aldus corporation

pagemaker

Aldus PageMaker was the application that defined desktop publishing. Originally ocated in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in Seattle, Aldus was founded by Paul Brainerd along with Jeremy Jaech, Mark Sundstrom, Mike Templeman, and Dave Walter.

Aldus published PageMaker, FreeHand (licensed from Altsys), Persuasion (Peter Polash), and other applications. PageMaker Mac was first released in July 1985 and PageMaker Windows in 1987. PageMaker relied on PostScript from Adobe and it can be said that the winning trio was PageMaker (Aldus), PostScript (Adobe), and the LaserWriter (Apple). Adobe purchased Aldus in 1994.

The company was named after Aldus Manutius, credited with creating italic type and the semicolon; The company logo featured two versions of Aldus Manutius’ profile.

While Aldus FreeHand and Adobe Illustrator were direct competitors, Adobe got FreeHand when they purchased Macromedia (who had already acquired Altsys). While the focus was originally PageMaker vs. Ventura Publisher, in the end the battle was PageMaker vs. QuarkXPress. Some might call Adobe InDesign PageMaker’s heir apparent.

Azalea Software, Inc., publishers of mobile phone and barcode printing software, is the only Aldus spin-off left. Founded by Jerry Whiting, Azalea Software is located in Seattle. Learn more about the Aldus spin-offs, as well as the lineage of other Washington state software companies, by studying this chart/infographic from WTIA.