Microsoft Works (1986) 51 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database DOS

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)

The Print Shop (1984) 10 Publishing DOS

The Print Shop is a home oriented publisher capable of creating calendars, banners, greeting cards and other printable goods. It started off on the Apple II and Commodore 64 where it became popular for its simplicity and ease of use. From day one, it featured interactive editing, on-screen artwork/layout selection, print previewing, and a library of customizable clipart.

• For IBM PC (DOS)
• The NEW PS (DOS)
• Deluxe

Ability (1985) 6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database DOS

Originally released in 1984 by the Canadian company Xanaro that went bankrupt, and then by Migent, Ability is an integrated office suite for DOS that includes word processor, spreadsheet, database, telecommunications, business graphing, presentation graphics capabilities, and built in file management. It features good integration between the different components, with the ability to import, share, and dynamically update data between them. It was advertised as a very easy to use and a quick to learn system.

• 1.0
• Demo
• 1.2
• Plus 1.0
• Plus 2.0

QuickBooks (1993) 8 Financial DOS

First introduced in 1992, QuickBooks from from Intuit, is an easy to use accounting and bookkeeping program targeted at small businesses and accounting novices. It features check writing, accounts payable and receivable, invoices, cash flow forecasting, and reporting. It provides more functionality than the home-user based Quicken.

• 2.x (DOS)

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 61 Spreadsheet DOS

Lotus 1-2-3 was an early spreadsheet application available for MS-DOS. It became extremely popular in the late 1980s, displacing the former leader VisiCalc. Lotus had difficulties adapting 1-2-3 to the Windows environment, and was overtaken by Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet functionality was also included in Lotus Symphony. Later versions were included in Lotus SmartSuite.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 1A (PCJr Cart)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• Add-ins
• 4.x (DOS)

New Deal Office (1999) 4 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations DOS

Based on GeoWorks, New Deal Office was a graphical operating environment for DOS which later became Breadbox Ensemble. New Deal adds a Windows-95 like user interface with a task bar and start menu. New Deal Office targeted low-end 386 and 486 computers that were not up to the task of running Windows 95. It was also released in a "WebSuite" edition only includes the internet connectivity and web browsing tools.

• 3.1b
• 3.2a
• 2000

WordPerfect (1983) 92 Word Processor DOS

During the late 1980's, WordPerfect was THE standard word processor for DOS based PCs in big business. Under DOS, it competed mostly against Wordstar. WordPerfect for Windows enjoyed some success in the early Windows environments, but was quickly displaced by Microsoft Word for Windows. Later Windows versions were part of Borland Office/Novell PerfectOffice/Corel Office/Corel WordPerfect Office.

• 3.x (DOS)
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.0 (DOS)
• 5.1 (DOS)
• 6.x (DOS)
• 7.x (Unix)

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 32 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 1.0 (DOS)

QuarkXPress (1986) 14 Publishing DOS

QuarkXPress was THE standard publishing software during the 1990s. However it failed to update its product line to newer technologies in a timely manager, charged insane amounts for updates or additional features that should have been built in to the software, and became very abusive to their customers. Later versions required a parallel port/ADB copy protection dongle. They lost most of their market share to Adobe InDesign.

• 3.x

Quattro Pro (1987) 9 Spreadsheet DOS Windows

Quattro Pro, initially just named "Quattro", is a spreadsheet application from Borland International. It competed against Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, and had several advantages including tabbed sheets, and the ability to handle up to a million rows. Quattro Pro was the subject a lawsuit by Lotus, simply because because Quattro Pro copied their menu user interface, but Lotus claimed this was not allowed. This also affected The Twin and VP-Planner.

• 1.0
• Pro 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• SE 1.0
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.x
• 5.6 (DOS)

Quicken (1989) 6 Financial DOS Windows

Quicken, from Intuit, is a financial management tool for home users. It was first released in 1984 for DOS and later ported to Apple II, Macintosh, and Windows. Intuit also provided a more powerful product, QuickBooks, for small businesses.

• 2.x for DeskMate
• 3.x (DOS)
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.x (DOS)
• 6.0 (DOS)
• 7.x (DOS)
• 3.x (Win)
• 8.x (DOS)

Peachtree Complete Accounting (1992) 6 Financial DOS

Peachtree Accounting was originally created in 1975 by an Altair dealer, The Computer SystemCenter, in Atlanta, Georgia to help sell Altair computers. That possibly would have made it the first accounting package for personal computers.

• 6.00 (DOS)
• 8.00 (DOS)
• 9.00 (DOS)

Microsoft Word (1983) 158 Word Processor DOS OS2 Windows MacOS

The Microsoft Word word processor was first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983. Its design made use of a mouse and WYSIWYG graphics. Its crude WYSIWYG/mouse support was a direct response to the Apple Lisa/Mac, and VisiCorp Visi On. Initially it competed against many popular word processors such as WordStar, Multimate, and WordPerfect. Word for DOS was never really successful.

