Founder of Aldus Software and creator of the term "desktop publishing," Brainerd saw an opportunity to merge his publishing and computer experience with Apple's computer and printer.
Through Jonathan Seybold, Brainerd met with people from Apple who were planning a new laser printer to work with the Macintosh computer. Brainerd organized the Aldus Corporation, named after Aldus Manutius, a sixteenth-century Venetian scholar and printer, in the summer of 1984 with some former Atex employees to develop publishing software for the Macintosh.
A venture capitalist whom Brainerd was courting mentioned another project using the word "desktop." He coined the term "desktop publishing" for his enterprise.
Aldus produced Pagemaker, which allowed anyone with a Macintosh and Apple's new printer to lay out charts, graphs, headlines, and text, and produce a magazine, newsletter, or newspaper. "It was the first product [Apple] saw that really demonstrated the capabilities of their printer," Brainerd recalled (The Seattle Times, April 10, 1986).
