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OpenPA.net · Jul 27, 2025

Desktop Publishing (DTP) on HP-UX

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Desktop Publishing on HP-UX

HP 9000 PA-RISC workstations were often used in the 1990s for professional desktop publishing of books, technical documentation and large documentation frameworks on HP-UX Unix. Even though engineering was the mainstay of PA-RISC and publishing only the the least desirable job, HP 9000 computers frequenly integrated into publishing workflows such as manuals, document libraries and magazines.

DTP on HP-UX; Dates and versions approximate
DTP Software Vendor Versions
on PA-RISC		 Timeframe
FrameMaker Frame, Adobe 2.0 to 7.0 1989—2002
Interleaf TPS
QuickSilver		 Interleaf 4 to 6
1.0		 1989—1996
1999
Adept ArborText 6 to 9
unsure		 1996—1999
Acrobat
Acrobat Reader		 Adobe 2.0 to 3.0
3.0 to 7.0		 1994—1996
1996—2006
WebWorks Quadralay 3.0 to 7.0 1997—2002
DynaText Inso 1.0 to 4.0
unsure		 1996—1998
unsure

Desktop Publishing (DTP) played a large role on Unix workstations in the 1980s and 1990s as the primary toolkit for companies that write manuals as part of their product or create high-quality documents of any kind in the course of doing business. This included technical documentation and writing specifications on HP 9000 and Unix platforms, which were used in technical engineering projects (CAD, CAM) and this way could stay in the same ecosystem.

There were quite a few DTP programs ported to HP-UX over the years, started with the market leader FrameMaker in the late-1980s, accompanied by the (on HP-UX) unloved InterLeaf and followed by a slew of other transient solutions in the mid-1990s, when Unix workstations became en vogue. Main DTP support on HP-UX and PA-RISC fizzled out in the early 2000s, when many (most) publishing houses had moved their workflows to Windows NT and more CMS, SGML and web-based solutions.

Note there were also separate products for office on Unix available for low-key office productivity workflows on HP-UX such as WordPerfect, Ami and Lotus 1-2-3.

FrameMaker

Framemaker
FrameMaker, © 1997

FrameMaker has been the leading professional desktop publishing (DTP) software since the 1980s, originally developed by Frame and bought by Adobe in the mid-1990s. FrameMaker supported a variety of Unix platforms since its original release, including original Apollo (before the HP buy-out) and later HP. Support for HP-UX and new PA-RISC architecture was added in the 1980s, when HP signed a licensing agreement with Frame and FrameMaker was ported to HP 9000 800 servers, an excellent document processing application.

Framemaker
Framemaker
FrameMaker, © 1991

FrameMaker was a professional document layout and publishing software, the premier application for companies that write manuals as part of their product or create high-quality documents of any kind in the course of doing business. On HP 9000 Unix, FrameMaker was often integrated into technical engineering processes for product and design documentation, the least desirable function in the development of a product. FrameMaker included several modern publishing and editing features, such as automatic indexing, WYSIWYG editing, maths formulas.

Unix and HP-UX support in FrameMaker was very solid, starting in the late-1980s until the early 2000s, when Adobe discontinuied HP-UX and Macintosh support.

