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Ability Office Version 4 - New Features
Ability Office 4 incorporates upgraded versions of the four
original modules: Ability Write, Ability Spreadsheet, Ability
Database and Ability Photopaint, and two completely new modules -
Ability Presentation and Ability Photoalbum.
New and Improved features
- General improvements
- Write - new features and improvements
- Spreadsheet - new features and improvements
- Database - new features and improvements
- Photopaint - new features and improvements
- Presentation - a new module
- Photoalbum - a new module
General improvements:
Those who are familiar with the MS Office interface can now
choose from a range of interface styles within Ability applications,
including Office 2000, XP or 2003. The new toolbar and menu system
used throughout Ability Office Professional now features intelligent
menus which learn to display only those options regularly used.
| Ability Write v4 with
new "Office 2003" style toolbars and menus.
|
| Compare it to... Microsoft
Office 2003. |
| The interface customize
dialog showing the different style options, or "Visual
themes". |
Ability Office users who regularly share documents with MS Office
users can now set a native file save format in Write, Spreadsheet
and Photopaint, so, for example, their work can always be in Word,
Excel and Photoshop formats.
| Ability Write's Open &
Save default settings page of the Options dialog
showing "Default save format", timed Autosave and the new
'tree style' dialog layout. |
Support for Microsoft Installer now provides selective
installation of multiple languages and individual modules within the
suite, and for intelligent, on-demand web downloads for updates and
patches.
| The first page of the
Setup wizard, recognises the existence of an existing
installation and provides maintenance options.
|
Ability Write:
There are many new features and improvements to existing features
within Ability Office Professional's word processing package.
Probably the single most important improvement is the completely new
support for opening and saving of MS Word documents. The result is
faster, more accurate imports of more complex documents than with
previous versions.
New features include the addition of sidecar menus on the main
File menu options "Save As" and "Send As" which enable the saving of
files or sending of email attachments in a range of familiar
formats, including MS Word, RTF and PDF. Support for generation of
Adobe PDF files now includes image compression, file encryption and
the options to merge pages into, or concatenate pages onto, an
existing PDF file.
| Save as Sidecar menu
with optional formats. |
Major word processing features added in version 4 include
Autocorrect and Autotext, Auto-Spell that will highlight spelling
errors as they are typed, a Grammar Checker for English, French,
German and Spanish, Label generation with Avery standard sheet
references, and a Hyperlink function.
| AutoCorrect options
dialog. |
| AutoSpell in action,
with right-click menu of suggestions. |
| Labels definition
dialog, displaying a standard Avery Video Face design.
|
Further improvements include support for clipboard RTF format,
the ability to wrap mail merge fields in paragraphs and improved
functionality for HTML import and export. Non-printing characters
can now be displayed to aid layout editing. Inserting images is much
easier through integration of the image selection and organisation
features of Ability PhotoAlbum.
| Sample text displaying space,
paragraph and 'soft-return' markers. |
Ability Spreadsheet:
Microsoft Excel compatibility is generally enhanced in version 4
and the facility to import and export MS Excel charts is implemented
through the release of a new Chart module.
All the general productivity improvements are available in
Ability Spreadsheet; new interface styles and intelligent menus,
user selection of default 'Save' file format, sidecar menus for
'Save As' and 'Send As' formats, Autocorrect and Autotext, timed
Autosave, improved PDF support, enhanced 'PhotoAlbum' Image
handling, and simple photo 'touch-ups' with the new Image
Toolbar.
| Ability Spreadsheet v4
with new "Office 2003" style toolbars and menus.
|
| Compare it to... Microsoft
Excel 2003. |
New 'spreadsheet' creation tools include conditional cell
formatting, with reusable styles, and data entry validation, with
input messages which appear when the user clicks into a cell and
error messages to explain whether an entry is restricted or
permitted. Support for hiding of rows or columns is now provided,
along with Data filtering which allows efficient row selection based
upon statistical querying of previous column entries. Rows and
columns can also now be formatted to 'Auto Fit' all data entered.
| Conditional Format
dialog, showing use of Styles. |
| Data Validation dialog,
controls input messages and error messages.
|
| Input messages help to explain
the use of individual cells. |
| AutoFilter provides automated
selection or hiding of rows based on entries in the column.
|
The Insert Function dialog has been extended to provide support
for entry of function parameters for the 246 functions now available
and support has been included for 3D cell references. There is more
control of the on-screen default view and for printing options,
which can now be applied to the Entire Workbook or Active Sheets.
| The Print dialog now
provides choice of Selection, Active Sheets or Entire
workbook. |
| A Print Options button
on the Print dialog allows direct control of the printed view.
