Paul Brainerd Dies at 78; Pioneered Desktop Publishing With PageMaker

His software brought printing into the digital age, allowing users to stop manually splicing columns of text and graphics and instead create layouts on a virtual pasteboard.

Paul Brainerd, a former newspaper executive who founded Aldus Corporation, whose PageMaker software brought publishing into the digital era, allowing anyone with a computer and a printer to become a modern-day Johannes Gutenberg, died on Feb. 15 at his home on Bainbridge Island, in Washington. He was 78.

His wife, Deborah Brainerd, said that he had lived with Parkinson’s disease for many years and had ended his life under Washington’s Death With Dignity Act.

By giving small-business owners, high school journalists, public-relations executives, pastors and community organizers the ability to design and print their own newsletters, brochures and newspapers, Mr. Brainerd democratized an expensive, laborious and time-consuming process.