Framemaker
Framemaker, © 1991
  • Adobe FrameMaker 7.1 and 7.2 (2004 and 2005) still supported Unix but apparently not HP-UX and HP 9000, only Solaris.
  • Adobe FrameMaker 7.0 (2002) supported Unix and HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 and 11i on HP 9000 700 and 800 with X11R6 and 128 MB RAM. Framemaker 7.0 featured new XML and DTD capabilities, included the SGML product, with new HTML, SVG and PDF features.
  • Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 (2000) was a major new release and supported several Unix systems including HP-UX 10.20 and 11.00 for HP 9000 700 and 800 with X11R6 and 32-64 MB RAM. The book features of FrameMaker were extended, XML and HTML/SGML export improved, and WebWorks included
  • Adobe FrameMaker 5.5 (1998) supported several Unix systems including HP-UX 10.20 for HP 9000 700 and 800, with X11R6, 32 MB RAM. FM 5.5 added better PDF creation capabilities, rich HTML, Japanese publishing and better tables and colors.
  • Adobe FrameMaker 5.0 and 5.1 (1996): Supported HP-UX 9.0 on HP 9000 700 and 800 PA-RISC computers, with X11R5 for $1,495. Added were improved HTML and PDF functionalities, online-publishing features, automatic text runarounds, cross-platform compatibility and compound document support.
  • FrameMaker 3.2 (1994): Supported NeXTSTEP 3.3 on PA-RISC workstations, calling itself a writing, design and publishing application. Frame 3.2 for NeXT might have been a separate effort, requiring heroic efforts by NeXT staffers coupled with loud customer voices to convince Frame to port Framemaker to NeXTSTEP around 1994. Source base might have been from 1991, though.
  • FrameMaker 4.0 (1993) had an improved user interface, more page and document formatting tools, and better graphics and information management. FrameMaker 4.0 supported HP-UX on PA-RISC computers.
  • FrameMaker 3.0 (1991): Supported HP-UX 9.0 on HP 9000 700 and 800 PA-RISC computers as well as HP 300 and 400 Motorola-based workstations. FrameMaker 3.0 X had a cost of $2,500 and needed at least HP-UX 7 and HP-UX 8 with X11.
  • FrameMaker 2.0 (1989) or 2.0-X (1990) was the first release for HP-UX based on HP license agreement for HP 9000 800 PA-RISC (and HP 300 Motorola) computers for $3,000-4,000. Supported X11 (OSF/Motif) and minimum HP-UX 6.5. It also ran on Apollo and IBM RS/6000 RISC workstations.

Adobe FrameViewer was a companion product to FrameMaker for electronic distribution, navigation and library access with similar versioning and platform support. FrameView supported HP-UX also.

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Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

Adobe Photoshop, the industry-standard program for desktop imaging and design, had several Unix versions since the 1990s. Photoshop Unix however seems to not have supported HP-UX or HP 9000. The same seems true for Adobe Illustrator.

Both supported Sun Solaris and SGI Irix as Unix operating systems.

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Interleaf

Interleaf
Interleaf © 1996

Interleaf was founded in 1981 and developed a professional desktop publishing platform for Unix, called Technical Publishing Software (TPS). Interleaf TPS was ported to Unix in the 1980s and supported Apollo Domain and possibly HP-UX from the late 1980s on. HP through its Apollo division entered a license agreement with Interleaf in 1989 to market the Core TPS product.

Interleaf R5
Interleaf R5 (Sun), © lost-bit

Interleaf was a WYSIWYG document editing tool, featuring text creation, tables, graphics, charts, equations and layout and formatting. There was strong support for data exchange with other tools and DTP solutions of the time, when graphical word editors were not that common, at least on Unix and workstation platforms which were dominated by technical non-WYSIWYG publication platforms.

Cyberleaf
Cyberleaf © 1996

Cyberleaf was an Interleaf companion product to produced hyperlinked text (HTML) and documents, publishing information on the Internet's World Wide Web couldn't be easier or more practical. Cyberlead converted Word RTF, WordPerfect, Interleaf, FrameMaker and ASCII formats to HTML and GIF.

Information on PA-RISC and HP-UX support in Interleaf and TPS is a bit sparse these days as the earliest Interleaf releases from the 1980s were never really documented in the internet period and Interleaf was bought by Broadvision in 2000 after which documentation on early versions vanished. HP 9000 and HP-UX were not the preferred platform for InterLeaf and CyberLeaf, with contemporary reports of high memory usage and CPU load, crashes and GUI issues, and generelly being a complex program to maintain and use.

