This suit consists of Ability Write, Ability Spreadsheet, Ability Database, Ability Photopaint and Ability Draw, which are a word-processor, spreadsheet, database, image editor and page layout package respectively.

On the surface there is little to tell these packages apart from their MS Office equivalents, although they don't have quite the same level of functionality once you get into advanced tasks.

Ability Write has everything you could require, including full support for table creation and support for common file types. Files can now be saved as PDF documents for full cross-compatibility.

Ability Database can handle large databases and comes with a component-based querying service for easy filtering of data. Ability Spreadsheet apes MS Excel very well and poses no problems for Excel users.

The Photo and Draw packages are very competent programs, with much more than you would expect for the price.

The latest Ability Office 4 ships with a brand new interface that is somewhat similar to Microsoft Office 2003.