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Print Magic

Print Magic is a personal publishing program released in 1988 by Epyx for the Apple II and MS-DOS. It competed directly with The Print Shop by Broderbund, offering users tools to create customized documents like greeting cards, invitations, certificates, and banners. Its Macintosh-like GUI featured pull-down menus and icons, which was unusual for the time. Print Magic’s clip art was higher resolution and scalable, and it could import clip art and fonts from programs such as The Print Shop and Fontrix. Notably, its three disks were not copy-protected, allowing users to make working copies, and its layout flexibility and zoom function enabled pixel-precise graphic placement.

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Reception

Print Magic was universally praised for its ease of use, versatility and high-quality graphics, especially compared to contemporary offerings. Duncan Teague of Compute! gave the program a favorable review saying, "Print Magic provides solutions to nearly every drawback you've encountered with other printing programs... With its ease of use, intuitive interface, exquisite graphics and text, and superior documentation, Print Magic delivers a fine performance."10 Peter Staek of Apple2000 said it "combines the virtues of versatility and easy operation," and, "it is a splendid alternative (or complement) to Print Shop".11 The only criticisms of the program were that it only allowed printing in black and white and that a fairly new ribbon should be used when printing.12

Legacy

Print Magic was later incorporated into another Epyx product, Studio of Greetings. Studio of Greetings used Print Magic as its engine to create a variety of greeting cards for any occasion. Released in 1992, Studio of Greetings was available only for MS-DOS.13

References

  1. Teague, Duncan (May 1988). "Print Magic". Compute!: 70. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/1988-05-compute-magazine ↩

  2. "Print Magic Instruction Manual for Apple II". Epyx. 1987. https://archive.org/details/PrintMagicInstructionManualForAppleII1987Epyx ↩

  3. Teague, Duncan (May 1988). "Print Magic". Compute!: 70. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/1988-05-compute-magazine ↩

  4. Shannon, L.R. (June 23, 1992). "PERIPHERALS; Wishing A Merry Unbirthday To All of Us". The New York Times. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/23/science/peripherals-wishing-a-merry-unbirthday-to-all-of-us.html ↩

  5. Stark, Peter (June 1989). "Print Magic". Apple2000: 21. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/Apple2000_Vol_4_No_3_June_1989 ↩

  6. Stark, Peter (June 1989). "Print Magic". Apple2000: 21. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/Apple2000_Vol_4_No_3_June_1989 ↩

  7. Teague, Duncan (May 1988). "Print Magic". Compute!: 70. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/1988-05-compute-magazine ↩

  8. Teague, Duncan (May 1988). "Print Magic". Compute!: 70. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/1988-05-compute-magazine ↩

  9. Stark, Peter (June 1989). "Print Magic". Apple2000: 21. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/Apple2000_Vol_4_No_3_June_1989 ↩

  10. Teague, Duncan (May 1988). "Print Magic". Compute!: 70. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/1988-05-compute-magazine ↩

  11. Stark, Peter (June 1989). "Print Magic". Apple2000: 21. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/Apple2000_Vol_4_No_3_June_1989 ↩

  12. Stark, Peter (June 1989). "Print Magic". Apple2000: 21. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://archive.org/details/Apple2000_Vol_4_No_3_June_1989 ↩

  13. Shannon, L.R. (June 23, 1992). "PERIPHERALS; Wishing A Merry Unbirthday To All of Us". The New York Times. Retrieved July 25, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/23/science/peripherals-wishing-a-merry-unbirthday-to-all-of-us.html ↩