''Sierra Print Artist'' is a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

from Sierra Home (part of Sierra Entertainment, which is owned by

Vivendi SA Vivendi SE is a French mass media holding company headquartered in Paris. Widely known as the owner of Gameloft, Groupe Canal+, Havas, Editis, Prisma Media, Vivendi Village and Dailymotion, the company has activities in television, film, video ...

). The software allows the user to make cards, calendars, stationery and other assorted crafts and then print them with their printer. The current version is 25.

History

The program was originally developed by Pixellite Group in the early 90s. The DOS version was written by Christopher Schardt. The original

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

version was written by Mr. Schardt, and Ferdinand G. Rios and Tracy Elmore of SAPIEN Technologies, Inc. Vince Mills handled later versions. The program was first published in 1992 under the name ''Instant Artist'' by Autodesk. After half a year or so, Autodesk decided to abolish its consumer products division. Maxis then published the program under the name ''Print Artist''. In 1995, Sierra On-Line purchased Pixellite Group and the rights to the software and it became known as ''Sierra Print Artist''. It was published under Sierra's "Sierra Home" label and continues to be today despite several purchases and mergers of Sierra On-Line beginning in 1996. The underlying vector-graphics/font-effects technology was developed by Dane Bigham and Christopher Schardt. It was first used in BannerMania, published by

Brøderbund Broderbund Software, Inc. (stylized as Brøderbund) was an American maker of video games, educational software, and productivity tools. Broderbund is best known for the 8-bit video game hits ''Choplifter'', ''Lode Runner'', ''Karateka'', and '' ...

, also written by Christopher Schardt. Steve Hales wrote the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

version of BannerMania. Marty Kahn (the author of the original

PrintShop Print shop may refer to: * Printer (publishing), someone providing commercial printing services * The Print Shop The Print Shop is a basic desktop publishing software package originally published in 1984 by Broderbund. It was unique in that it ...

) wrote the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

version. The technology also found its way into what would eventually become the

WordArt Microsoft Office shared tools are software components that are (or were) included in all Microsoft Office products. Delve Office Delve allows Office 365 users to search and manage their emails, meetings, contacts, social networks and document ...

add-in for Microsoft Word. A popular feature of the program was the Graphics Grabber, developed by Vince Mills, which enabled the program to handle a catalog of thousands of vector and bitmap graphics, organized by keywords. Sierra Home also publishes Hallmark Cards-licensed versions of the program as ''Hallmark Scrapbook Studio Deluxe'' and ''Hallmark Holiday Card Studio''.

Trivia

*Prior to the mergers and purchases in 1996 and beyond, Sierra On-Line often inserted photographs of their own products in the folder which contained assorted

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

images for use with the software. For example, version 4.0 contained photos from ''Shivers'' and '' Cyber Gladiators''.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official Sierra Print Artist website
Computer-related introductions in 1992 Desktop publishing software Sierra Entertainment Windows graphics-related software