[3][4] A key component that led to PageMaker's success was its native support for Adobe Systems' PostScript page description language.

The program remained a major force in the high-end DTP market through the early 1990s, but new features were slow in coming.

By the mid-1990s, it faced increasing competition from QuarkXPress on the Mac, and to a lesser degree, Ventura on the PC, and by the end of the decade it was no longer a major force.

Quark stated its intention to buy out Adobe and to divest the combined company of PageMaker to avoid anti-trust issues.

Adobe rebuffed the offer and instead continued to work on a new page layout application code-named "Shuksan" (later "K2"), originally started by Aldus, openly planned and positioned as a "Quark killer".