Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory / Ram for your Mac. Top Quality, Competitive Prices, Lifetime Warranty. Expert Support and Video Installation Guidies too! 4.0GB Matched Sets from $87.99, Options up to 32GB. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

25 Years of Mac

Classic Mac Nostalgia

MacWrite 1.0: Defining Word Processing for a Graphical User Interface

- 2006.11.15

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEMLEM

del.icio.us Bookmark in del.icio.us

Because the original Macintosh had a new operating system, software companies had to rewrite their programs or develop new software to work with the Macintosh operating system and take advantage of the mouse and the powerful graphical user interface (GUI) that the Mac OS provided. This meant there was a relatively small amount of software available for the Macintosh when it was first released.

Apple wanted people to be able to use their Macs right out of the box. Since the Macintosh was geared towards the average consumer, Apple needed to provide a way to allow its customers to accomplish useful tasks on their Macs. This led Apple to bundle MacWrite and MacPaint with their computers for several years.

What you may not know is that MacWrite introduced several new GUI features that are now common in every respected word processor.

Toolbar in MacWrite 1.0
Toolbar in MacWrite 1.0

Like any modern word processor, MacWrite featured a toolbar. It had two buttons for setting indentations within the onscreen ruler. There were also three buttons for adjusting spacing between lines. Lastly, there were four buttons for adjusting paragraph alignment.

Toolbar in Microsoft Word 5.1a
Toolbar in Microsoft Word 5.1a

Take a look at the toolbar in your favorite word processor. You'll notice that most or all of the buttons present in MacWrite are also present in your favorite word processor's default toolbar. If you happen to use AppleWorks or ClarisWorks, you'll notice that your toolbar is similar to MacWrite's.

Toolbar in AppleWorks 6.2.9
Toolbar in AppleWorks 6.2.9

Many text-based word processors - that is, ones without graphical interfaces - featured an onscreen ruler. A series of keyboard commands could be used to set tabs and indentation marks on this ruler.

MacWrite took this concept one step further. Instead of using the keyboard to set indentation, the user could click on the indentation triangle in the toolbar and drag it to the desired location on the ruler. A triangle could be removed by just dragging it off the ruler. Utter simplicity!

MacWrite's Find dialog box
MacWrite's Find dialog box

MacWrite featured a Find command to make finding a specific string of characters (a word or phrase) easy. The Change command could be used to search for a specific character string and automatically change it to whatever the user typed into the "Change to" box.

MacWrite's Change dialog box
MacWrite's Change dialog box

The Insert Ruler command under the Format menu allows the user to insert a new ruler anywhere in the document. Margin, spacing, and justification adjustments made on the new ruler only affect the text below it.


MacWrite 1.0

The Show Header and Show Footer commands allow the user to customize the header and footer that will appear on every page except for the title page. (The page marked as the title page doesn't contain the header and footer.) The three small icons at the top of the header and footer window can be dragged into the text body to insert the page number, date, and time.

The Set Page # command allows the user to change the page number of a specific page.

font menustyle menuMacWrite included nine fonts and six different text styles. Font sizes ranged from 9 points to 24 points. The outlined font size within the menu shows you what sizes of that font are installed on the Mac and will look best onscreen.

Even though MacWrite 1.0 was powerful (for its time) and created a template for all future GUI word processors, it lacked some features that we take for granted today, such as spell check and the ability to import graphics.

Next time we'll look at MacPaint, the first paint program for the Mac. LEM

Further Reading

Recent Classic Mac Nostalgia articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Classic Mac Nostalgia articles copyright ©2005-07 by Andrew Conachey. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.