  • QuickSilver 1.0 (1999) was the renamed Interleaf WYSIWYG XML authoring tool that still supported Unix, only Solaris at first. HP-UX support was added with QuickSilver 1.5.3 (2000) for HP-UX 10.20 and 11.0.
  • Cyberleaf 1.0 (1995) was a tool for the creation and management of Webs in the WorldWide Web as a complete web production environment. It supported HP-UX 9.x and HP 9000 700 and 800 PA-RISC workstations and servers
  • Interleaf 6 SGML (1996) was an integrated publishing system for SGML authoring, it shields authors from the complexities of SGML and allowed transforming SGML with WYSIWYG into high-impact documents. Interleaf SGML ran on PA-RISC HP 9000 700 and 800 on HP-UX 9.05 and 10.01, later 10.20
  • Interleaf 6 (1994) and 6.1 was a WYSIWYG word processing suite for DTP on Unix with Object-oriented Document Creation and automaticed layout and workgroup collobation on documents on local or remote networks. Interleaf 6 ran on PA-RISC on HP9000 7xx, 8x7, and 800 F-I Series with HP-UX 9.01 or higher on X11 with HP VUE
  • Interleaf 5.6 (2000) was a Y2K-compliant released of Interleaf 5 for Unix and HP-UX PA-RISC computers.
  • Interleaf 5 and 5.3 (1992) ran on HP-UX PA-RISC computers, including HP 9000 700 workstations on HP-UX 8 and 9.
  • Interleaf 4 (1989), marketed as Technical Publishing Software (TPS), was a WYSIWYG authoring and layouting tool and supported several Unix platforms, including Apollo Domain workstations but not PA-RISC, with licenses between $2,500 and $15,000
Interleaf 1989 Interleaf 1991
Interleaf © 1989, 1991

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ArborText

ArborText
ArborText © 1991

Adept and Publisher from ArborText were standards-based structured editing and publishing software, first released in the late 1980s on Unix, with with a strong focus on technical and soon online documentation. ArborText was an early adopter of SGML, Standard Generalized Markup Language, in the 1980s and part of XML development for the web in the 1990s. If there is a market leader in the SGML editing marketplace, it is probably ArborText.

DTP products from Arbor were mostly Unix-based in the 1980s and 1990s with at least a few ports to HP-UX of ArborText Publisher and Adept, and possibly others. The Publisher was first released in 1986 with TeX support, until 1998. ArborText Adept was first released in 1991, later renamed to Epic. The following list is not necessarily complete.

  • It seems the post-2000 releases of Adept, now called Epic 4.0, did not support HP-UX anymore, only Solaris
  • Adept 9 (1999) first supported only Windows and Solaris; Arbor apparently added HP-UX PA-RISC support only in Adept 9.0.1 (2000)
  • Epic 1, 2 and 3, the XML editor, apparently supported HP-UX until 1999
  • ADEPT 8 and Adept 8.2 (1998) supported HP-UX 10.20 along several Unix platforms (and Windows 95/NT), with a new automatic composition system, indexing and new graphics and table editing features.
  • Adept 7 and 7.0.1 (1997) includes Editor and Publisher and runs on HP-UX 9.0.3 and 10.20 on X11R5. Adept 7 featured ArborText Willow for extremely complex compound documents and Java support for the first time. Editor started at $1,350.
  • Adept 6 (1996) was an improved version of ADEPT with UI enhancements, expanded APIs and graphics and compatibility with Windows. Adept 6 support many Unix platforms and HP-UX 9.0.3 and 10.0 on HP 9000 700 PA-RISC workstations
  • Adept products apparently needed Document Architect for DTD definitions

ArborText products were used widely in the industry for journals and technical product documentation. Parts of the Space Shuttle documentation in the late 1990s was done with ArborText Editor (SGML The WAVE) and during the 1990s many journals managed their articles through Arbor. Arbortext products are still being sold today under different ownership and with different (web-based CMS) focus.

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Acrobat

Acrobat
Acrobat, © Adobe 1996

Adobe ported its Acrobat PDF products to Unix quite early in the mid-1990s with multple Unix platforms supported by the Acrobat PDF creator. Support in Acrobat Reader for viewing PDFs was added soon later. Adobe Acrobat and Reader supported HP-UX apparently only until the mid-2000s.

The main case for Acrobat PDFs and their port to business-focused Unix systems was to enable viewing business documents on-line and across computing platforms in corporate intranets and the World Wide Web.

