The first version, titled Harvard Presentation Graphics, was released for MS-DOS in 1986 by Software Publishing Corporation (SPC) and achieved a high market share.

[1] Its use of vector graphics produced mixed results on the CGA and EGA displays common at the time, but output was usually sent to a slide printer or a color plotter.

"Presentation" was dropped from the name for the second release, which came in 1987, developed by Mario Chaves, Carl Hu, Lenore Kirvay, and Dana Tom.

[3] Version 3.0 was not released until 1991, offering improved editing functions, but its graphics and export capabilities were being outperformed by competitors like Aldus Persuasion and Lotus Freelance.

SPC released a version for Microsoft Windows 3.0 in 1991, but its market share never approached the 70% it had previously commanded.