Paul Brainerd

Paul Brainerd, a former newspaper executive who founded Aldus Corporation, whose PageMaker software brought publishing into the digital era, allowing anyone with a computer and a printer to become a modern-day Johannes Gutenberg, died on Feb. 15 2026 at his home on Bainbridge Island, in Washington. He was 78. His wife, Deborah Brainerd, said that he had lived with Parkinson’s disease for many years and had ended his life under Washington’s Death With Dignity Act. A former production manager at The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Mr. Brainerd founded Aldus in 1984, Brainerd eventually left the company, after Aldus merged with Adobe Systems in 1994, and devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy, He co-founded IslandWood, an outdoor learning center on Bainbridge Island.