Desktop Publishing Turns 25
DTP software ripens at 25!
anno 1985…
RIP Steve Jobs, founder of the Macintosh, October 5, 2011
Markzware is the developer of FlightCheck, the dtp software to preflight InDesign, Quark, Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat PDF, Photoshop and more. Markzware has a Linkedin Group “Group of Prepress, Print & Color Management Professionals,” which has a discussion called “Quark caters Quickly to gap in service to printers left by Adobe”. Basically, users that commented are fine with Adobe and its service level, even though many others, such as Frank Romano, are a bit peeved at Adobe neglecting the market that formed DTP. Then there was this neat little comment, which got me thinking about the interesting history of page layout applications and desktop publishing in general:
Quote by: Willie Soto Freelance Graphic Designer
Interesting, especially when you look at the history of the all-important desktop publishing (DTP) field:
History of Desktop Publishing or DTP software -
25 years in the making…
—
- 1985 – Aldus Corp introduces PageMaker for the Macintosh in July 1985, and relied on Adobe’s PostScript page description language.
- 1986 – This year sees PageMaker PC come out; Macintosh 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.
- 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. (FlightCheck can preflight Quark documents.)
- 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! (FlightCheck can preflight InDesign documents.)
- 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 dtp software.
- 2005 – Version 3.0 of InDesign included in Creative Suite (CS) by Adobe with Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe PDF Acrobat. (FlightCheck can preflight InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and 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 – ???
Note: If you have any additions, please comment below and let us know!
With dtp 25 years old, it’s no surprise 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, not to mention Steve Jobs’ Apple iPad revolution, but perhaps disgusted at how many printing-problems can arise from “using software” as well (enough to make some companies hire freelance graphic artists in addition to their permanent graphic artists)! Thanks Willy for the comment which promoted this post!
Have a nice weekend and remember to use FlightCheck to preflight InDesign, Quark, Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop and other file types.
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