Lonely Planet Standardizes on Adobe Creative Suite and InDesign Software; Renowned Travel Media Company Converting 500 Titles to Adobe InDesign for Streamlined Multiple-Language Publishing

Business Wire, Jan 30, 2006

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that Lonely Planet Publications, among the world's most successful travel media companies with more than 500 book titles, has adopted the Adobe(R) Creative Suite, including Adobe InDesign(R) CS software, to publish guidebooks, activity guides, phrasebooks, and other travel materials that are distributed worldwide. Since standardizing on InDesign for page layout in 2003, Lonely Planet has enhanced publication accuracy, reduced days from layout and production processes, and streamlined multiple-language publishing.

"InDesign has improved our publishing efforts dramatically. It is less expensive because it provides global typographical capabilities in a single product without requiring special versions of page layout software and provides robust Visual Basic scripting for automation and customization," said Andrew Tudor, production services manager for Lonely Planet. "Asian language guidebooks, for instance, have traditionally been among the most challenging titles we produce. Thanks in no small part to support for Unicode in InDesign, we can publish these titles several weeks faster -- a breeze in comparison to past efforts."

Streamlining multiple-language publishing

Lonely Planet is one of the world's most recognized travel brands across both print and digital media, and the brand of choice for millions of independent travelers the world over. The company's materials are published in five languages, including Japanese and Korean. Prior to adopting InDesign, Lonely Planet found it challenging to handle the extensive language requirements of its guidebooks and other materials. The process required managing more than 50 customized font sets. Aligning font sets from authoring through printing led to heavy management overhead, confusion, and inadvertent errors.

Because InDesign supports Unicode fonts, including OpenType(R) fonts, Lonely Planet can now reproduce complex scripts as text rather than bitmap images in its layouts, enabling easy editing without going back to the source document. In addition, a single version of InDesign can produce layouts in virtually any language, eliminating the expensive prospect of purchasing multiple language versions of page layout software.

"Lonely Planet is reaching out to millions of readers around the world by equipping its staff with tools that streamline multiple-language publishing," said Mark Hilton, vice president of Creative Suite Products at Adobe. "The Adobe Creative Suite offers Lonely Planet more efficient, trouble-free publishing, regardless of the language."

Increasing efficiency

In addition to streamlining multiple-language publishing, Lonely Planet is leveraging strong support for Visual Basic scripting in InDesign CS to automate repetitious manual tasks and has developed an automated cross-referencing system. On larger titles, this can save up to four days during layout and helps ensure that cross-referenced page numbers are accurate.

The company is also taking advantage of ease and speed of outputting InDesign layouts to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) for more reliable, efficient printing. All titles and point of sales materials are sent as Adobe PDF files for print, enabling production staff to embed font sets and subsets. This capability helps ensure that all Latin accents and complex scripts are faithfully reproduced. Prior to this, Lonely Planet often experienced issues with font substitution and resulting delays and errors when printers received files.

Further contributing to efficiency and reducing costs, Lonely Planet uses Adobe(R) Acrobat(R) software and Adobe PDF file format to exchange proofs of files with authors while they are traveling. Compared with postal costs and associated turnaround times, exchange of comments using Adobe PDF helps ensure that titles are as up-to-date as possible at the time of print, and all in a timely manner.

These efficiencies have spurred Lonely Planet to convert production of all of its titles to the Adobe Creative Suite. Already, the company has published more than 125 titles using an all Adobe workflow, and has chosen InDesign CS as the standard for all scheduled titles.

Other companies who have also recently adopted InDesign and Creative Suite software include Hearst Magazines, Meredith Corporation, Ogilvy & Mather, Plow & Hearth Inc., REI and Staples.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

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(C) 2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe and the Adobe logo, Acrobat, and InDesign are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. OpenType is either a trademark or registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.