Ventura Publisher (1986) 2 Publishing MacOS

Ventura Publisher, originally from Xerox, is a professional desktop publishing program for the GEM graphical environment and later Windows. It has the distinction of being the first popular publishing program for the IBM PC platform. It competed with Aldus PageMaker, which initially was more popular on the Mac platform. There are also versions for Mac and OS/2.

• 3.x for Macintosh

Lotus Improv (1991) 3 Spreadsheet Other

Improv is a spreadsheet program that attempted to re-imagine how one would create and interact with spreadsheets. It was first released in 1991 for NeXT computers, and for a time became one of the NeXT's "Killer Apps". In 1993 Lotus released Improv 2.0 for Microsoft Windows. It was not marketed as a direct replacement to Lotus 1-2-3, and 1-2-3 remained dominant until both were overtaken by Microsoft Excel.

• 1.0

MacTools (1988) 2 Utility MacOS

Central Point MacTools is a set of disk utilities similar to Central Point PC Tools for the Apple Macintosh. It includes a file system repair tool, disk optimizer, anti virus, hex editor, and more. MacTools 4.0 Pro was the final version after Central Point was bought out by Symantec.

• PC Tools Deluxe (Mac)
• 1.x
• 2.0
• 3.0

Fontmonger (1992) 2 Utility Windows MacOS

FontMonger, from Ares Software, is a font tool that can convert fonts between many different formats, move characters between fonts, and edit characters. Publisher's Type Foundry](/product/publishers-typefoundry) font editor. At release FontMonger was considered the only practical Windows-based program for modifying fonts. However, it was not considered a professional tool as it lacked kerning and hinting controls.

• 1.5.x

Ready Set GO (1986) 0 Publishing MacOS

Ready Set GO, from Manhattan Graphics Corporation, is a desktop publishing program for the Apple Macintosh. It competed against Mac Publisher, Scoop, Quark Xpress, and PageMaker.

• 3
• 4.5
• 6.0

RightWriter (1987) 0 Utility MacOS

RightWriter is a grammar / structure checking utility. You can feed it a document, and it will produce a marked up copy listing high level critiques such as readability, delivery strength, and jargon. It competed with Grammatik, but RightWriter generally produced superior results.

• 3.x (Mac)

Cricket Graph (1989) 0 Presentations Graphics Windows MacOS

Cricket Graph, from Cricket Software and later Computer Associates, was a best selling presentation graphics program, and a companion product to CA-Cricket Presents (formerly Xerox Presents). This program can create a variety of graphs, such as line, bar and pie charts. CA-Cricket Presents can then import the graphs in to presentations.

• 1.x (Mac)

HyperCard (1988) 2 Other Database MacOS

Hypercard is a graphical card "stack" oriented application and database programming tool for the Apple Macintosh. It features hypertext and hyperlinking of graphics and buttons, and includes an easy to use scripting language called HyperTalk. In many ways, it resembled a web browser, however it had no networking capability.

• 1.x
• 2.x

Full Impact (1991) 0 Spreadsheet MacOS

Full Impact is an advanced, easy-to-use, high performance spreadsheet from Ashton-Tate. Compared to other spreadsheets of the time, its main advantage was superior graphing abilities. Full Impact sold alongside other Ashton-Tate products such as dBase, Applause, and FullWrite.

• 2.x

PrintPower (1987) 0 Publishing DOS Other

PrintPower is a tool for creating greeting cards, signs, banners, and calendars, similar to The Print Shop. It was a rather clunky low-end bottom of the bargain-barrel budget title. The later "Pro" version seems to give it a more Mac-like user interface.

• 1.x

Grammatik (1988) 0 Utility MacOS

Grammatik is a standalone grammar checker, and was possibly the first grammar checker for personal computers. Later versions were built in to Word Perfect. It competed against RightWriter.

• Mac 2.0

DiskDoubler (1990) 7 Utility Archive MacOS

DiskDoubler is an automated file compression program for the Apple Macintosh. It does not compress the entire drive, but rather specified files. It automatically compresses and recompresses files as you use them.