|
Ability Database:
Microsoft Access compatibility has been improved with support for
standard database security; 'mdb' files can be opened exclusively or
shared, read-only or read & write.
| Open Database dialog
showing Security options at the bottom.
|
A new look Database Manager makes it easier to view sub queries
and database objects, and it includes support for collection of all
database objects into a 'favourites' or user-defined group.
| Database Manager view
showing use of Groups. |
Major improvements now supported in Forms design are; Sub-Forms,
which permit ‘form within a form’ structures, with single and
continuous scrolling modes, Table look-up, a new field property to
display related table content within a grid control, and Form
navigation buttons within the form window, complete with record
number indicator.
| Section of master form showing
two sub-forms, each with form navigation buttons.
|
Enhancements to Reporting include; Widow and Orphan controls to
keep grouped fields, headers and footers together in reports; the
'Can Grow' field property, which allows individual record details to
be expanded vertically in a report to display a fields full content,
and, local Field Formatting, which allows specific formatting to be
applied to all fields in a report.
| Format Section dialog,
showing options for 'Group' Widow and Orphan controls.
|
Ability Photopaint Studio
As part of the general improvements shared with all applications,
Ability Photopaint Studio, gains standard toolbars for all bitmap
and vector drawing tools.
| Ability Photopaint Studio
v4 with new "Office 2003" style toolbars and menus.
|
Ability's already powerful photo editor has been further improved
with the facility to save to Adobe's Photoshop file format (PSD),
making this the ideal format to choose as the default image type,
and through the introduction of compression algorithms in
Photopaint's own file format (APX).
| Part of Open & Save
dialog, with default 'Save' format set to Adobe Photoshop.
|
| Ability Photopaint Studio's
own file format now supports RLE and ZIP compression.
|
Photopaint features updated TWAIN technology and more direct
support for digital cameras and scanners installed through the
Windows Control Panel.
| Select from all installed
Digital Cameras and Scanners. |
The internal colour systems have been updated to support 48-bit
colour depth, CMYK support for jpeg and PSD images, and functions to
invert images by colour channel and swap colour channels.
| Image Adjust menu
options, including colour invert and swap sidecar menus.
|
New tools include a 'Magic Eraser', which removes a selection
made by the Magic Wand tool, and Desaturate and Saturate tools,
which decrease or increase colour saturation.
 |
 |
| 'Standard' and 'Magic' Eraser
tools. |
'Saturate' and 'Desaturate'
tools. |
Ability Presentation
Ability Presentation features the familiar look-and-feel of
Microsoft Powerpoint and uses the 'ppt' format for its own native
files.
| Ability Presentation
with new "Office 2003" style toolbars and menus.
|
Users can take advantage of a variety of slide templates, create
sophisticated slide background designs, use a master slide for
uniform layouts, and choose from a selection of slide
transitions.
| Object Properties
dialog, used for setting backgrounds for slides and text
boxes. |
All design and layout objects are handled by the vector drawing
engine, which supports sound, pictures and video objects, and a wide
library of AutoShapes are available from the 'Drawing' toolbar.
| Draw Toolbar showing
the Basic Shapes library of Autoshapes. |
Ability Presentation's use of native 'ppt' files ensures users
can send, show and share their presentations in any office,
classroom or boardroom environment.
Ability Photoalbum is a user-friendly image organiser that lets
users store and easily locate their digital photos and other images,
supporting all the common formats. This new application features a
multi-window interface, displaying a clear outline of folders,
albums and favourites, file lists with property pages, and choices
of full screen or thumbnail views of all pictures in a selected
folder or album.
Users can select multiple images or whole 'albums' and view the
images as a full screen ‘slide show’.
| Image Toolbar and
Slide Show dialog. |
Image titles and captions can be recorded as properties and these
are available within the Print Wizard which allows easy selection of
page layouts - single, twin, four to the page, and even thumbnail
contact sheets.
| Print Settings dialog
from the 'Print Wizard'. |
For further information, please email info@ability.com
Copyright © 1998-2007 Ability Software. All
rights reserved worldwide.
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| Testimonials |
|
"Buying an office suite doesn't necessarily mean spending a lot
of money, as Ability shows us with its Office 4 suite."
Computer Shopper
"You don't have to work in an office to use a word processor
and a spreadsheet, so why pay business prices?"
WebUser
"With
Ability Write emulating the interface of Microsoft Word 2000,
there's little to distinguish the two titles" - PC Plus
"High
level of Microsoft Office compatibility..."
Computeractive
"Ability is cheap and looks great...Ability Office can mimic
every edition of Word and Excel from versions 2000 to 2003"
PC Pro |
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