MacDraw is a discontinued

vector graphics Vector graphics are a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...

drawing application released along with the first

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

systems in 1984. MacDraw was one of the first

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for what you see is what you get, refers to software that allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed document, web ...

drawing programs that could be used in collaboration with MacWrite. It was eventually adapted by

Claris Claris International Inc., formerly FileMaker Inc., is a computer software development company formed as a subsidiary company of Apple Inc., Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several program ...

and, in the early 1990s, MacDraw Pro was released with color support. MacDraw was the vector-based cousin of

MacPaint MacPaint is a raster graphics editor developed by Apple Computer and released alongside the original Macintosh personal computer on January 24, 1984. It was sold bundled with its word processing counterpart, MacWrite, for US$195. MacPaint was n ...

. In the preface of the third edition of ''

Introduction to Algorithms ''Introduction to Algorithms'' is a book on computer programming by Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ron Rivest, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein. The book is described by its publisher as "the leading algorithms text in universities w ...

'', the authors make an emphatic plea for the creation of an OS X-compatible version of MacDraw Pro.

Early versions

MacDraw was based on Apple's earlier program, LisaDraw, which was developed for the

Apple Lisa Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, produced from January 19, 1983, to August 1, 1986, and succeeded by Macintosh. It is generally considered the first mass-market personal computer operable through a graphical user interface (GUI). I ...

computer which was released in 1983. LisaDraw and MacDraw were developed by the same person, Mark Cutter. The first version of MacDraw was similar to that of

, featuring the same tools and patterns. However, MacDraw is vector-based, meaning that an object's properties and placement can be changed at any time. MacDraw includes features for printing and also integrates with MacWrite via cut-and-paste. MacDraw is more advanced than MacPaint, featuring a grid and the ability to change the drawing dimensions. However, MacDraw lacks support for using more than one document at a time and also lacks zooming capabilities. MacDraw is especially useful in drawing

flowcharts A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a workflow or process. A flowchart can also be defined as a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm, a step-by-step approach to solving a task. The flowchart shows the steps as boxes of va ...

, diagrams and

technical drawing Technical drawing, drafting or drawing, is the act and discipline of composing drawings that visually communicate how something functions or is constructed. Technical drawing is essential for communicating ideas in industry and engineering. ...

Later incarnations

MacDraw II (1988) was a complete rewrite of the original MacDraw. It was developed at Apple by project leader Gerard Schutten and team members Amy Goldsmith and Marjory Kaptanoglu, and was released by

. MacDraw II introduced color and many other missing features and was also enhanced for the

Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic ...

. MacDraw eventually evolved into MacDraw Pro (1991) and ultimately ClarisDraw (1993). The final version of ClarisDraw was 1.0v4 (1994). It runs without difficulties on

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

-based Macs under

Classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...

and the Mac OS X

Classic Environment This is a list of built-in apps and system components developed by Apple Inc. for macOS that come bundled by default or are installed through a system update. Many of the default programs found on macOS have counterparts on Apple's other operat ...

(which is included in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and earlier). Dekorra Optics have a version of their EazyDraw software, EazyDraw Retro, that can open documents produced by the various incarnations of MacDraw, including ClarisDraw. Later versions of

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...

support MacDraw files as well, but only if the file type 'Legacy Mac Drawing' is manually selected.

Reception

MacUser ''MacUser'' was a monthly (formerly biweekly) computer magazine published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. and licensed by Felden in the UK. It ceased publication in 2015. In 1985 Felix Dennis’ Dennis Publishing, the creators of MacUser in the UK, l ...

'' in November 1988 rated MacDraw II 1.0v1 3.5 mice out of 5. The magazine approved of its continued "elegant simplicity" and much faster speed, but wished for a better object library, non-opaque fill modes, and .pict version 2 support. Noting that "Now $395, the price of MacDraw II has also accelerated quite a bit", the magazine concluded that "it doesn't take advantage of all the power that the Mac II has to offer, especially when it comes to color".

References

Classic Mac OS-only software made by Apple Inc. Classic Mac OS software Discontinued software 1984 software {{mac-software-stub