A great thinker in France, Romain Rolland once said: “An ideal is a force.”
In Taiwan, everyone knows many students who have grown up with the famous art design program, Presto! PrintMagic. This software is an excellent example of how people without art design skills can easily create gorgeous drawings.
Presto! PrintMagic was developed by NewSoft, the company, founded in September 1987, that started as a developer of imaging processing software. Not only did some NewSoft software win the honor of “Annual Best Multimedia Products”, but the superior technology also made NewSoft the partner of international well-known corporations in of strategy development and computer solutions.
Triggered by an Expedition to Japan
The birth of Presto! PrintMagic dates back 20 years ago to when the president of NewSoft visited Japan.
That was in October, 1995 and with maple trees tinged with autumn red, the president made his annual trip to visit customers. One day, he dropped in on a customer in Suwa-city, Nagano prefecture, and learned about Japan’s best-selling imaging software, “筆自來”.
After the flight back to Taiwan, he could hardly wait to get back to his company and install the program on his notebook. When he did, he understood why this software was so popular to Japanese consumers. It was so easy to use and it contained a great many pictures and text styles. Even people without designing experience or training were able to complete lovely artwork with ease.
Tailored for Chinese
At that time, easy-to-use drawing software was rare in Taiwan. Taking this set of software as a precious treasure, the president never thought of introducing it to Taiwan, yet a second thought came to him that this software was not a perfect match for the people who lived in China and Taiwan. So he began to think of how to develop a tailored suite of drawing programs that perfectly matched the requirements of the local people.
When he threw the idea out in the meeting, it was immediately accepted by department leaders as well as RD managers. They began at once to look for the technical staff for image processing technology and establish a team for designing and developing this software.
Finally Born with All Effort
As a famous saying goes: “What can be imagined can be achieved.” Just the next year, in 1996, the drawing software exclusively for Chinese people was finally born. There were thousands of pictures of Chinese customs and festivals, and the artistic calligraphy of Wen Ding, both of which were perfectly balanced and reinforced in the works of art. With those pictures and text, users were free to create posters, cards, leaflets, or bookmarks in accordance with their requirements either in life or at work. By using the quick templates, every man became an art-design expert and presented excellent artwork with impressive text in less than 10 minutes. This was done by common computer users with little art-design training. As this software produced “Excellence of Art Design”, it was named Presto! PrintMagic.
Excellence of Drawing Software
Followed by the exhibitions of that year, many Presto! PrintMagic templates as well as its design samples were shown there; visitors were initially surprised by the magic drawing created by Presto! PrintMagic and then came to believe in it devoutly, and further stirred a rush for purchasing. Thus, Presto! PrintMagic became a star product of the exhibition for that year. Ever since the great success in the Taiwan market, Presto! PrintMagic has become familiar drawing software and later got the Taiwan Excellence award in 1999.
After the enormous success, Presto! PrintMagic continued to be improved. From the 1st version with 4 categories, it is now up to the 8th version with more than 16 categories, covering 3,300 templates and 7,600 picture galleries, and integrated with functions such as Art Drawing, Images, Text, Editing, and Creative Designing. By using these functions, people can create posters, cards, name cards, envelopes, writing paper, e-diaries, paper-folding, calendars, school timetables, bookmarks, CD labels, stickers, Q portraits, cartoon books, and photo albums with ease.
The Magic Girl is the Presto! PrintMagic mascot. She was always shown on the product box. The first generation of Magic Girl conjured a great many miraculous works of art with a magic wand in her hand. Her appearance has changed with the generations, from the Q-version, to Presto! PrintMagic 6th, 7th and finally to the 8th, presenting herself as a clever and lovely girl in a magic school uniform, pink skirt, and purple cloak, with a magic wand in her hand, roaming freely around the green fields under the bright blue sky.
Adopted by 70% of Primary and Middle Schools
As e-learning rapidly developed, even primary school students could freely use Presto! PrintMagic, therefore it became one of required learning tools in schools across Taiwan. Since 2000, Presto! PrintMagic has pervaded many computer classes of grade three and four, and consequently won public praise. By now, up to 3,000 primary and middle schools (nearly 70%) uses Presto! PrintMagic software authorized by NewSoft and even introduced relevant e-classes based on it. After 10 years, we can say many freshmen came into society growing up under the influence of Presto! PrintMagic.
Adopted by Universities
By its easy functionalities, many normal universities such as NTUN (National Taiwan Normal University) and Universities of Education as well as some well-known universities such as National Chung Hsing University, National University of Kaohsiung, NTSU (National Taiwan Sport University), National Chiayi University, Aletheia University have gotten authorized to use Presto! PrintMagic. Furthermore, a great many impressive posters and striking notice boards designed by this software have begun to appear on campus.
