MacWrite 4.x

MacWrite was one of two applications released with the Apple Macintosh in 1984 - the other being MacPaint. These applications defined the Macintosh, and helped define what users expected from GUI applications.

Although fairly limited on Mac 128k hardware, it featured a WYSIWYG interface, proportional fonts, embeddable images, a standard File menu, scroll bars, and windowing.

Almost all word processors developed afterward for graphical user interfaces used a similar style until around 2007. In Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft discarded standard menus in favor of their awful "ribbon" toolbar, and other webby/mobile UI nonsense.

Initially development was maintained by Encore Systems, a group of early Apple employees, and later handed off to Claris. During pre-release development, it was known as "MacAuthor".

With the move to Claris, MacWrite was rewritten and renamed to "MacWrite II" and the version numbering was reset. The name was then tweaked again to "MacWrite Pro".

Screenshots

Release notes

Again there is a version bump from 2.20 to 4.5. Version 4.5 adds the ability to store part of the document on disk rather than in memory while you edit it.

Installation instructions

Note that 4.6 requires at least a Mac 512ke.