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MacWrite was released in 1984. 7 years before comparable graphical, WYSIWYG competitors. WordPerfect for Windows was released in 1991. Prior versions were MS-D

MacWrite was released in 1984. 7 years before comparable graphical, WYSIWYG competitors. WordPerfect for Windows was released in 1991. Prior versions were MS-DOS and not graphical. WordStar for Windows was released in about 1991. Prior versions were MS-DOS and not graphical. What made MacWrite special, is that it was graphical, highly WYSIWYG (especially when paired with an Apple printer), had a lot of great fonts, and the software was intuitive. Of course Apple didn't invent any of it, but they made one of the best word processing products at the time.

jpadkins 2y ago
How do you measure best? Based on usage, sales, or fraction of published text created - Wordperfect or Wordstar were way ahead of MacWrite. MacWrite was the best in a niche market of personal newsletters that wanted graphical elements. More professional desktop publishers used Aldus PageMaker. And big publishing houses didn't use PCs or software, they used offset lithography presses.
- philistine 2y ago
  It's like you decided to completely disregard that the successor of MacWrite ended up completely eating all the use cases for making documents outside of the large-scale professional uses. MacWrite begat Microsoft Word 3.01, which is when Word overtook MacWrite on Mac and became truly competitive with WordPerfect on DOS.
  - jpadkins 2y ago
    So your basis for saying "one of the best word processing products at the time." is that a different company made a different product inspired by it (and WordPerfect)? I don't think that is a persuasive argument. If you said MacWrite was an innovative word processor, I would not have replied. Most innovative is not always the best product at the time.
    - runjake 2y ago
      You're replying to a commenter here, not the OP. I am the actual OP. If you're concerned by my use of the word "best", please replace that word with "innovative for consumers". If you have an issue with this new wording, then we'll have to agree to disagree. While MacWrite may or may not have been "niche" as you said, it most definitely heavily influenced another "niche" word processor available today: Microsoft Word. Word for Mac (1985) was the first graphical version of Word and it was heavily inspired by MacWrite.
      - philistine 2y ago
        OP to the rescue!
      - jpadkins 2y ago
        100% agreed on "innovative for consumers". carry on :-)
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Except if we disregard the tiny market share Apple enjoyed across the globe in those days.
deng 2y ago
> MacWrite was released in 1984. 7 years before comparable graphical, WYSIWYG competitors. You realize there were other systems besides PC and Mac? Signum for the Atari ST came out in 1986. It was a fully fledged WYSIWYG text processor with special printer drivers for regular dot matrix printers. Even with a 9-pin you could create great looking output, if you had the patience (a single page took minutes to print). Signum was way ahead of MacWrite and was very popular with people needing special fonts in science/math and the humanities (you could quite easily design your own fonts). Also, it allowed for Right-to-left text, and of course the Atari ST was way cheaper than the Mac.
- runjake 2y ago
  *> You realize there were other systems besides PC and Mac?* Yep, I do. I was an Atari ST, then Amiga user until long past when those platforms were considered alive. :-) But in terms of influence, MacWrite had more (eg. Microsoft Word for Mac). For general consumer use, I found MacWrite much better than Signum. But I can see your point in terms of academics and non-English speakers. BTW, if anyone's curious, I believe the actual first WYSIWYG word processor was probably Bravo[1]. And Bravo somewhat influenced MacWrite. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(editor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(editor)
  - canucker2016 2y ago
    LisaWrite predates MacWrite by about one year.
RichardCA 2y ago
With all due respect, I think you are falling into the nostalgia trap. MacWrite was never a true WYSIWYG editor because of the way it relied on Quickdraw for the on-screen rendering but the big deal at the time was the Laserwriter being the first Postscript printer (Adobe still had a proprietary lock on Postscript which lasted until around the end of the 80's). In 1985 Steve Jobs left Apple and started NeXT. One of their first products was the WriteNow word processor which was ported back to the Mac platform by a company called T/Maker (the Silicon Valley rumor mill of the time was that Steve Jobs and Heidi Roizen were an item for a while). WriteNow was the first one to offer a polished experience with proper font rendering and kerning that didn't look rasterized. God forbid you tried to print from MacWrite with font smoothing turned on, a one-page print job could take several minutes to render because of how the Laserwriter had to execute all that Postscript code in real-time.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  It was WYSIWYG when used with an ImageWriter printer.
- robenkleene 2y ago
  > With all due respect, I think you are falling into the nostalgia trap. MacWrite was never a true WYSIWYG editor because of the way it relied on Quickdraw for the on-screen rendering I read your whole comment, but I still don't understand what this means. E.g., why does relying on Quickdraw for on-screen rendering not make it a "true WYSIWYG editor"?
Aloisius 2y ago
7 years? Microsoft Word for Mac was released in 1985. It was comparable to MacWrite. Also Microsoft Write for Windows was released in 1985, but it was clunkier.
- runjake 2y ago
  Yep, I goofed there. Important to note that Word for Mac was heavily inspired by MacWrite. And became a better word processing app as a result of it. Thanks for the correction.

