Ability Support - Import/Export FAQ

This page contains FAQ's that are common to importing and exporting files in the DOS version of Ability and Ability Plus. You should return to the page specific to your version after looking at this page:

Frequently Asked Questions

Importing and Exporting from Ability 1.2
Importing and Exporting from Ability Plus

Importing and Exporting from Ability 1.2

[Applies to Ability 1.2 only]

The facilities for importing and exporting from Ability 1.2 are limited:

Write - Wordstar (import only) and ASCII
Spreadsheet - Lotus 123 v1A (import only via supplied utility) and DIF
Database - non possible

If you have anything more than a small amount of data to import/export, it may well be worth upgrading to Ability Office, or at least Ability Plus. You can then read directly all the Ability 1.2 Databases, Spreadsheets and Write documents and export them to a much wider range of formats.

To export a file, first open it from the Library screen. Select F2/Other/File/Save and enter a new file name:

MYDOC.TXT for a Write file
MYSPREAD.DIF for a Spreadsheet.

To import a file, first copy it to your working Ability directory. Next, create a new file of the type you want, either a spreadsheet or Write document. Then, select F2/Other/File/Load and enter the name of the file to import, including the extension:

MYDOC.TXT for a Write file
MYSPREAD.DIF for a Spreadsheet.

Note that the DIF format contains no formula - Ability exports only the results. There is no way to export formulas in Ability.

To convert Lotus 123 v 1A spreadsheets to Ability, you'll need the WKS utility from the Presentation disk. You need to run this from DOS, supplying the name of the Lotus file. For example,

WKS MYSPREAD.WKS

This will create an Ability file, MYSPREAD.XSS. Note that this process is one-way and you cannot convert Ability files to the Lotus format.

Importing and Exporting from Ability Plus

[Applies to Ability Plus 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0]

Import and Export Formats

Ability Plus can import and export to range of formats:

Module	Format	Import	Export	Notes
Write
	ASCII	Yes	Yes	Plain text only
	MultiMate	Yes	Yes	Early DOS format only
	PeachTree	Yes	Yes	Early DOS format only
	Rich Text Format (RTF)	Yes	Yes	Ability Plus 3.0 only
	Word	Yes	No	Early DOS format only
	WordPerfect	Yes	No	Early DOS format only
	Wordstar	Yes	No	Early DOS format only
Spreadsheet
	Data Interchange Format (DIF)	Yes	Yes	No formulae
	Lotus 123 v1A WKS files	Yes	Yes	No formulae on export
Database
	ASCII Comma-separated	Yes	Yes	No field names / formats
	dBASE II	Yes	Yes
	dBASE III	Yes	Yes

General Tips and Hints

What format should I select for export?

If you're unsure of what format to pick when sending files to a non-Ability user, try the following:

Database - dBASE III
Write - RTF for Windows users, ASCII otherwise
Spreadsheet - Lotus 123

These formats are widely recognized by other applications. Better still, check with the recipient what files they can import.

Can't import a word processing file

The word-processing import formats tend to be early versions of the particular formats listed and trying to import a later version will nearly always fail. Many word-processors have the ability to save files in the format of earlier versions and this should be requested where possible. Use ASCII as a last resort. While this will (nearly) always work, all formatting characters will be lost (bold, indents etc) and paragraphs will frequently need manually reformatting.

Importing and exporting databases

For Database, always try to stick to one of the dBASE formats. These are supported by many other applications and preserve field names and data types where possible. Try to avoid ASCII comma-seperated - see why below.

ASCII comma-seperated import/export for Database

This takes on the general format of:

"Record 1 field 1", "Field 2", "Field 3", "Field 4"
"Record 2 field 1", "Field 2", "Field 3", "Field 4"
"Record 3 field 1", "Field 2", "Field 3", "Field 4"

Only text is exported/imported - all field names and formats are lost on both import export. In addition, the import process in Ability can cause a further complication - the field widths are taken from record 1 of the import file. This means if record 2 contains, say, a longer company field than record 1, the field will be trimmed. To get around this problem, you can manually edit the import file using a text editor and pad out the field widths of record one. For these reasons, always request dBASE files wherever possible.

Importing spreadsheets

If you want to import working formulas, you must use the Lotus 1-2-3 v1A file format (a WKS file). Later versions such as wk1, wk2 etc won't work.

Unfortunately, Lotus stopped supporting this format (in Save As) when SmartSuite 97 came along (or possibly even earlier). The only sure way of saving a sheet in this format is to use Microsoft Excel!!

How to Select an Import/Export Format

Go to the Library and Country Settings screen (press F2/Ability/Library). Next, go to the particular import/export field of interest and select the option you want be pressing Enter. In general, you should leave the import format set to Automatic (if Ability can't recognize the format, it's unlikely to be able to import it).

How To Export Ability files

At the Library screen (the main, opening screen), put the cursor over the file you want to export. Press F5. Move to the bottom of the Files column and press F6 - the exported file will be added to the files list.

You can export directly to another drive or a sub-directory by pressing F6 with the cursor over a drive or directory name in the files column.

To create a spreadsheet DIF file, first open the spreadsheet. Select F2/File/Save and enter a new file name with a DIF extension, for example MYSPREAD.DIF. Note that the DIF format contains no formula - Ability exports only the results. There is no way to export formulas in Ability.

How To Import Files to Ability

Copy the file you want to import to the Ability directory (or the working directory of your choice). Start Ability in this directory - you'll see the import file listed in the Files column (if not, re-copy the file!!!).

Next, highlight the file and press F5. Move the cursor to either the Datbase, Spreadsheet or Write column, depending on the type of file you want to import, and press F6.

To import a DIF file into spreadsheet, first open a new spreadsheet. Select F2/File/Load and enter the name of the DIF file, for example MYSPREAD.DIF.