Released by Adobe:
Adobe Illustrator CS Features 3D Effects, Refined Typography and Lightning Performance
Expanded Print Capabilities and Enhanced Adobe PDF Support Round Out Major Upgrade to Industry Standard Vector Graphics Software
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 29, 2003 - Adobe Systems Incorporated, the leader in network publishing, today announced Adobe® Illustrator® CS, a major upgrade to the industry standard for vector graphics for print, the Web, and other media. Available as a key component of the Adobe Creative Suite (also announced today) or as a stand-alone software application, Adobe Illustrator CS includes powerful new design tools, enhanced Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) support, new print capabilities and wholesale performance improvements that speed up everyday tasks and take advantage of advances in hardware and operating systems.
"As the 'go to' application for graphics and illustration, Adobe Illustrator CS plays a critical role in the all-new Adobe Creative Suite," said Jim Heeger, senior vice president of Creative Professional Products at Adobe. "From its rich feature set and reliable production tools, to its advanced integration with other Adobe products, Adobe Illustrator CS is more efficient in creating and producing compelling graphics, whether you are designing a Web site or producing a stunning design for print."
New Creative Options
Adobe Illustrator CS introduces innovative features including support for 3D Effects and the new Scribble Effect. The 3D Effects in Illustrator CS makes it easy to add 3D elements to any project by transforming type or any object into a 3D shape and providing unique design options, including Extrude, Bevel, Revolve and Artwork Mapping. Adobe Illustrator CS also includes the new live Scribble Effect, which gives a loose hand-drawn look to any image.
"With Illustrator CS, we can work more creatively than ever by incorporating design elements such as live 3D and raster effects," said Darren Neely, graphic systems analyst, GEAR For Sports, Inc. "At the same time, Illustrator CS will increase our efficiency. Performance is faster, integration with other Adobe tools is tighter than ever, and we can more easily set up, customize, and reuse our designs."
Essential Text Design Tools
A new unicode-based Type technology in Illustrator CS makes the product more powerful, more intuitive and more flexible than previous versions. Numerous text enhancements, headlined by the new OpenType® palette, provide professional typography features, such as alternate glyph replacement, swash characters and small type. Paragraph and character styles help format text to keep a consistent look throughout a document, while Automatic Ligatures and Smart Quotes set standard typographical treatment throughout a document to ensure a professional appearance. Illustrator CS also includes the Adobe Every-line Composer, a unique composition technology shared with Adobe Photoshop® CS which allows text to be edited across applications.
New Efficient Workflows
Adobe Illustrator CS provides options that allow users to move Illustrator content into other components of the Adobe Creative Suite, including Adobe InDesign CS and Adobe Photoshop CS, with ease. A new printing interface ensures fast, reliable printed results. Enhanced Adobe PDF support and advanced integration with Adobe Acrobat® 6.0 ensures Illustrator CS will support PDF 1.5, including PDF layers. An innovative Save for Microsoft® Office feature allows users to quickly export professional graphics into Microsoft-authored documents.
Illustrator CS delivers wholesale performance improvements: printing; displaying large files; managing files with multiple layers; and saving and exporting artwork in native, print and web file formats are significantly faster than previous versions. Additionally, Illustrator CS takes advantage of technology advances on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms, including optimizations for Apple's new PowerMac G5 systems.
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Illustrator CS is a component of the all-new Adobe Creative Suite. The Adobe Creative Suite Premium Edition combines full, new versions of Adobe Photoshop CS with ImageReady® CS, Adobe Illustrator CS, Adobe InDesign CS, Adobe GoLive CS, and Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional and introduces the innovative new Version Cue(tm) file version manager, to easily track iterations and quickly locate files. The Adobe Creative Suite is a complete design solution that gives today's creative professionals everything they need to create and publish content to print and the Web faster, more easily, and more efficiently than ever.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe Illustrator CS for Mac OS X 10.2.4, Microsoft Windows® 2000, and Windows XP is expected to be available in the fourth (calendar) quarter of 2003 to customers in the United Kingdom through Adobe Authorized Resellers and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.co.uk/store . Estimated street price for the full version will be £511.13 for all platforms. Registered users of any version of Adobe Illustrator can upgrade to Illustrator CS for only £163.33. For more detailed information about new features and upgrade policies for Adobe Illustrator CS, please visit:www.adobe.co.uk/illustrator .
About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Founded in 1982, Adobe Systems Incorporated (www.adobe.co.uk ), the leader in network publishing, offers a comprehensive line of software for enterprise and creative professional customers. Its products enable customers to create, manage and deliver visually rich, compelling and reliable content. Based in San Jose, Calif., Adobe is one of the world's largest software companies.