  • Both Acrobat Reader 8.1.3 (2007) and 9.0 (2008) were reported with HP-UX support but it remains unclear if they ever really supported it.
  • Acrobat Reader 7.0 (2006) was later ported to HP-UX 11i v1 and 11i v2. Reader 7 needed at least a PA-8800 processor, 512 MB (!) RAM, Firefox 1.0 and HP CDE
  • Acrobat Reader 5.0 (2002) was only later ported to HP Unix and PA-RISC and supported HP-UX 10.20 and 11.0.
  • Acrobat Reader 4.0 (2000): Supported HP-UX 9.03 and above on HP 9000 PA-RISC computers with X11 on HP VUE or CDE, needs 32 MB RAM
  • Acrobat Reader 3.0 (1996): Supported HP-UX 9.03 and above on HP 9000 PA-RISC computers

At least two versions of Adobe Acrobat, the PDF creation suite, were ported to HP-UX on PA-RISC, with Adobe Acrobat 3.0 apparently the last HP-UX version of it. Acrobat consisted of Exchange, Distiller, Reader and Search with 14 Type 1 fonts.

  • Acrobat 3.0 (1996): The Unix version of 3.0 runs on HP-UX 9.03 and above on HP 9000 PA-RISC computers with HP VUE desktop environment and 32 MB of RAM, for a single-user cost of $295
  • Acrobat 2.0 (1994) was apparently the first Acrobat version for Unix and included HP-UX support on HP 9000.

Most documentation on Adobe on Unix has only survived on archives and mirrors.

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WebWorks

Quadralay WebWorks was a publishing platform for online content and e-publishing, templated-based. WebWorks integrated closely with Adobe FrameMaker and FrameBuilder to enable online publishing of off-line FrameMaker (SGML) documents with HTML, XML, XSL, CSS and others. WebWorks Publisher supported several Unix platforms, including HP-UX, starting in the 1990s.

WebWorks release versions and editions are a bit mistifying after all those years, it seems there were WebWorks Publisher, WebWorks Publisher 2000 and WebWorks Publisher Professional Edition. An WebWorks Publisher Standard Edition apparently shipped with Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 (2000).

  • WebWorks Publisher 7.0 (2002) supported Unix platforms including HP-UX 10.20
  • WebWorks Publisher 6.0 (2001) supported Unix and HP-UX 10.20 at prices between $1295 and $2555 for Unix licenses
  • WebWorks Publisher 5.0 (2000) supported Unix and HP-UX
  • WebWorks Publisher 4.0 (1998): unclear if shipped and/or supported Unix
  • WebWorks Publisher 3.0 and 3.5 (1997) included support for HP-UX 9.0 or later for FrameMaker and FrameBuilder 4.02 and 5.5. System requirements were 24 MB RAM and 25 MB disk space

WebWorks product pages and information articles are sparse with an important gap in archives between 1999 and 2001.

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DynaText

DynaText
DynaText, © Inso 1996

Inso DynaText was a publishing system for online and SGML content for large-document electronic publishing. It consisted of several technologies and components like DynaTag, InStEd and DynaWeb, with at least DynaText supporting HP-UX on PA-RISC.

Around 2000, Inso shifted its focus towards web-based publishing for corporate users, integrating (and discontinuing) individual products. It seems DynaText was sold to another company, Enigma, in 1999.

  • DynaText 4.0 and DynaWeb 4.0 (1998) supported Unix and HP-UX 10.20
  • DynaText 3.1 (1997) supported Unix and HP-UX 10.01, it needed 32 MB RAM. DynaText 3.1 included the Publishing and Browsing environments.
  • DynaText 1.0 (1996?) included support for HP-UX, either 9.0 or 10.0
Quickview
QuickView Plus, © Inso 1996

Inso also sold end-user products, including QuickView Plus, a document viewer for many platforms that lets you view, print, and manage virtually any file -- no matter what its source or format. This also included browser plugins for documenting review of non-HTML documents and downloads. Inso ported it to Unix in the late-90s as Quick View Plus for UNIX.

  • Quick View Plus for UNIX 2.0.1 (2000) included support for HP-UX 9.0 and 10.01 or later
  • Quick View Plus for UNIX 2.0 (1999) included support for HP-UX 9.0 and 10.01 or later
  • Quick View Plus for UNIX (1998) included support for HP-UX 9.0 and 10.01 or later. It allowed viewing 200 Windows, DOS, Macintosh and Internet formats. QVP integrated with Netscape 3.0 and 4.0 and could view Outlook attachments.

Little information remains on Inso products for Unix, which were not the mainstay of its business it seems and possibly had been discontinued throughout the corporate changes of the 2000s.

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Documentation

FrameMaker

Interleaf

ArborText

Adobe

WebWorks

DynaText

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