Altsys

{{Infobox company

| name = Altsys Corporation

| logo =

| type = A Skysecure Company

| industry = Computer software

| fate = Acquired by Macromedia in 1995

| predecessor =

| successor = Adobe Systems

| founded = {{circa|1984}}

| founder = James R. Von Ehr II

| defunct =

| hq_location_city = Texas

| hq_location_country =

| area_served =

| key_people =

| products =

| owner =

| num_employees =

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| website = https://altsystech.com/

}}

Altsys Corporation was a Texas-based software company founded by James R. Von Ehr II. It was an early Apple Macintosh developer and publisher.

Three major products from Altsys for PC / Macintosh and NeXT were:

• Fontographer for Windows and Mac OS - font editor
• Font-O-Matic for Windows - font transformer
• Virtuoso for NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP and Solaris - vector editor (a version was announced, advertised and demonstrated for Windows NT,{{cite news|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PDsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA13|title=Users Praise NT's Graphic Support at Comdex|last=Willett|first=Shawn|date=31 May 1993|work=Infoworld}} but never released)

Altsys' best known product was basically a rebranded Virtuoso licensed to Aldus Corporation under the FreeHand name,{{cite news|url=https://www.questia.com/read/1G1-15475093|title=Software makers' merger gives rise to lawsuit from competitor|last=MacDougall|first=Paul|date=5 May 1994|work=Folio |via= |url-access=|accessdate=}}{{dl|date=July 2021}} was a vector drawing program that competed with Adobe Illustrator. It was published for many years, originally only on the Macintosh, then also for Microsoft Windows. When Aldus was acquired by Adobe, the licensing agreement that Altsys had with Aldus precluded FreeHand from being part of the deal, so the publishing rights reverted to Altsys. Altsys also published Metamorphosis for Macintosh, a font utility.{{cite news|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-11162870.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409051520/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-11162870.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=9 April 2016|title=V2.1 type library on CD-ROM|date=1 August 1991|work=Graphic Arts Monthly|accessdate=17 February 2013}}

Altsys was acquired by Macromedia in January, 1995.{{cite web|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NEW/is_1994_Oct_28/ai_16187517|title=FindArticles.com - CBSi|website=findarticles.com}} Von Ehr became a major Macromedia shareholder and joined the Macromedia board of directors.