In order to encourage software developers to use the Postscript language, Adobe made it open to anyone for free. The language was meticulously documented in what programmers fondly called “The Red Book”, and strong technical support was provided to third-party developers working with the language. As a result, the number of applications supporting Postscript increased from 180 in 1986 to over 5,000 by 1991.
To accelerate the diffusion of Postscript output devices, Adobe developed a boilerplate controller design based on the Motorola G8000 chip. Printer manufacturers interested in licensing Postscript had free access to this design, thus accelerating the development time for Postscript products. In addition, Adobe engineers often worked on joint product development teams with customers in order to help with the design of customized Postscript interpreters.
The number of Postscript licenses increased from just one, Apple in 1985 to 60 by 1994.
Adobe invested a large amount in increasing its own library of Postscript fonts. In 1986, Adobe invested 16% of sales in font development, and dollar investment continued to increase from 1985 through 1992. The number of Postscript fonts in the Adobe collection increased from 35 in 1985 to 2000 in 1994. These fonts were valued most highly by graphic artists designing pages for professional publishing.
Adobe encouraged the adoption of the Acrobat Reader by changing its previous policy of charging $50. The Acrobat Reader became widely available for free. In 1994, an alliance was made with AOL made the Acrobat Reader available to all AOL users. Adobe also established relationships with a number of computer vendors such as Compaq, Dell, and Sony to preload the Acrobat Reader on Personal Computers they sold. In 1995 free downloads of the Acrobat Reader were made available from the Adobe website. When users visited a site with PDF content they were instructed to click on a link to Adobe.com to get the free Acrobat Reader. Downloads of the Acrobat Readers were explored starting in 1997, and by July 2000 over 197 million Acrobat Readers had been downloaded, with ongoing downloads of about 6 million more each month. Traffic to the Adobe site was also significant with about 11 million unique visitors a month. Downloads also drove sales of the full Acrobat product, needed for PDF creation. Adobe market research indicated that 88% of full Acrobat purchasers had used the Acrobat Reader prior to buying the full product.