DTP software ripens at 25!
anno 1985…

There is a little discussion going on over at the Linkedin Group called, “Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals“. Had to do with this post we did, “Quark caters Quickly to gap in service to printers left by Adobe“. Basically, those users that commented are fine with Adobe and it’s service level, even though many others, such as Frank Romano, who are a bit peeved at Adobe neglecting the market that formed DTP really. Then there was this neat little comment on that Linked in Group, which got me thinking about the interesting history of page layout applications and desktop publishing in general:

“Quark is the modern day Aldus!”
Quote by: Willie Soto Freelance Graphic Designer

If that is so, then the circle of Desktop Publishing (DTP) is near completion! Especially when you look at the history of this all important field…

History of Desktop Publishing or DTP software -
Aldus, Adobe, Macromedia and Quark – 25 years in the making…
—

• 1985 – Aldus Corp releases PageMaker for the Macintosh in July 1985, and relied on Adobe’s PostScript page description language.
• 1986 – This year sees PageMaker PC come out; Mac is by then de-facto standard in Desktop Publishing.
• 1987 – QuarkXPress jumps into the page-layout scene!
• 1987 – In 1987 Adobe Illustrator is brought on the scene.
• 1990 – This year sees Adobe’s Photoshop spring to life (Wow, 20 year anniversary for .psd!).
• 1990(?) – FreeHand is created by Altsys and licensed to Aldus and brought to illustrators around the globe*(See note below- amazing…)!
• 1990’s – The 90’s see Quark becoming the most used application in DTP, helped by their partners program for XTension developers, like Markzware, one of the longest standing still operating today.
• 1993 – PDF 1.0 and Acrobat 1.0 comes from Adobe.(see)
• 1994 – September 1994 sees Aldus merging with Adobe and PageMaker get’s new wings, but largely stays caged.
• 1995 – ‘95 sees Patrick Marchese and Ronald Crandall launching FlightCheck at Seybold S.F.
• 1996 – In 1996 QuarkXPress v 3.3 released, with stable handling of Adobe’s Postscript fonts as well as with Apple’s TrueType fonts, makes Quark the undisputed king of desktop publishing of that era.
• Quark had 90% market share in the 1990s, but was highly criticized for not innovating enough (Believe it or not, the users wanted MORE Upgrades!).
• 1997 – November 24, 1997, Markzware files for and is granted US Patent # 5,963,641 for Preflighting.
• 1999 – “K2″ is released by Adobe as InDesign v1.0 in 1999!
• 2001 – In April of 2001, PDF/X-1 and PDF/X-1a become ISO standards internationally.
• 2002 -  We see a Quark conflict with Apple and the release of Adobe InDesign 2.0, working smoothly.
• 2005 – December 3, 2005 Adobe gobbles up competitor Macromedia, solidifying the new standard in graphic arts software.
• 2005 – Version 3.0 of InDesign included in Creative Suite (CS) by Adobe with Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe PDF Acrobat.
• 2007 – In 2007 we see InDesign CS3 and Creative Suite 3 come to market. Many say, including myself from the number of CS3 files we get in, that CS3 is still the most widely used software in DTP today.
• 2008 – QuarkXPress v8.0 comes out in 2008, but the masses are rapidly switching to InDesign.
• 2008 – CS4 and Adobe InDesign CS4 released into a rough economy.
• 2010 – ???
  Sources: [FreeHand] [Aldus] [QuarkXPress] [Macromedia] [Adobe] [PDF] [PDF/X] [FlightCheck] [preflight] – Note: If you have any corrections or additions, please comment below and let us know!

  

So, is Quark the Aldus of today?  DTP 25 years in the making; no surprise thus that the Macintosh Computer is 26 years old, now is it…

Johannes Gutenberg would be amazed how easy a layout is to make these days, but perhaps disgusted on how many printing-problems can arise from “using software” as well! Thanks Willy for the comment which promoted this post!

Have a nice weekend.

* NOTE on FreeHand. This is just amazing and even more so when you see what FreeHand users, still to this day, are trying to accomplish:

“(FreeHand)It was created by Altsys and licensed to Aldus, which released versions 1 to 4. When Aldus merged with Adobe Systems, because of the overlapping of market with Illustrator, Adobe returned FreeHand to Altsys soon after the merger (after some legal wrangling, and intervention by the Federal Trade Commission). Altsys was later bought by Macromedia, which released FreeHand 5.0, 5.5 (Mac only), 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11/MX. In 2005 Adobe acquired Macromedia, thus returning the FreeHand product to Adobe.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_FreeHand

Tags: Adobe Systems, Aldus, Desktop Publishing Software, DTP applications, DTP Turns 25, freehand, History, history of DTP, InDesign, Macromedia, Markzware, Page Layout, PageMaker, preflight, Quark, QuarkXPress

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 2:14 am and is filed under Markzware News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.