Lesson plan

Print Magic

Print Magic is a personal publishing program by Epyx. It was a direct competitor to the leading personal publishing program of the time, The Print Shop, by Broderbund. It was released in 1988 for the Apple II and MS-DOS. Like The Print Shop, Print Magic lets users create a variety of customized documents, mixing graphics and text, such as: * Greeting cards * Invitations * Award certificates * Meeting announcements * Publicity notices * Scratch pads * Stationery * Banners The program's three disks aren't copy-protected, so users are free to make "working copies" of them. It employs a Macintosh-like GUI, unusual for software of its time. Most commands and features are accessed via pull-down menus or icons. It can also import clip art from other publishing software, such as The Print Shop and Newsroom. It includes the ability to create custom graphics, such as with a paint program. Print Magic's included clip art was much higher resolution than other packages and scales much better as well. It could also import fonts from Fontrix, a popular font program of the era. The flexibility of the text and graphic layout of documents was one of its most critically acclaimed features, though reviewers noted that sometimes it was troublesome due to the computer's limited resolution. However, it also has a zoom function which allows for pixel-precision placement.…

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Article summary

Print Magic is a personal publishing program by Epyx. It was a direct competitor to the leading personal publishing program of the time, The Print Shop, by Broderbund. It was released in 1988 for the Apple II and MS-DOS. Like The Print Shop, Print Magic lets users create a variety of customized documents, mixing graphics and text, such as: * Greeting cards * Invitations * Award certificates * Meeting announcements * Publicity notices * Scratch pads * Stationery * Banners The program's three disks aren't copy-protected, so users are free to make "working copies" of them. It employs a Macintosh-like GUI, unusual for software of its time. Most commands and features are accessed via pull-down menus or icons. It can also import clip art from other publishing software, such as The Print Shop and Newsroom. It includes the ability to create custom graphics, such as with a paint program. Print Magic's included clip art was much higher resolution than other packages and scales much better as well. It could also import fonts from Fontrix, a popular font program of the era. The flexibility of the text and graphic layout of documents was one of its most critically acclaimed features, though reviewers noted that sometimes it was troublesome due to the computer's limited resolution. However, it also has a zoom function which allows for pixel-precision placement.…

Key claims

  1. release date: 1988 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  2. release date: 1992 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the release date is "1988". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. The record states that the release date is "1992". What evidence would count against this claim?
  4. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  5. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1329706622

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.