San Francisco, California-based Macromedia, Inc. has announced Macromedia FlashWriter, a free downloadable plug-in for Adobe Illustrator, which willenable Illustrator users to save their artwork natively to the Flash Playerfile format (SWF). Illustrator users will now be able to deploy theirartwork to the Web immediately without having to reformat it as a bitmappedfile. Flash is the industry standard for high-impact, vector-based Websites that deliver motion, sound, interactivity and graphics. Flash Writergives Adobe Illustrator users the ability to deliver vector artwork to alarge worldwide Web audience. At present, Adobe Illustrator users need toconvert their vector artwork to a bitmapped GIF or JPG format to view andpublish it online. In the process, they lose scalability and the ability topublish the vector artwork to the Web quickly for display or high-qualityproofing. With Flash Writer, Illustrator users will immediately gain thesecompelling features. The Flash file format also boasts a compact binaryfile that can be streamed from any Web server and displays more quicklythan other major graphics formats. Macromedia is the leading publisher ofWeb publishing tools such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Generator.
