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The encyclopedia · Software & IT · Technical decision · 1984–1987

PostScript won by describing any page in one language, then licensing it everywhere.

Adobe's page description language rendered text and images as one mathematical description, then licensed it so any computer could drive any printer.

Adobe · Apple

the move

Adobe's co-founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke saw that each printer and typesetter spoke its own device-specific language, so a page laid out on one machine could not be printed on another. Their answer was a real programming language that described the page itself.

PostScript's key design was device independence: text and images were written once as a common mathematical description, and the target device resolved it at its own resolution, scaling, rotating and moving elements at will. It opened the door to desktop publishing when Apple shipped the LaserWriter in 1985.

Rather than sell its own printers, Adobe licensed PostScript to computer makers and printer makers, and published the details of the language. That turned it into a de facto international standard and drained the demand for competing page description schemes.

why it works

  • One language, not one per device, meant a file produced anywhere printed everywhere at the highest fidelity.
  • Device independence meant a 300-dpi laser printer and a 1200-dpi typesetter each rendered the same file optimally.
  • Licensing to Apple, IBM, HP and the type industry made PostScript the thing everyone had to be compatible with.
  • Publishing the specification let third parties build PostScript-compatible products, so it became the standard rather than one vendor's feature.
the payoffDescribe the page once; render it anywhereclever

what transfers

The winner in a connectors-and-devices world is whoever makes every device understand one shared description, then sells that description to the whole industry instead of hiding it.

what came after

PostScript kick-started desktop publishing and drove Adobe's hypergrowth; the Adobe Type Library made professional typefaces a licensed product. It became the de facto international print standard, and Adobe's PDF - itself based on PostScript - went on to become the global document format, standardized in 2008.

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