Top Catalog Publishers Embrace Adobe InDesign CS2

Macy’s West, Plow & Hearth, Staples Cite Enhanced Quality and Production Efficiency in Decision to Move to InDesign CS2

SAN JOSE, CA — Aug. 2, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that top retailers Macy’s West, Plow & Hearth, and Staples have adopted Adobe® InDesign® CS software, the innovative layout and design program, as their standard for catalog production. Available as a standalone software application or as a component of Adobe Creative Suite 2 software, InDesign CS2 continues to demonstrate technology leadership with its extensive new XML import features, enhanced scripting model and support for transparent document exchange through INX.

Catalog publishers cite three key reasons for their move to Adobe InDesign CS and now to InDesign CS2: the software’s exceptional support for scripting — via JavaScript, AppleScript, or Microsoft Visual Basic — that automates catalog publishing; tools for enhanced creativity; and tight integration with other components of Adobe Creative Suite 2 such as Adobe Photoshop® CS2, Illustrator® CS2, GoLive® CS2 and Acrobat® 7.0 Professional.

“In addition to its extraordinary layout and design capabilities, leading marketers and catalog publishers are using advanced features in InDesign CS2 to automate the tasks of sharing and repurposing content, keeping creativity at the forefront of the publishing process,” said John Brennan, senior vice president, Corporate Development at Adobe. “The result is that marketers can deliver attractive, compelling materials to their customers, while keeping costs low.”
Innovation With XML

At Staples, the world’s largest office products company, strong support for XML and scripting in Adobe InDesign CS has allowed staff to automate everyday tasks. Staples’ in-house publishing group produces about 15,000 jobs annually, from catalogs to signage and packaging. The group is increasingly moving toward an automated publishing model using InDesign catalog templates and XML content. With the ability in InDesign CS2 to more finely control XML import and apply XML tags to table content, the XML control in InDesign CS2 is more versatile and powerful than ever.

“Adobe continues to evolve XML support to meet a wide range of publishing needs,” said Derrick Wood, vice president, creative director for Staples, Inc. “Robust scripting support from Adobe products is one of the ways our creative and production groups have been able to increase workload by nearly 20 percent over the last three years, without increasing our headcount. Especially due to exceptional support from Adobe, our switch to InDesign has been beneficial all around—helping us focus on our brand promise of making it easy to buy office products.”
Sophisticated Effects in Less Time

To achieve high levels of productivity while keeping costs down, Macy’s West automates its design and production workflow, using InDesign CS and scripts to handle everything from image placement to page definitions in catalogs. Because scripting is consistent across InDesign versions and across other Adobe applications, Macy’s West’s development group can be more productive. Using other page layout solutions, scripts had to be changed with each new software upgrade, a costly and time-consuming proposition for the Macy’s West IT staff. By using InDesign CS, Macy’s West no longer incurs these IT costs or delays.

National catalog, retail, and Internet company Plow & Hearth publishes 2,000 catalog pages annually with a publishing staff of only 23 people. To maintain a high level of quality while increasing efficiency, Plow & Hearth needed to streamline catalog production through better management and more efficient search of digital assets: photos, product descriptions, and page files. To maximize production efficiencies, Plow & Hearth moved to InDesign CS to take advantage of its exceptional scripting support and compatibility with the company’s digital asset database.

“Once our software designers started investigating, it became clear that InDesign CS was the best choice for linking to an external database because of its strong scripting capabilities,” said Jean O. Giesmann, vice president of Creative Services for Plow & Hearth Inc. “In the catalog publishing world, that’s increasingly becoming essential.”
About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe is the world’s leading provider of software solutions to create, manage and deliver high-impact, reliable digital content. For more information, visit www.adobe.com .

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© 2005 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe and the Adobe logo, Acrobat, GoLive, Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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