AppleWorks refers to two different office suite products, both of which are now discontinued. Originally, AppleWorks was an integrated software package for the Apple II platform, released in 1984 by Apple Computer. In 1998, the name AppleWorks was repurposed by Apple following its elimination of its Claris subsidiary, which marketed a software package for Macintosh and Windows named ClarisWorks. At one time, AppleWorks was bundled with all consumer level Macs sold by Apple.
As of August 15, 2007, AppleWorks has reached end-of-life status, and is no longer being sold.[1] Word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications similar to AppleWorks are currently sold as the iWork suite.
AppleWorks (Apple II)
The original AppleWorks was one of the first integrated office suites for personal computers, featuring a word processor, spreadsheet, and database merged into a single program. It was written by Bob Lissner and released in 1984 by Apple for the Apple II family of computers. Apple had previously published Lissner's QuickFile, a database program that closely resembled what became the AppleWorks database module. An Apple III version of AppleWorks, which used the same file formats, was dubbed III E-Z Pieces and marketed by Haba Systems.
Wary of stepping on the toes of its third-party developers, including its own popular AppleWriter word processing application, Apple barely promoted the product at all. AppleWorks nevertheless debuted at #2 on the Softalk's monthly bestseller list and quickly became the best-selling software package on any computer, ousting even Lotus 1-2-3 from the top of the industry-wide sales charts [2]
Apple released version 2.0 in 1986, and then a year later the program was published by Apple's new software subsidiary Claris. Claris contracted with Beagle Bros to upgrade AppleWorks to version 3.0 in 1989, then turned its attention to producing Macintosh and Windows software, letting AppleWorks languish. Claris did, however, finally agree to license the AppleWorks trademark to Quality Computers, which released AppleWorks 4.0 in 1993 and AppleWorks 5.0 in 1994.
In the mid 1980s, many companies provided "add ons" to AppleWorks. One of the most successful was the TimeOut series from Beagle Bros. TimeOut developers Alan Bird, Randy Brandt and Rob Renstrom were involved in developing AppleWorks 3.0 and eventually AppleWorks incorporated numerous TimeOut functions. [1]. TimeOut developers Randy Brandt and Dan Verkade created AppleWorks 4.0 and 5.0 for Quality Computers.
In 1988, Claris acquired an integrated package called GS Works from StyleWare and renamed it AppleWorks GS, bringing the AppleWorks brand to the 16-bit Apple IIgs, though no code from the 8-bit Apple II version was used. In addition to the word processing, database, and spreadsheet functions, AppleWorks GS also included telecommunications, page layout and graphics modules. Only one version of AppleWorks GS was ever published, although a vaporware update was rumored to be "just short of completion" for a long time. [2]
The 8-bit AppleWorks is sometimes known as "AppleWorks Classic" in order to differentiate it from AppleWorks GS as well as the later product for Macintosh and Windows of the same name. The term "Classic" in this context does not refer to the Classic compatibility environment in Mac OS X.
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AppleWorks (Macintosh/Windows)
AppleWorks 6.2.9 'Starting Points' window. There are six primary functions of AppleWorks: word processing, spreadsheets, databases, drawing, painting and presentations.
The modern incarnation of AppleWorks started life as ClarisWorks, written by Bob Hearn and Scott Holdaway and published by Claris (a spin-off from Apple, today known as FileMaker Inc). The file extension of AppleWorks and ClarisWorks documents is .cwk. ClarisWorks combined
All the components were integrated to provide a seamless suite that worked in concert; for example, spreadsheet frames could be embedded in a word processing document, or formatted text into drawings, etc. A common misconception is that the components were derived from the existing Claris programs MacWrite and MacDraw. In fact, ClarisWorks was written from scratch and then redesigned to match other Claris programs after the purchase by Claris.
ClarisWorks 1.0 for Windows.
ClarisWorks 1.0 shipped for the Macintosh in 1991 and subsequently ported to the Windows platform, shipping as ClarisWorks 1.0 for Windows in 1993. When the Claris company was disbanded and absorbed back into Apple, the product was renamed AppleWorks. In fact, version 5 of the software was first called ClarisWorks 5, before being renamed AppleWorks 5 following the product's return to Apple.
AppleWorks 6 for Windows.
The last version, AppleWorks 6, replaced the communications feature with a presentation feature (in prior versions there was only rudimentary support for presentations through the other features). It was also ported to the Carbon API to work on Mac OS X, but it did not take advantage of many of the newer features of Mac OS X.
AppleWorks could create, open, and save files in a number of file formats. For example, word processor documents could be saved in Microsoft Word format, and spreadsheet files could be saved in Microsoft Excel format.
The software received good reviews during the course of its lifespan for its interface and the tight integration of its modules. For example, a drawing "frame" could be placed in a spreadsheet document, a paint frame could be placed in a drawing document, etc. This allowed for very elaborate and data-rich layouts. However, the limitations of the product (such as its confusing and cumbersome stylesheet feature) became more apparent as the product aged. In August, 2007, Apple declared AppleWorks "end of life" and stated that they will no longer sell the package. The iWork package, which includes a word processing program, a spreadsheet, and a presentation graphics program, is intended to be its replacement. While much more feature-rich, iWork still lacks some of the modules and the tight integration of AppleWorks.
There is a "known issue" with AppleWorks 6 when typing long documents. When typing somewhere into page 42, all the text disappears. This may be an easter egg which makes reference to the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which is also "42". There is a remedy to this.
"Do not panic. The text has only changed to the color white. Simply 'Select All' (Command-A) then change the text color to black. Save immediately, then immediately past [sic] in enough text to get beyond page 42. Save again." [3]
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