Ability Office Basic Edition 4.0
Ability Office is an integrated suite of five software applications - a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database, a photo-editor, and a drawing module - and is ideal for use both in the office and at home.
A true integrated suite, Ability Office is designed from the ground up to facilitate cross-application linking through special fields. It is straightforward and easy to use for beginners, displays an industry-standard interface, and has a high degree of file compatibility with Microsoft Office. A PDF Creator enables users to create email-friendly PDF files in any of its five applications.
Ability Write: a word processor that is compatible with Microsoft Word, and contains advanced layout features such as tables, columns and frames and an interactive mail merge facility that links to database files, including Microsoft Access mdb files.
Ability Spreadsheet: numerical analysis software that is compatible with Microsoft Excel, and uses multi-sheet workbooks, templates and styles, 200+ functions, and database linking through special merge fields.
Ability Photopaint: a photo- and image-editing package that is similar to Adobe Photoshop, provides multiple layers and a wide range of editable brushes and gradients, supports 25 image formats, and offers over 90 filters and artistic effects.
Ability Photoalbum: lets you easily create and manage albums of your digital pictures.
Product Highlights
New module - Photoalbum
Latest Windows 2003 look and feel
Much improved Microsoft import/export
Option to set Word/Excel as default open and save
Autocorrect and Grammar checker
Much improved save to PDF
Photopaint includes vector drawing as standard
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'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).
Photopaint features updated TWAIN technology and more direct support for digital cameras and scanners installed through the Windows Control Panel.
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.
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.
Ability Photoalbum
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 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.
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