Ability (1985) 4 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database 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.

• 1.5 for Windows
• 2000
• 2002

ACT! (1987) 91 PIM Windows

ACT!, or "Activity Control Technology", originally from Conductor Software, and later Contact Software and then Symantec, is an easy to use business relationship management system targeted at traveling sales professionals. It can track things like billable time and expenses.

• 3.0
• 4.0
• 2000

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 86 Publishing Windows Unix MacOS

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.

• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

Adobe Dimensions (1992) 9 Graphics Publishing 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.

• 3.0

Adobe InDesign (1999) 5 Publishing Windows

Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing tool that replaced Aldus/Adobe PageMaker. Initially it competed with Quark XPress

• 1.0
• 1.5
• 2.0

Adobe PageMill (1997) 6 Publishing MacOS Windows

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
• 3.0

Adobe PressReady (1999) 1 Publishing Windows

Adobe PressReady is a professional printing and proofing tool that was aimed for selected inkjet printers to allow better color reproduction from screen to print. Requires Windows 95/98 with at least 48 MB RAM, otherwise NT 4.0 with 64 MB RAM. Supported printer models were: Canon BJC-8500, Epson Stylus Color 800, 850, 1520, and 3000, and HP DeskJet 895C, 1120C, and 2000C. The choice of printers were supposedly what inkjet printers graphic designers were using at the time.

• 1.0

Adobe Streamline (1992) 2 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

America Online (1992) 3 Web Browser Chat Windows

America Online was a proprietary dial-up online service that eventually grew to offerer Internet access. In the mid 1990s AOL was very heavily promoted. Every month or two, you were sure to get a free AOL floppy disk or CD-ROM in the mail. AOL originated as PC-Link.

• 2.x
• 3.0

AOL Instant Messenger (1998) 1 Chat Windows

AOL Instant Messenger is a once-popular messaging client popularized by America Online.

• 1.0

AppleWorks (1986) 9 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

Arts and Letters Graphics Editor (1989) 0 Publishing Windows

Arts & Letters, from Computer Support Corporation, is an easy to use line based illustration package. It competed against Corel Draw, and Micrografx Designer. Features include multitasking, rotation, different viewing levels, shading, color, and image combining. The first version was for MS-DOS, and version 2 ran under Windows 2. It later repositioned itself as a sign/banner type program like the Print Shop.

• 5.0
• 6.0

Aslightly LabelPro (1991) 0 Publishing Windows

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.

• 3.x (Win)

Business Contact Manager (2002) 0 PIM Windows

An add-on for Microsoft Outlook

• 2003

Calendar Creator Plus (1990) 3 Novelty PIM Windows

Calendar Creator Plus from Vermont Creative Software/Power Up, and later Spinnaker Software, is a tool for creating printed calendars with different styles and custom lists of events.

• 4.0 (Win)
• 5.0 (Win)
• 7.0 (Win)

Claris Organizer (1995) 0 PIM MacOS

Claris Organizer is an easy to use personal information management (PIM) program for the classic Mac OS. It integrates calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes in to one small lightweight application. It has a variety of flexible print option and can print mailing labels. It competed with the Apple Newton PDA. Claris Organizer was praised for its small size and well thought out interface. It was sold to Palm when Claris was broken up, and was used as the basis for the Palm Desktop for Mac.

• 1.0
• 2.0

ClarisWorks (1991) 9 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.

• 4.x
• 5.x
• For Kids 1.0

Corel Office (1996) 4 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

CorelDraw! (1989) 62 Graphics Publishing Unix Windows

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)
• 6.0
• 7.0

Deneba Canvas (1994) 0 Graphics Publishing Windows

Deneba Canvas is a shape based drawing and illustration program for the PC and mac. Unlike other publishing programs of the time, Canvas combined the ability to use vector graphics and raster images. It could also function as a word processor.

• 5.x

Expert Stationery Shop (1998) 0 Publishing Windows

Expert Stationery Shop is a budget-oriented graphics program that specialized in quickly and easily creating glitzy looking business related documents, such as letterhead, envelopes, fax cover sheets, business cards, signs, and awards. It features specialized clipart, extra TrueType fonts, extra text effects, and a logo creation tool.

• 1.0

FontMinder (1993) 0 Utility Publishing Windows

FontMinder, by Dennis Harrington & Costas Kistos, is a font management tool that streamlines the installation and archival of Windows TrueType and Adobe Type Manager fonts.

• 2.5

FrameMaker (1990) 0 Publishing 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.

• 5.0

FrameReader (1996) 2 Publishing Windows

FrameReader is a document viewer for Frame Technology/Adobe FrameMaker.

• 5.x

FreeHand (1988) 0 Graphics Publishing Windows

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.

• 5.0