Microsoft Publisher 98 dropped in June 1998 as part of the Office 97 Small Business Edition, and for a lot of people, it was their first real taste of desktop publishing. Before Canva or even clean PowerPoint templates, Publisher let regular users make flyers, brochures, newsletters—anything print-heavy—without needing to learn pro design tools. It came with a drag-and-drop interface, tons of pre-made templates, and enough clip art to make any middle school project look “professional” back in the day. This version cleaned up a lot from Publisher 97, added better Word integration, and even let you preview how things would look when printed, which was huge at the time. It wasn’t fancy, but it got the job done—and for small businesses and schools in the late ’90s, it was kind of a game changer.