Whether you are working on an advertizing campaign or a literary magazine, today's publisher doesn't just publish for one media. We need to publish the same content in several formats including web, print, mobile devices and desktop. Being able to create content for one media and then convert that same content for use in other media is a must for cost-effective publishing. Adobe^R Flash^R CS4 now has XFL support which means that you can export the work you have created in InDesign^R or After Effects^R and open that work in Flash. This better integration between these programs is perfect for CS4 users because it eliminates the need to create the same content more than once.

When the Internet first caught on, it was meant to be a text-only media. The idea of including images on the web was an afterthought. These web originators scoffed at the idea that images would enhance their already perfect creation. Can you imagine what they would think of today's Internet with Flash animation and video content? Once people started to add images and video, the issue of file size and bandwidth became a problem. However, adding video into your Flash projects without overly increasing the file size is possible with CS4 and the new Adobe Media Encoder, which replaces the old Flash Video Encoder. With this new stand-alone application that ships with Creative Suite 4, you can convert video into several formats including Flash FLV, F4V, H.264, MPEG 1 and 2, QuickTime^R and Windows^R Media. Adobe Media Encoder will give you a small file as well as a high quality video.

I love the idea of using Adobe AIR^TM runtime for desktop applications. Creating desktop applications has always been an interest of mine and now we can turn our interactive Flash web applications into desktop applications. It's as easy as making any Flash project but with a few new options. You need to choose Adobe AIR from the Welcome screen which will give you the basic setup for an AIR project. Then, when you are ready to publish your project, you use the same Publish Settings dialog box but choose Adobe AIR from the drop-down menu. It's as easy as that. Can you imagine all the cool desktop applications that we can create?

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