well as when using the Magic Wand, Paint Bucket, or Magic Eraser on a hidden layer). ($29.99 new from the Mac App Store, free update, 55 MB, release notes, 10.9.5+)

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BBEdit 11.6.1 — Bare Bones Software has released BBEdit 11.6.1 with several additions and a plethora of bug fixes for the venerable text editor. The update brings a number of enhancements for features related to the Git version control system, including control over whether to search Git-ignored files or not (via the Options panel in the Multi-File Search window), a new Git Ignored Files command in the file filter pop-up menu for disk browsers and project windows, an option to include Git-ignored files when comparing folders in Find Differences, and improved performance when bringing up the Open File by Name window
with very large Git projects.

The release also replaces the List Display Font setting in the Appearances preferences with a slider to adjust the font size, changes the behavior of Check Syntax or Run on an unsaved or untitled document to write out a temporary copy of the document, adds keyboard commands for Check Syntax (Command-K) and Run (Command-R), resolves bugs that prevented scratchpad documents from remembering and restoring their state across open/close cycles, corrects incorrect Markdown syntax coloring, and fixes a number of crashes. Be sure to read the voluminous release notes for more details. ($49.99, free update, 14.0 MB, release notes, 10.9.5+)

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Typinator 6.10 — Ergonis has released Typinator 6.10 with 50 improvements and bug fixes for the text expansion tool. The update adds a /Case function for selecting different text fragments depending on an input value, support for logical values in calculations, keyboard shortcuts for cursor position and clipboard markers, new min and max functions with multiple parameters in calculations, and support for custom keyboard shortcuts with the Enter key. The release also improves speed of expansions with embedded keyboard actions (as well as handling of very fast keystroke sequences in certain corner cases), works
around various expansion problems with Fade In, ensures that double-clicking a curly brace in an expansion now selects the whole {…} marker, and improves compatibility with LibreOffice, IntelliJ, and LaunchBar. (€24.99 new with a 25 percent discount for TidBITS members, free update, 7.4 MB, release notes, 10.6.8+)

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