• 3.x

MacDraw (1986) 0 Graphics MacOS

MacDraw, originally from Apple and later Claris, was an early vector based drawing application for MacOS. The original version was released alongside the Macintosh in 1984. It could be used in conjunction with MacWrite. Unlike MacPaint, MacDraw uses shapes and lines to build drawings, where MacPaint is completely bit-mapped. In 1993 the product was renamed to ClarisDraw as a Windows port was added.

• 1.x
• II

Omnis (1985) 0 Database MacOS

Omnis, from the European based Blyth Software, is an easy to use multiuser relational database for Windows, MacOS, and OS/2. It was the first database ported to Microsoft Windows, which ran on Windows 1.0x.

• 3.x (Mac)

Borland Reflex (1985) 5 Database MacOS

Borland Reflex, first released in 1984 by Analytica and bought by Borland, is a flat file database system with a fully graphical user interface and built in graphing. The Macintosh version of Borland Reflex]was based on the Macintosh database product Interlace from Singular Software.

• 1.x (Mac)

Multiplan (1983) 4 Spreadsheet MacOS

Microsoft Multiplan was an early 8-bit spreadsheet application for CP/M and MS-DOS with ports to numerous other platforms in the early 80s. Initially it competed against VisiCalc and later Lotus 1-2-3. A companion product, Microsoft Chart, provided graphing support. Multiplan was never ported to Windows, where it was replaced with Microsoft Excel. Excel also replaced Multiplan on the Macintosh platform.

• 1.x (Mac)

Personal Newsletter (1988) 0 Publishing Other

Personal Newsletter is a simple desktop publishing tool for the Apple II.

• 2.0

dBASE Mac (1988) 0 Database MacOS

dBase Mac, originally developed by a small company named DigiCorp and then marketed by Ashton-Tate under the dBase name, was a unique and powerful database program for the Macintosh. It featured a sophisticated graphical user interface, a procedural programming language, and the ability to access data from other databases and spreadsheets. 1.00 was released in 1987.

• 1.x

FullWrite (1988) 0 Word Processor MacOS

Originally developed by Ann Arbor Softworks and Aquired by Ashton-Tate, FullWrite is a full-featured word processor, targeted at professional writers, that includes both powerful editing capabilities, as well as advanced WYSIWYG layout abilities. Supports styles, revision highlighting, table of contents, indexes, footnotes, hyphenation, spellchecker, and thesaurus. It also includes a graphics editor, and import/export functionality.

• 1.0

Microsoft Chart (1984) 0 Presentations MacOS

Microsoft Chart is a presentation graphics tool. You can use it to create line, bar, pie charts and more. It competed against titles such as PFS Graph, Chart Master, DR Graph, Harvard Presentation Graphics, and BPS Business Graphics. It was sometimes sold as a companion product to Multiplan. Microsoft later included charting functionality in Excel and PowerPoint.

• 1.0 (Mac)

FoxBASE (1987) 5 Database DOS Unix MacOS

FoxBASE, a relational database from Fox Software, started off in 1984 as a clone of dBase II that boasted many speed improvements. FoxBASE+ adds feature parity and compatibility with dBase III Plus. It was later aquired by Microsoft and became FoxPro

• Plus 1.x
• Plus 2.x

VideoWorks (1985) 1 Presentations Graphics MacOS

VideoWorks is a Macintosh animation program that eventually became Macromedia/Adobe Director.

• 1.00
• II

Copy II Mac (1987) 0 Utility MacOS

Copy II Mac is a tool for copying copy protected disks on the Apple Macintosh computer. It also includes MacTools, an enhanced file manager with disk editing and testing abilities.

• 7.x

MacDraft (1987) 0 Graphics Engineering MacOS

MacDraft is a powerful but easy to use 2D object oriented drawing environment. Supports auto dimensioning, area calculation, rotation, cursor position indicator, and much more while maintaining an appearance similar to Mac Draw. The product was targeted at users that only occasionally used a CAD program.

• 1.x

4th Dimension (1987) 1 Database MacOS

4th Dimension is a powerful and feature rich multi-user database for the Apple Macintosh. It features graphical creation of forms, reports, and graphs, a powerful programming language, and databases can be multi-user over AppleTalk networks.

• 1.x