Byline 1.0

Byline was an early desktop publishing program targeted squarely at DOS users. The box proudly proclaims: "Because Byline works the way you do, you don't waste time with a mouse or a new graphics environment." It does not support mice at all. It has a WYSIWYG preview, but the interface is not interactive.

Byline might be thought of as a "middle ground" publishing program, with more functionality than a typical low-end budget oriented publishing program, but still targeted at lower-end business and home users.

It supports multiple typefaces, columns, rulers, borders, headlines, automatic kerning, bullets, and graphic sizing and scaling. It works with dot-matrix printers as well as laser printers.

It did gain a following among DOS users, but was eventually overtaken by mouse/GUI based publishing tools such as PageMaker and Ventura Publisher.

Reportedly, Byline was written in the Forth programming language.