Dr. John Warnock, Father of Desktop Publishing Revolution and PDF File Format, Passes at Age 82

Dr. John Warnock
Oct. 6, 1940 - Aug. 19, 2023

Dr. John Warnock, whose desktop publishing (DTP) software technology developments as co-founder of Adobe forever changed the printing and publishing industry landscape, died Aug. 19th at age 82. After meeting as colleagues at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC), Dr. Warnock and the late Dr. Charles "Chuck" Geschke co-founded Adobe in December 1982, working from Warnock's garage. The name Adobe came from Adobe Creek, a stream in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Los Altos, California, which flowed behind Warnock's home.

Their first product was Adobe PostScript, a groundbreaking page description language first brought to market in 1985 for Apple LaserWriter printers. PostScript technology — which was further fueled by the development of Aldus PageMaker software — made it easier to print text and images from a computer, which in turn helped spark the desktop publishing revolution.

As documented in Wikipedia, PostScript's "use on Apple computers resulted in one of the first desktop publishing systems, which allowed users to compose documents on a personal computer and see them on screen exactly as they would appear in print, a process known as WYSIWYG, an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. Previously, graphic designers had been forced to view their work in text-only format while they worked, until they printed, or hit print preview." Because of the high quality and speed at which printing and composing could be done in WYSIWYG, the benefits of PostScript revolutionized the printing and publishing industries.

The February 1988 edition of Printing Impressions chronicled how the advent of desktop publishing was altering the printing and typesetting industries.

Desktop publishing technologies eventually displaced the need for once-flourishing, professional typesetting houses and prepress service bureaus, and greatly altered overall prepress and print production workflows.

Warnock and Geschke founded Adobe in 1982.

Creation of PDF File Format

Warnock's and Geschke's keen vision also enabled Adobe to deliver software innovations such as Illustrator vector-based illustration software, the ubiquitous Portable Document Format (PDF) file format and Acrobat Reader, Photoshop image editing software, and Premiere Pro video editing software, which defined the desktop era and unleashed creativity and opportunity for millions of people. Read our story on the history of the PDF here.

Warnock retired as Adobe CEO in 2000 and he was chairman of the board, a position he shared with Geschke, until 2017. He served as a member of the Adobe board of directors since then.

In recognition of their technical achievements, Warnock was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama; the Computer Entrepreneur Award from the IEEE Computer Society; the American Electronics Association Medal of Achievement; and the Marconi Prize for contributions to information science and communications.

The software technology developments John Warnock and Chuck Geschke created at Adobe played a seminal role in the history of computing — which also profoundly impacted prepress workflows, typography, and entire production processes throughout the printing and publishing industries.