Microsoft Works (1986) 154 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database MacOS 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.

• 3.x (Mac)
• 3.x (Win)
• 4.0
• 4.5

AppleWorks (1986) 8 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database MacOS

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

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 67 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

The Print Shop (1984) 23 Publishing MacOS Windows

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.

• Deluxe 1.x (Mac)
• Deluxe 2.0 (Win)
• Deluxe III
• Premier 5.x (Win)

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 70 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database Windows OS2

IBM/Lotus SmartSuite is an office suite from Lotus software for Windows and OS/2. SmartSuite includes SmartCenter, 1-2-3, Word Pro, Freelance Graphics, Approach, Organizer, and ScreenCam.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• For OS/2
• 4.0
• 96
• 97

Ability (1985) 8 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database DOS Windows

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.

• Plus 2.0
• 1.5 for Windows

Microsoft Office (1991) 449 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.

• 4.0
• 4.2
• 4.3
• 95
• 97/98

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 113 Spreadsheet OS2 DOS Windows

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.

• 2.x (OS/2)
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.x (Win)
• 97 (Win)
• 9.5 (Office)

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 22 Graphics Publishing Novelty Windows

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.

• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0

Microsoft Project (1984) 26 Planning Windows

Microsoft Project is a project management chart and gantt chart generator. It is a Microsoft Office family member, and built on the Office code, although it has never shipped with any Office suite.

• 4.0
• 95
• 98

CorelDraw! (1989) 80 Graphics Publishing Windows 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.

• 4.0
• 5.0
• 3.5 (Unix)
• 6.0

Microsoft FrontPage (1995) 36 Publishing Windows

Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG HTML editor/Cuisinart for Microsoft Windows.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 97 (v2)

Adobe PageMill (1997) 20 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 Greetings (1997) 2 Publishing Novelty Windows

Microsoft Greetings is a greeting card maker for Microsoft Windows 9x/NT. It was made in conjunction with Hallmark.

• Workshop 2.0

Microsoft Excel (1985) 130 Spreadsheet Windows MacOS

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

• 5.x
• 95 (7.0)
• 97/98 (8.0)

Microsoft Publisher (1991) 18 Publishing Windows

Publisher is a desktop publishing tool from Microsoft geared towards ease of use with the home user. Microsoft publisher can be used to created professional looking newsletters, flyers, forms, and more. It includes guides and wizards that walk users through creation of common document types, while still offering powerful flexibility.

• 2.0
• 95 (3.0)
• 97 (4.0)
• 98 (5.0)

Xerox Globalview (1992) 4 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Publishing Communications Database Unix Windows

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).

• 1.05 for X / SunOS
• 2.1 for Windows
• 2.3 for Windows

QuarkXPress (1986) 29 Publishing DOS Windows

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.

• 3.x
• 4.0

Quattro Pro (1987) 36 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.

• 5.x
• 6.x (Win)
• 5.6 (DOS)

ClarisWorks (1991) 16 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.

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

Adobe Streamline (1992) 7 Graphics Publishing Windows

Adobe Streamline is an image conversion and manipulation tool that aids conversion of bit-mapped images in to PostScript line art for use in tools such as Adobe Illustrator.

• 4.0

The Print Shop PressWriter (1997) 1 Publishing Windows

The Print Shop PressWriter, from Broderbund, is a desktop publishing tool aimed at novice users. It comes with a simplified selection of pre-defined templates for newsletters, flyers, reports, resumes, brochures, and booklets. It includes a selection of extra fonts and clipart. It competed against PrintMaster Gold. Some versions were bundled with The Print Shop Deluxe for Windows.

• 1.0

Adobe Dimensions (1992) 1 Graphics Publishing MacOS Windows

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.

• 2.0
• 3.0

Xoom OfficeSuite (1997) 1 Word Processor Spreadsheet Graphics Windows

Xoom OfficeSuite 97 is a half-assed office suite based around WordStar 2.0 for Windows. It includes the Xoom Word Pro 1.0 word processor, Xoom Calc 1.0 spreadsheet, and Xoom Photo 1.0 image editor. It seems it was targeted at budget users and system bundles.

• 97

Corel Office (1996) 11 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Windows

Corel Office is a software bundle that includes WordPerfect and a number of other office applications. It competed unsuccessfully against Microsoft Office. This bundle started out as "Borland Office", was briefly known as "Novell PerfectOffice", then "Corel Office", and under Corel it later became "WordPerfect Office". (Not to be confused with the unrelated ~1990 groupware program, also called "WordPerfect Office")

• 6.1
• 7