Microsoft Works (1986) 139 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database MacOS DOS Windows

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 1.x (Mac)
• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• 3.x (Mac)
• 4.0

AppleWorks (1986) 3 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database MacOS Mac OS X

AppleWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool. The original product was a text-based product for the Apple II. The Apple Macintosh and Windows versions were forked from ClarisWorks in 1998 by Apple. At the time, Apple was under a lot of pressure to have a direct alternative to Microsoft Office. There were serious concerns that Microsoft might pull Microsoft Office for the Macintosh from development.

• 5.x
• 6.x

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 48 Publishing MacOS Windows Unix

Adobe Acrobat, first released in 1993, is a tool for creating portable electronic documents. Its documents retain complex formatting when used across differing systems, so that they appear identical when viewed on screen or printed to a printer. Acrobat accomplishes this by encapsulating Adobe's PostSript printer language in to a document file format and offering the ability to embed fonts that are not present on the target system.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

The Print Shop (1984) 41 Publishing DOS MacOS

The Print Shop is a home oriented publisher capable of creating calendars, banners, greeting cards and other printable goods. It started off on the Apple II and Commodore 64 where it became popular for its simplicity and ease of use. From day one, it featured interactive editing, on-screen artwork/layout selection, print previewing, and a library of customizable clipart.

• For IBM PC (DOS)
• 1.x (Mac)
• The NEW PS (DOS)
• Deluxe
• Deluxe 1.x (Mac)

Ability (1985) 6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database DOS

Originally released in 1984 by the Canadian company Xanaro that went bankrupt, and then by Migent, Ability is an integrated office suite for DOS that includes word processor, spreadsheet, database, telecommunications, business graphing, presentation graphics capabilities, and built in file management. It features good integration between the different components, with the ability to import, share, and dynamically update data between them. It was advertised as a very easy to use and a quick to learn system.

• 1.0
• Demo
• 1.2
• Plus 1.0
• Plus 2.0

Microsoft Office (1991) 379 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Office is a bundle of Microsoft's productivity application. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and later Mail, Office Manager, and Outlook. The "1.x" versions of Microsoft Office were simply a marketing bundle of the standalone products sold together with no other packaging changes. Even though these were distinct applications, rather than one single monolithic program, they shared a similar user interface, integrated well together and shared the ability to embed documents from one application in the documents of another.

• 2.x
• 4.3
• 97/98
• 2001 (Mac)

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 93 Spreadsheet DOS Unix MacOS

Lotus 1-2-3 was an early spreadsheet application available for MS-DOS. It became extremely popular in the late 1980s, displacing the former leader VisiCalc. Lotus had difficulties adapting 1-2-3 to the Windows environment, and was overtaken by Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet functionality was also included in Lotus Symphony. Later versions were included in Lotus SmartSuite.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 1A (PCJr Cart)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• Add-ins
• 1.x (Unix)
• 1.x (Mac)
• 4.x (DOS)

New Deal Office (1999) 8 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations DOS

Based on GeoWorks, New Deal Office was a graphical operating environment for DOS which later became Breadbox Ensemble. New Deal adds a Windows-95 like user interface with a task bar and start menu. New Deal Office targeted low-end 386 and 486 computers that were not up to the task of running Windows 95. It was also released in a "WebSuite" edition only includes the internet connectivity and web browsing tools.

• 3.1b
• 3.2a
• 2000

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 17 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 1.0 (DOS)

CorelDraw! (1989) 59 Graphics Publishing Unix

Corel Draw is a vector based drawing and illustration program. It is primarily a Windows application, but was ported to Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, CTOS and OS/2. It competed against Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and Micrografx Designer.

• 3.5 (Unix)

Adobe PageMill (1997) 3 Publishing MacOS

PageMill, from Adobe, is a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get web page authoring tool. It was discontinued in February 2000, due to the acquisition and promotion of Adobe GoLive.

• 2.0

Microsoft Excel (1985) 102 Spreadsheet MacOS OS2 Windows

Excel, from Microsoft, is a powerful spreadsheet application for Mac, Windows, and OS/2. Excel was first released for the Mac. When it was ported to Windows 2.x, they started at version "2.0" to one up current Mac version. There was never a DOS version. Instead, DOS and 8-bit platforms used the older Microsoft Multiplan. Excel was later bundled as part of Microsoft Office

• 1.x
• 2.2
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x

Xerox Globalview (1992) 2 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Publishing Communications Database Unix

Xerox Globalview is a desktop environment and office suite originally developed for the Xerox Star. It was developed in the MESA programming language on the Xerox Star, and ported to Sun Solaris, OS/2, and Windows 3.1 (The OS/2 version requires a MESA emulator card).

