FileMaker Returns to Claris Name

Ah, MacWrite II. I've missed you.

Maybe they could bring back Claris Resolve considering how much Apple Numbers sucks at dealing with even a small number of cells.

ClarisWorks 5 was an amazing product.

Oh man, this is right in my wheelhouse. I once used Apple/ClarisWorks to make a cheap eBook (project was scrapped), but technically the frame based drawing component could bang out some quick and dirty page layout projects. I don't mean in the Pages/Word sense, I meant like a cut-rate Pagemaker, Quark, or Indesign.

Here are a couple old articles from Low End Mac touching upon this fact as well.
Steve Wood:

For multiple page masters, the draw program is excellent. I use two masters with five page layouts to create a facing 2-page daily lesson plan that I keep on my teaching table in a spiral notebook. The basic information goes on the master, and specific daily info overlays the master on the daily pages. I prefer to just write most of my plans into the grids longhand, although they can be typed in as well. I also use the book as a temporary grade book until I enter the grades into the computer grade book.

My own project was 24 pages I think. Still worked well enough.

Jason Walsh:

Worth noting is that the vector-drawing module is actually a reasonable frame-based layout application, a bit like a baby Quark XPress. If you’re a user of the classic Mac OS, I would advise steering clear of this, as many printers won’t take your output, but with OS X’s native PDF support you can make files in any app.

Jason had the right idea, and even with the classic Mac OS, I printed to PDF. For my eBook this was fine, with the added bonus of making professional printing possible as well.

In addition to page layout, I once used the database module to keep track of different elements (characters, places, creatures) for my own homebrew retroclone RPG. Spreadsheets were great for keeping track of sports stats (yeah, also a hobby once upon a time). That was just scratching the surface of what I could do with Apple/Clarisworks. Just think that was only one of the excellent apps once available from the company. The biggest negative with Apple/Clarisworks was the necessity of exporting and importing to other file formats to share work. Anyone remember Claris' XTND, aka Mac Easy Open, aka File Exchange? I think I have the correct terminology.

Our first family computer was a Macintosh Classic with Claris Works and the wonderful StyleWriter. I was interested in graphic design, layout and DTP when I was young and those products combined was such a good start and they came at a price that ordinary families could afford, which was quite amazing at the time, because before that only professionals could afford a Macintosh, a LaserWriter and decent software.

I had a StyleWriter too! 1200 perhaps? I mean, it has been years, I replaced it with an Epson 740i in 2000 maybe? Of course the Epson eventually clogged and I never looked back after purchasing a Brother laser.