Prevalence of Praise from Consumers
The past 18 years has not only witnessed Presto! PrintMagic’s continuous improvements for gaining perfection, but also the much easier functionality appraised by all classes of people in Taiwan. See the following:
Feedback from a young student, “Presto! PrintMagic is a good helper for my life, which makes me a super master for designing art work in my class and in my club.”
(Said Lin, a sophomore in college at Shih Hsin University)
“When I was a student in the third grade of primary school, I was in a Presto! PrintMagic class and got the feeling that Presto! PrintMagic was an easy program with such a simple user interface that everyone with a little computer knowledge would be able to get skilled in just a few minutes. Whatever you want to create like monthly calendars, posters, cards, name cards, and school timetables, it was easy to learn and design. Every time I was in class seeing the works of art I created, I was so full of happiness and achievement. After I got home, I introduced this software to my parents, they then bought Presto! PrintMagic 5 for me. They helped me install it and allowed me to create my works of art at home. Thus, I was growing up and learning in the company of Presto! PrintMagic. It was not only a good helper in my life, but also marvelous software that made me a super master of art design. Now I am proud to say that I am the most important person for creating cards and posters not only in my class but also in school clubs.”
Feedback from a middle-aged father, “Presto! PrintMagic is a memory album recording the events I witnessed with my daughter growing up.”
(Chen, a father from Taipei)
“When my daughter was in grade two, she was asked to create a handmade book with parents in the summer vacation. So we started to use Presto! PrintMagic, and it made whatever the book surface, table of contents, and back cover so vivid and nice, and after the book was completed, it gained very high praise from the teacher, and my daughter eventually got a high score for her homework. There was another time we used PrintMagic after the teacher asked students to create word cards for class, we used it to print out the word cards with phonetic symbols, radicals, strokes, and lovely pictures. With no doubt, this creative job also gained praise from the teacher. My daughter now is in the fifth grade, and it is still the most exciting experience to be creating art with her and Presto! PrintMagic. Presto! PrintMagic is an album of memories of all the events I shared with my daughter as she grew up.”
Feedback from an elderly person, “Presto! PrintMagic is the best gift for expressing my greetings.”
(Yao, a grandfather from Chung Hsing New Village, Nantou County)
“In 1996, at the age of 63, I came across Presto! PrintMagic on an Expo as I was rambling around the exhibition hall. The software was placed on a booth among all kinds of elegant cards. After being introduced in detail, I bought Presto! PrintMagic and tried for the first time the software by which cards, posters, bookmarks and so forth can be easily created. Since then, I have used it for 17 years and so far upgraded to Presto! PrintMagic 8, and countless cards have been made expressing greetings to my friends. Now 80, I am still using Presto! PrintMagic to make festive cards with my own hands for relatives and friends. Sometimes I add photographs of passing times, and sometimes cute animals; whatever ingenious thoughts attached in are my fairly warm affections. I sometimes even think they are not cards, but the best gifts for expressing my greetings.”
Feedback from a NewSoft staff member, “Presto! PrintMagic is just like my eldest son.”
“After graduating from Tankang University, with a computer major, I was engaged in development of Chinese fonts for PC, and started with the developer team in 1995 for Presto! PrintMagic. It made me excited to witness the best-selling times of Presto! PrintMagic, yet there was nothing more fascinating than seeing my eldest son growing with Presto! PrintMagic. Once upon the time, my son was a primary school student who loved to use Presto! PrintMagic in his computer classes; while Presto! PrintMagic was also growing from 1st version to presently 9th. Now my eldest son is 20 and Presto! PrintMagic is also developing with the times and has so far included more functions. On its growing path, it not only helped my son to effectively learn art design, but also is a great helper to learn art design for students of every generation.
Passed Down Through Nine Generations
The first generation of Presto! PrintMagic aimed to let every person who was able to use computers to design works of art with their own hands, and further become an art expert. Today, Presto! PrintMagic is going to give birth of the ninth generation. Over the 18 years, this easy-to-use software has stepped across the century and been extensively brought into many territories, domains, and industries, making it possible that many people who want to learn how to design or who have dreams of being art designers have become magic designing experts from rather clumsy all thumbs. Presto! PrintMagic makes promotional materials even prettier and communications creative and effective.
In the future, Presto! PrintMagic will continue based on the deep roots of First Brand Among Chinese Art Design Software to develop higher quality, more creative, and more diverse software. It will provide better templates and images to more closely match the customer’s all-round needs, making life more colorful with Presto! PrintMagic.
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