• 1.x (DOS)
• 2.x (DOS)
• 3.x (DOS)
• 4.0 (DOS)
• 5.x (DOS and OS/2)
• 6.x

Managing Your Money (1989) 5 Financial DOS

Managing Your Money is your easy-to-use personal finance manager. MYM has all you'll need to take control of your finances. You can automate your checking account, track credit investments, reduce your debts, plan your savings, decide whether to refinance your mortgage, and much more. You don't have to use all this at first or ever. But it's nice to know its all here when you need it. It is sometimes titled as "Andrew Tobias' Managing Your Money".

• 5.0
• 7.0
• 8.0
• 9.0
• 11.0
• 12.0

HiJaak (1991) 7 Graphics Publishing DOS

The original HiJaak program, from Inset Systems, is a powerful screen capture tool and image converter that can perform batch conversion between a large number of formats. The later Windows version are a powerful raster-to-vector graphics conversion and editing tool that can convert between a huge number of bitmap and vector file formats.

• 2.x (DOS)

Policies Now! (1993) 0 Utility Publishing DOS

Policies Now is a document creation wizard that specializes in corporate policies. It provides general purpose templates with carefully constructed language that are customized via a series of questions. The results may be manually customized further with a built in text editor. accompanied by "DescriptionsWrite Now!" (A job description writing tool), and "Personal Policy Expert". These were renamed to "Policies Now!", "Description Now!", and "Policies Now! HR Pro Edition" respectively.

• 1.30

Aslightly LabelPro (1991) 1 Publishing DOS

Aslightly LabelPro is a label printing utility for use in conjunction with Aslightly label products. It supports mail merge, graphics and text, postal bar codes, and includes clipart.

• 1.x (DOS)

XyWrite (1984) 2 Word Processor DOS

XyWrite is a word processor for MS-DOS and Windows modeled on the mainframe-based ATEX typesetting system. Popular with writers and editors for its speed and degree of customization, XyWrite was in its heyday the house word processor in many editorial offices, including the New York Times from 1989 to 1993. XyWrite was developed by David Erickson and marketed by XyQuest from 1982 through 1992, after which it was acquired by The Technology Group. The final version for MS-DOS was 4.18 (1993); for Windows, 4.13. An offshoot descendant of XyWrite called Nota Bene is still being actively developed.

• II Plus v1.10
• 4

Corel Presentations (1995) 0 Presentations DOS

Corel Presentations (which is often referred to simply as Presentations) is a presentation program akin to Microsoft PowerPoint and OpenOffice.org Impress.

• 2.x

WordStar (1981) 66 Word Processor DOS CPM

WordStar, originally from MicroPro, was a popular word processor during the early 80s. It was ported to a number of CP/M architectures as well as Unix and PC/MS-DOS. It competed directly against many word processors, including WordPerfect, Microsoft Word for DOS, and Multimate. By the late 80s most business word processing had moved to WordPerfect. In the early 90s, Microsoft Word for Windows took over.

• 3.30
• for PCjr
• 2000
• 4.0
• 1512
• 5.0
• COLT
• 5.5
• 6
• 7

Publish-IT (1988) 1 Publishing DOS

Publish-It! is a WYSIWYG desktop publishing tool originally created by the UK based GST Software for the TOS/GEM Atari ST system. There were versions for IBM PC/GEM, Apple II, Macintosh (as "Publish-It! Easy"), and later Microsoft Windows. desktop publishing tools, it is not a full word processor, but rather imports text and focuses on high-quality formatting and printing. budget title for home users. SoftKey also released a version branded as Key Publisher

• 1.x
• 2.0

Professional Write (1986) 3 Word Processor DOS

Professional Write, from Software Publishing Corporation, was a popular word processor for home use during the late 80s and early 90s. It features an easy to use menu system and an integrated spell checker. Professional Write was a revamp and replacement for SPC's earlier PFS:Write.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0

QuickPay (1994) 0 Financial DOS

Intuit QuickPay is a payroll management tool that works on top of Quicken. It Includes customizable payroll account/category names, tracking of emplyees' work, sick and vacation hours.

• 3.0

VEDIT (1981) 3 Word Processor Editor DOS

VEDIT, from CompuView, is an extremely powerful, flexible, and customizable editor designed for power users and programmers. It can handle extremely huge files. It has a programmable command mode that can be used to automatically perform complex operations on files. It features a completely customizable keyboard layout and special features for editing programming language source files. supported a large number of terminal types.

• 1.x
• Plus 2.x
• Plus 4.x

MoneyCounts (1989) 0 Financial DOS

MoneyCounts is a simple and powerful personal accounting software program from Parsons Technology. This was popular for PCs in the 80s and in 1995 was sold to Intuit, makers of Quicken.

• 6.0
• 8.0