For Immediate Release
MACROMEDIA BRINGS ABILITY TO EXPORT FLASH WEB CONTENT TO ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
USERS
Macromedia Flash Writer Lets Adobe Illustrator Users Natively Publish
Vector Content to the Internet Using Flash Industry Standard
Seybold San Francisco 99 - SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - August 30, 1999 --
Macromedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: MACR) today announced Macromedia Flash Writer, a
free downloadable plug-in for Adobe Illustrator, which will enable
Illustrator users to save their artwork natively to the Flash Player file
format (SWF). Illustrator users will now be able to immediately deploy
their artwork to the Web without having to reformat it as a bitmapped file.
Flash(TM) is the industry standard for high-impact, vector-based Web sites
that deliver motion, sound, interactivity, and graphics.
Eighty-three percent of Web surfers can view Flash content online without
having to download and install a player, according to a recent NPD Online
Research survey conducted in June. Based on current estimates from industry
research groups, this equates to more than 140 million people who can view
Flash content in their browsers. With Flash Writer for Adobe Illustrator,
and the native support of Flash in Macromedia FreeHand(TM), millions of
professional graphic designers will be able to publish Flash content. For
more information about the ubiquity of Flash playback, visit
www.flash.com/survey/.
"Over the past year, Illustrator users have been seeking a way to convert
their artwork into the Flash format," said Sandee Cohen, Adobe Illustrator
teacher and Graphics Curriculum Coordinator for the New School Computer
Instruction Center, New York City. "This export filter gives Illustrator
users an important and easy route for migrating their work to Flash, which
has become a standard for vector graphics on the World Wide Web."
Flash Writer gives Adobe Illustrator users the ability to deliver vector
artwork to a large worldwide Web audience today. At present, Adobe
Illustrator users need to convert their vector artwork to a bitmapped GIF
or JPG format to view and publish it online. In the process, they lose
scalability and the ability to quickly publish the vector artwork to the
Web for display or high-quality proofing. With Flash Writer, Illustrator
users will immediately gain these compelling features. The Flash file
format also boasts a compact binary file that can be streamed from any Web
server and displays more quickly than other major graphics formats.
"Adobe Illustrator customers have continually requested the ability to
directly export Flash content," said Eric Wittman, Flash product manager at
Macromedia. "This free plug-in gives Illustrator users an immediate way to
publish engaging, high-impact content to an existing Internet audience.
SWF files from Flash Writer can also be brought into the Flash 4 authoring
environment to add animation, interactivity, MP3 audio compression, and
other advanced features to deliver a richer user experience.
Macromedia published its Flash file format as an open Web standard last
year, allowing other companies to both export the Flash file format or
playback Flash content within their applications. Macromedia has also made
numerous distribution agreements to ensure the ubiquity of Flash, which now
ships with most leading operating systems, media players, and Web browsers,
including Windows 98, Mac OS 8.6, America Online 4.0, WebTV, Apple
QuickTime, RealNetworks' RealPlayer, and current versions of Netscape
Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The Flash Player is freely
available for Macintosh, Windows, Solaris, Java, Linux, and IRIX platforms.
Macromedia also makes the Flash Player source code available at zero cost
to platform and device developers, further extending Flash's broad reach.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
Flash Writer is compatible with Adobe Illustrator 8 for Macintosh and
Windows and will be available in September at no charge from the Macromedia
Web site.
ABOUT MACROMEDIA
Macromedia's mission is to add life to the Web. By providing its
award-winning Web Publishing solutions to Web designers, consumers, and the
enterprise, Macromedia is delivering a completely new generation of
Internet technologies designed to transform the Web experience.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR) has more than 550
employees worldwide and is available on the Internet at
http://www.macromedia.com.