jpadkins 2y ago

How do you measure best? Based on usage, sales, or fraction of published text created - Wordperfect or Wordstar were way ahead of MacWrite. MacWrite was the best in a niche market of personal newsletters that wanted graphical elements. More professional desktop publishers used Aldus PageMaker. And big publishing houses didn't use PCs or software, they used offset lithography presses.

philistine 2y ago
It's like you decided to completely disregard that the successor of MacWrite ended up completely eating all the use cases for making documents outside of the large-scale professional uses. MacWrite begat Microsoft Word 3.01, which is when Word overtook MacWrite on Mac and became truly competitive with WordPerfect on DOS.
- jpadkins 2y ago
  So your basis for saying "one of the best word processing products at the time." is that a different company made a different product inspired by it (and WordPerfect)? I don't think that is a persuasive argument. If you said MacWrite was an innovative word processor, I would not have replied. Most innovative is not always the best product at the time.
  - runjake 2y ago
    You're replying to a commenter here, not the OP. I am the actual OP. If you're concerned by my use of the word "best", please replace that word with "innovative for consumers". If you have an issue with this new wording, then we'll have to agree to disagree. While MacWrite may or may not have been "niche" as you said, it most definitely heavily influenced another "niche" word processor available today: Microsoft Word. Word for Mac (1985) was the first graphical version of Word and it was heavily inspired by MacWrite.
    - philistine 2y ago
      OP to the rescue!
    - jpadkins 2y ago
      100% agreed on "innovative for consumers". carry on :-)
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Except if we disregard the tiny market share Apple enjoyed across the globe in those days.

deng 2y ago

> MacWrite was released in 1984. 7 years before comparable graphical, WYSIWYG competitors. You realize there were other systems besides PC and Mac? Signum for the Atari ST came out in 1986. It was a fully fledged WYSIWYG text processor with special printer drivers for regular dot matrix printers. Even with a 9-pin you could create great looking output, if you had the patience (a single page took minutes to print). Signum was way ahead of MacWrite and was very popular with people needing special fonts in science/math and the humanities (you could quite easily design your own fonts). Also, it allowed for Right-to-left text, and of course the Atari ST was way cheaper than the Mac.

runjake 2y ago
*> You realize there were other systems besides PC and Mac?* Yep, I do. I was an Atari ST, then Amiga user until long past when those platforms were considered alive. :-) But in terms of influence, MacWrite had more (eg. Microsoft Word for Mac). For general consumer use, I found MacWrite much better than Signum. But I can see your point in terms of academics and non-English speakers. BTW, if anyone's curious, I believe the actual first WYSIWYG word processor was probably Bravo[1]. And Bravo somewhat influenced MacWrite. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(editor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(editor)
- canucker2016 2y ago
  LisaWrite predates MacWrite by about one year.

RichardCA 2y ago

With all due respect, I think you are falling into the nostalgia trap. MacWrite was never a true WYSIWYG editor because of the way it relied on Quickdraw for the on-screen rendering but the big deal at the time was the Laserwriter being the first Postscript printer (Adobe still had a proprietary lock on Postscript which lasted until around the end of the 80's). In 1985 Steve Jobs left Apple and started NeXT. One of their first products was the WriteNow word processor which was ported back to the Mac platform by a company called T/Maker (the Silicon Valley rumor mill of the time was that Steve Jobs and Heidi Roizen were an item for a while). WriteNow was the first one to offer a polished experience with proper font rendering and kerning that didn't look rasterized. God forbid you tried to print from MacWrite with font smoothing turned on, a one-page print job could take several minutes to render because of how the Laserwriter had to execute all that Postscript code in real-time.

Aloisius 2y ago
It was WYSIWYG when used with an ImageWriter printer.
robenkleene 2y ago
> With all due respect, I think you are falling into the nostalgia trap. MacWrite was never a true WYSIWYG editor because of the way it relied on Quickdraw for the on-screen rendering I read your whole comment, but I still don't understand what this means. E.g., why does relying on Quickdraw for on-screen rendering not make it a "true WYSIWYG editor"?

Aloisius 2y ago

7 years? Microsoft Word for Mac was released in 1985. It was comparable to MacWrite. Also Microsoft Write for Windows was released in 1985, but it was clunkier.

runjake 2y ago
Yep, I goofed there. Important to note that Word for Mac was heavily inspired by MacWrite. And became a better word processing app as a result of it. Thanks for the correction.