Creative Writer

This article is about the software package. For the book series, see The Creative Writer.

Creative Writer

Developer(s)	Microsoft
Stable release	1.1 / 1995
Operating system	Windows, Macintosh
Type	Word processor
License	Proprietary EULA

Creative Writer is a word-processing program created by Microsoft's Microsoft Kids subsidiary in 1993. Using this program, which is specifically targeted at children,^[1] it is possible to create documents such as letters, posters, flyers and stories complete with different fonts, Clip art, WordArt and effects. The interface and environment is especially targeted towards children and is set in Imaginopolis with the main helper being a character known as McZee.^[2] A sequel, Creative Writer 2 was released in 1996. Creative Writer is discontinued, but it can still be acquired from online stores and auction websites such as eBay.

The original Creative Writer was announced by Microsoft on 7 December 1993 ^[3] and was released in 1994. It ran on both MS-DOS 3.2 and the Windows 3.1 operating system.^[4] A version was also released for the Apple Macintosh.

The program took place in the fictional place of Imaginopolis and had several levels of a building each with a different topic (e.g. one for plain writing, one for story templates, one for poster templates). The design of the program was very similar to that of its sister program Fine Artist. The program runs full screen and creates an all inclusive environment. The interface was probably inspired by an earlier product called Microsoft Bob.

Creative Writer featured many of the features found on Microsoft's Word for Windows product, including the WordArt feature used to create titles and headlines and the ability to add clip art. Creative Writer also used sounds heavily where each tool would make a different noise. Examples of this include a vacuum cleaner suction to delete and an explosion to denote deleting everything off a page.

Creative Writer (and its sequel Creative Writer 2) both use different versions of the proprietary .max file format. This file format does not open in other word processors such as Word. Files created in Creative Writer can be viewed in Creative Writer 2 but files saved using Creative Writer 2 will not open correctly in Creative Writer. Creative Writer was also able to open .doc files kept in a location known as "Outside Of Imaginopolis".

See also

• Microsoft Home
• Fine Artist
• Creative Writer 2

References

1. ^ Lohr, Steve (1993-12-07). "Microsoft Aims for Younger Market". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE5DE153EF934A35751C1A965958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. 
2. ^ Eugène F. Provenzo, Arlene Brett, Gary N. McCloskey (2005). "6 Technology and the Curriculum". Computers, Curriculum, and Cultural Change: An Introduction for Teachers, Second Edition. Routledge. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-8058-4464-1. 
3. ^ http://www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company_part2.htm
4. ^ Creative Writer & Fine Artist manual