PageMaker and Apple’s Crucial Role in Modern Desktop Publishing Charlotte Henry

Looks back on PageMaker’s collaboration with Apple

IN JULY 1985, Aldus PageMaker 1.0 was released for the Macintosh. Along with the LaserWriter printer, it helped create the modern desktop publishing industry, with Apple devices right at the heart of it. (A version of the software for IBM PC didn’t start shipping until January 1987, and the PC release of subsequent versions trailed behind that for the Mac.)

Indeed, Apple and Aldus played off each other, with the former’s ground– breaking graphical user interface the perfect platform on which to use design software like PageMaker. The popularity of PageMaker also helped drive Macintosh sales in the mid–late 1980s and the two firms worked closely together for years.

PageMaker 1.0 included key features such as free–form drag and drop to position page elements and a variety of type and drawing tools. It also let users import text and graphics including EPS files, from third–party applications. Crucially, it offered native support for Adobe’s PostScript page description language, which had been released in 1984 and translates digital documents to printed ones. You could now see on paper what you had created on screen! Indeed, Adobe eventually acquired Aldus, along with PageMaker, Persuasion, Freehand, and other assets in 1994.

Early versions of PageMaker were generally well–received by the relevant industries. For instance, Version 3.0. was released in March 1988 and earned a ‘Distinction’ at the BYTE awards the following year. The magazine said that it remained “one of the finest desktop publishing packages” and “the program that showed many of us how to use the Macintosh to its full potential.”

The last major standalone PageMaker release came with version 7.0 in 2001. This only works on devices running macOS 9 or earlier — there was no active support for OS X, and in January 2004, Adobe discontinued development of the software. Instead, a PageMaker Plug–Pack was initially made available for InDesign, before key PageMaker features became available as part of InDesign CS2.