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Ability Office Business (PC) | 
 enlarge | From: Ability
Category: Software
List Price: £34.99
Buy New: £21.99
You Save: £13.00 (37%)
New (4) from £21.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 698
Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows Xp
Media: CD-ROM
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 7.9 x 2.1
MPN: AOBBOX189
EAN: 5060153734189
ASIN: B001C3OQ40
Release Date: July 30, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Boxed and Sealed. Dispatched within 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An easy-to-use alternative, compatible with Microsoft Office 2 LICENCES For your personal commercial use Allows installation on Desktop PC & Laptop FREE SUPPORT Free and unlimited email support 7 applications in one - Everything you need for home, office, college, or school in one handy suite Get straight to work with this easy-to-use, affordable alternative to Microsoft Office Feel immediately at home due to the familiar interface style and the ability to edit existing MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Access, Adobe Photoshop and all standard image and photo format files As an added benefit, you can create universally accepted Adobe PDF files, allowing secure delivery of original documents.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Some Bugs Need to be Fixed August 19, 2008
Like the previous reviewer I saw this package on the shelf of a local computer store, and bought it because of its low price and the fact that it included a database program. As the previous reviewer stated it installed easily and didn't require registration/activation - but perhaps this is a problem because Ability Software has not replied to even one of my messages about the product. I wonder whether they think I am not a legal owner/user of the software?
Ability Office 4 included a 60+ page booklet to help the user get started. This is absent from the Ability Office Business box. A pity, I think.
Despite being interested in the database program I have spent much more time with the word processing (Write) and spreadsheet applications. In both of these there seem to be some bugs. For example, in Write, it is easy to format a new document (i.e., one started from a blank page) to have page numbers. But I have struggled to insert page numbers into an existing document that lacks them. The page numbers seem to be placed on top of the existing text...
The charting component of Ability Office is shared across several applications. I found that the charts are rather hard to edit. In the case of X-Y charts the help system informs you cheerfully that you can edit the categorical axis as well as the value axis. In my copy of Ability Office Business this proved impossible. A menu for editing the category axis exists, but opening the various options for editing the categorical axis simply shows a blank form. I also found it impossible to edit the legends on charts - one cannot even delete them.
The spreadsheet application of Ability Office 5 has additional functions compared with Ability Office 4. However some of the additions are not the same as the equivalent Excel functions. All the new regression related functions only work on bivariate data, for example. There is now a "pivot table" feature in Ability Spreadsheet. Features such as goal seeking and "what if" analysis tables are missing from the spreadsheet.
I played with the scripting features of Ability Office Business version 5. Macros and scripting are important features in office software, I think. Anyway, the implementation in Ability Office is a built in editor and macros facility fairly similar to VBE. Macros cannot be recorded (I haven't found out how to do it, anyway), but a script based on VBScript, can be written. The online help has a somewhat thin description of the macros facility and of the Abilty Office Interface model and a very thin outline of VBScript. (A newbie would certainly be lost, I think). The script editor in Ability Office Business has some bugs. For example, I have found it impossible to copy portions of text to the clipboard and paste them back into the script at another position, or even to another program (such as Write). The majority of the help file dealing with Macros concentrates on macros for Write, and programming the database application. Not mentioned in the help file is the fact that a forms editor exists but is not directly part of the macros menu. The web page for Ability Office 4 has a document outlining how to use the forms editor, but there doesn't seem to be any material available for version 5, though the forms editor exists in version 5.
I haven't spent much time with it, but the presentations program in Ability Office 5 seems rather thin compared with Powerpoint.
Overall it is an interesting office suite with a wide range of packages for a low price. But version 5 seems to have some bugs and I haven't found Ability Office at all responsive to requests for help.
 Microsoft Boycott Starts Here: Buy Ability! August 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For your money you get ability 'write' equivalent to microsoft's 'word', ablity 'spreadsheet' equivalent to microsoft's 'excel', ability 'database' equivalent to microsoft's 'access', ability 'photopaint' equivalent to adobe's 'photoshop', ability 'presentation' equivalent to microsoft's 'powerpoint', ablity 'photoalbum' equivalent to microsoft's 'picture manager' and ablity 'draw' equivalent 'paint', all for a minuscule of the price microsoft is asking.
It's extremely compatible with microsoft office. All I did was open up a word document in ability and it immediately intergrated into the programme. None of the longwinded importing and exporting nonsense you have to do with some of the other 'equivalent to microsoft' software out there. There are some features I had to get use to; one is when I used the spellchecker. I expected it to jump out like a pop up box as in word but in ability it opens up at the side.
The dictionary options is way ahead of microsoft, (in terms of ease of use). If you want other dictionaries it's so easy to download them from the website and open. There are lots of them ranging from afrikaan to zulu. With word I remember having to faff about adding and making things default.
At the moment I can't fault this great software. I didn't have to put in a product key nor activate it, (even though it says that on the packet), I just installed it and was away. I now use it on my desktop and my laptop and I'd thoroughly recommend it to all.
A very good buy.
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