

Version 3.01 was available for OS/2 and took extensive advantage of multithreading for improved user responsiveness. PageMaker 3.0 for the PC was shipped in May 1988 and required Windows 2.0, which was bundled as a run-time version. Aldus Pagemaker 3.0 for Macintosh was shipped in April 1988.Thus, users who did not have Windows could run the application from MS-DOS. Until May 1987, the initial Windows release was bundled with a full version of Windows 1.0.3 after that date, a 'Windows-runtime' without task-switching capabilities was included. Aldus Pagemaker 2.0 was released in 1987.

In 1987, Pagemaker was available on Digital Equipment's VAXstation computers. In October 1986, a version of Pagemaker was made available for Hewlett-Packard's HP Vectra computers. PageMaker was awarded a Codie award for Best New Use of a Computer in 1986.


The program remained a major force in the high-end DTP market through the early 1990s, but new features were slow in coming. After Adobe purchased the majority of Aldus' assets (including FreeHand, PressWise, PageMaker etc.) in 1994 and subsequently phased out the Aldus name, version 6 was released. A key component that led to PageMaker's success was its native support for Adobe Systems' PostScript page description language.
