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 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, 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.

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Macromedia, Flash, Flash Player, and FreeHand are trademarks of Macromedia Inc., as indicated.
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