• 1.00 for X / SunOS
• 1.05 for X / SunOS

QuarkXPress (1986) 43 Publishing MacOS DOS

QuarkXPress was THE standard publishing software during the 1990s. However it failed to update its product line to newer technologies in a timely manager, charged insane amounts for updates or additional features that should have been built in to the software, and became very abusive to their customers. Later versions required a parallel port/ADB copy protection dongle. They lost most of their market share to Adobe InDesign.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x

Quattro Pro (1987) 34 Spreadsheet DOS Windows

Quattro Pro, initially just named "Quattro", is a spreadsheet application from Borland International. It competed against Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, and had several advantages including tabbed sheets, and the ability to handle up to a million rows. Quattro Pro was the subject a lawsuit by Lotus, simply because because Quattro Pro copied their menu user interface, but Lotus claimed this was not allowed. This also affected The Twin and VP-Planner.

• 1.0
• Pro 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• SE 1.0
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.x
• 5.6 (DOS)

ClarisWorks (1991) 24 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Publishing Database Windows MacOS

ClarisWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool from Claris. In 1998, after version 5.0.2, ClairsWorks was purchased by Apple and re-branded under the "AppleWorks" name. It is not related to the Apple II AppleWorks product.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• For Kids 1.0

Adobe Dimensions (1992) 0 Graphics Publishing MacOS

Adobe Dimensions was a low cost 3-d object editing and rendering program. Unlike other 3d rendering programs, Dimensions is specifically geared towards producing illustrations for print. programs, such as Adobe Illustrator or Freehand, and edited to create 3d objects. Then, instead of outputting a pixilated raster image, it outputs in postscript bezier curves, which can then be further processed by other 2d illustration packages.

• 1.0
• 2.0

HiJaak (1991) 7 Graphics Publishing DOS

The original HiJaak program, from Inset Systems, is a powerful screen capture tool and image converter that can perform batch conversion between a large number of formats. The later Windows version are a powerful raster-to-vector graphics conversion and editing tool that can convert between a huge number of bitmap and vector file formats.

• 2.x (DOS)

Policies Now! (1993) 3 Utility Publishing DOS

Policies Now is a document creation wizard that specializes in corporate policies. It provides general purpose templates with carefully constructed language that are customized via a series of questions. The results may be manually customized further with a built in text editor. accompanied by "DescriptionsWrite Now!" (A job description writing tool), and "Personal Policy Expert". These were renamed to "Policies Now!", "Description Now!", and "Policies Now! HR Pro Edition" respectively.

• 1.30

Aslightly LabelPro (1991) 3 Publishing DOS

Aslightly LabelPro is a label printing utility for use in conjunction with Aslightly label products. It supports mail merge, graphics and text, postal bar codes, and includes clipart.

• 1.x (DOS)

PageMaker (1987) 84 Publishing Windows MacOS

Aldus PageMaker, later Adobe PageMaker, is a desktop publishing program for Mac and Windows. First released in 1985, PageMaker was the first desktop publishing program for the Macintosh. It was followed over a year later with the release of 1.0 for the IBM PC. The PC version was a notable application as it was one of the few rare applications which would run under Windows 1.x. PC PageMaker 1.0 bundled a runtime version of Windows. This enabled MS-DOS users who had not decided to buy Windows to run PageMaker. Aldus skipped version 2.0 on the PC to bring version number in sync with the 3.0 Mac product.

• 5.0

FreeHand (1988) 10 Graphics Publishing MacOS

FreeHand is a vector based drawing program used to create illustrations. It is similar to CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator. Initially it offered more features and flexibility than illustrator. It was created by Altsys, sold through Aldus, then sold to Macromedia, and then finally was assimilated by Adobe. Later versions repositioned itself as a content creation system for the web through Flash. The final version was Freehand MX (version 11) in 2003.

• 1.0
• 2.0

FrameMaker (1990) 3 Publishing Unix MacOS Other Windows

FrameMaker, originally from Frame Technology Corporation and later Adobe, is a professional document system for creating large, complex documents with highly structured layout. It was often accompanied by FrameReader.

• 2.x
• 4.x

Publish-IT (1988) 6 Publishing DOS MacOS

Publish-It! is a WYSIWYG desktop publishing tool originally created by the UK based GST Software for the TOS/GEM Atari ST system. There were versions for IBM PC/GEM, Apple II, Macintosh (as "Publish-It! Easy"), and later Microsoft Windows. desktop publishing tools, it is not a full word processor, but rather imports text and focuses on high-quality formatting and printing. budget title for home users. SoftKey also released a version branded as Key Publisher

• 1.x
• Easy 2.x
• 2.0

PasteUp (1992) 4 Publishing Unix

PasteUp is a text processing system that can arrange columns of text, provide typographical control, draw shapes, and other effects.

• 2.0
• 2.5