Applications are one thing (e.g. the way they took away Quark's iron-handed grasp on DTP).
But, then there are the standards.
For example, PDF.
The modern world would barely operate without PDF.
Adobe PostScript, invented by Warnock, was _the_ standard. It was the means by which an application could describe to the computer in the printer the layout of the page. (And later the compute resources in the printer got separated first into Raster Image Processors (RIPs) and later just part of printer drivers in the computers).
The development of PDF was driven by the need to resolve incompatibilities in PostScript implementations that had become the nightmare of graphics pros in the early 90s. It was not uncommon to have to use random software to convert one PS file to another PS file which could be understood by the RIP owned by a given print shop.
Quark was built on the infrastructure enabled by PostScript in the first place.
Edit to add: possible confusion - RIPs were primarily used to generate super high res output on film used for lithographic plates, but they were enabled by the standardization around PostScript for driving laser printers.
PDF was great when most documents needed to be printed, so sending say an invoice to someone you could ensure their printed copy was the same as your printed copy.
PDF in "modern" world, where printing is less important and really should be sent to the dust bin if history. PDF has become a complex web of security problems, screen compatibility problems, and various other things including the complex web of converters to take PDF's and make them back into something editable / usable.
We need a replacement for PDF, and let PDF go away along with the printer
Actually PDF still rules the roost.
Any professionally printed thing you see, whether as small as a humble corporate business card, or as large as a billboard will have been provided to the print shop as a PDF.
In the past, you would have had to send the DTP file and all the accompanying assets, including the font if you were using a non-standard font.
Now you just send the print shop a PDF. Job done. Its a win-win for both parties.
If you do any kind of business at all, especially the accounting side of things, printing is still a hard requirement and PDF makes all that practical.
That is provably false, lots of businesses have gone paperless, and all (at least for the US) government agencies, courts, etc all fully accept erecords, many preferring it.
Maybe. But maybe people would have simply adopted other standards, like djvu.
- Thank you for the meeting, oh and please send me the djvu of your reports
- Oh I'd swear we already had this conversation and I had already sent them?
Some people still insist on using non-PDF, for example the Swiss tax office insists on some weird proprietary format[1], QDF made by some obscure company called Snapform. All their forms are in QDF format.
It introduces completely un-necessary friction into the process. Everyone knows they should have just used PDF. Instead of forcing people to install some reader software they will never use for any other purpose.
[1] https://www.estv.admin.ch/estv/en/home/anticipatory-tax/clai...