With the PostScript background having been established by Fontographer, Altsys also developed FreeHand (originally called Masterpiece) as a Macintosh Postscript-based illustration program that used Bézier curves for drawing and was similar to Adobe Illustrator. Their premier PostScript font-design package, Fontographer, was released in 1986 and was the first such program on the market.

Based in Plano, Texas, the company initially produced font editing and conversion software Fontastic Plus, Metamorphosis, and the Art Importer. Von Ehr founded Altsys Corporation to develop graphics applications for personal computers. Someone using a later version of Mac OS X than 10.6 might be able to use VMware Fusion, VirtualBox or Parallels to virtualize Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server and run Freehand using this emulator.

Freehand 10 runs without problems on Mac OS X 10.6 with Rosetta enabled, and does not require a registration patch. Since 2003, FreeHand development has been discontinued in the Adobe Systems catalog, FreeHand has been replaced by Adobe Illustrator.įreeHand MX continues to run under Windows 7 using compatibility mode and under Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) within Rosetta, a PowerPC code emulator, and requires a registration patch supplied by Adobe. In 2005, Adobe Systems acquired Macromedia and its product line which included FreeHand MX, under whose ownership it presently resides. Altsys was later bought by Macromedia, which released FreeHand versions 5 through 11 (FreeHand MX). In 1994, Aldus merged with Adobe Systems and because of the overlapping market with Adobe Illustrator, FreeHand was returned to Altsys by order of the Federal Trade Commission. įreeHand was created by Altsys Corporation in 1988 and licensed to Aldus Corporation, which released versions 1 through 4. Professions using FreeHand include graphic design, illustration, cartography, fashion and textile design, product design, architects, scientific research, and multimedia production.

Because of FreeHand's dedicated page layout and text control features, it also compares to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. FreeHand was similar in scope, intended market, and functionality to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Designer Pro. Adobe FreeHand (formerly Macromedia FreeHand and Aldus FreeHand) was a computer application for creating two-dimensional vector graphics oriented primarily to professional illustration, desktop publishing and content creation for the Web.

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