San Francisco, California-based Macromedia, Inc. has 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 deploy their
artwork to the Web immediately 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. Flash Writer
gives Adobe Illustrator users the ability to deliver vector artwork to a
large worldwide Web audience. 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
publish the vector artwork to the Web quickly 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. Macromedia is the leading publisher of
Web publishing tools such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Generator.