1. Desktop publishing: the revolution comes

Desktop publishing is the result of a timely convergence of four symbiotic technologies: page-description programming, raster-image processing, laser printing and the Graphical User Interface; and its success in revolutionising not only the …

2. Adobe PostScript

PostScript is a page-descriptive programming language, or PDL, able to describe text as well as graphics on one page and precisely communicate this information between computer and an output device, regardless of its resolution capability …

3. Apple

In 1979, Apple, a successful young company in which Xerox had been among the first to invest, was developing its Lisa computer, the second commercial machine to utilise a Graphical User Interface*. Both Xerox and Apple knew that success …

4. Raster-image processing and printing

Raster-image processing is the conversion of vector (digital) information into a high-resolution, pixelated ('raster') image. A raster-image processor, or RIP, whether a software or firmware component, is able to interpret vector data, such as a PostScript file …

5. Digital typography

While the quality of output produced using laser-printing technology was undoubtedly impressive, it was mutually understood that, without access to popular typefaces (the tools by which the typesetting machine manufacturers distinguished themselves) …

6. The Apple Macintosh and LaserWriter

The Apple Macintosh computer was launched in January 1984, a year before the aforementioned LaserWriter, by a high-profile marketing campaign that deployed an advert directed by Ridley Scott and a national premiere during the half-time break of that year's Superbowl …

7. What You See Is What You Get

Jon Seybold had, by 1985, published widely on the potential ground-breaking possibilities raised by the convergence of PostScript, Linotype, and Apple's Macintosh and LaserWriter. He too was surprised at the apparent market failure following The Macintosh Office launch …

8. The font wars

While Adobe published the specification of its PostScript PDL 'Type 3' font format in 1984, making it freely available to laser-printer manufacturers, it kept secret the specification of the 'Type 1' font format (which utilised character hinting, essentially instructions to the RIP …

9. The portable document and direct-to-plate printing

In 1993 Adobe released its most definitive product, Acrobat, a consolidated suite of software applications, including Illustrator, PhotoShop and Acrobat Reader; programmes to be used for creating and viewing WYSIWYG documents …