Best OEM Software

Adobe Fireworks CS5

Create expressive screen graphics for virtually any device rapidly with Adobe Fireworks CS5 software. Design websites, user interfaces, or rich media applications using both vector and bitmap tools. Import assets from Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator software and export to HTML and CSS, Adobe Flash Catalyst software, or the Adobe AIR runtime. Optimize final imagery with the industry's leading screen graphics software.

New features:

Feature refinements
Fireworks CS5 includes extensive productivity enhancements that let you create rich, multi-layered web images, comps, and interactive designs with fewer steps, while maintaining the quality, accuracy, and flexibility of your designs. In addition, significant changes have been made in the user interface that enable you to access key features directly from the Properties panel.

UI responsiveness and performance
For this release, the Fireworks team searched for opportunities to improve the software's performance and stability so you that can work smoothly and quickly, whatever the task at hand. Compared to Fireworks CS4, Fireworks CS5:

• Installs up to 17-40 percent faster
• Takes up 7-10 percent less space on your hard disk
• Launches 12-15 percent faster after you start your computer ("cold launch")
• Launches 11-49 percent faster after you've launched Fireworks and then quit ("warm launch")
• Reduces response time in user interface components such as panels and context-sensitive controls, so you can work without interruption

Adobe Device Central integration
Easily experiment with designing for mobile devices. Integration between Fireworks and Adobe Device Central makes it easy to set up a Fireworks project and preview it in Adobe Device Central. In Fireworks, choose File > Device Central, select a target device, and click Create. Fireworks creates a new project with the correct pixel dimensions of the device's display. Use Fireworks to craft your mobile content, and then choose File > Preview In Device Central to emulate your content using the updated online library of device profiles.

FXG Export
Fireworks is optimized for designing screen graphics, making it ideal for creating assets for delivery via the Flash Platform. Fireworks CS5 supports the latest FXG format (2.0) so you can easily export individual objects or multipage designs as editable FXG elements for use in Flash Catalyst and other software.

Adobe Swatch Exchange
Fireworks can now open and create Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) files, which can also be used in Adobe InDesign®, Photoshop, and Illustrator software. ASE files created with other Creative Suite applications can be easily imported into the Swatches panel in Fireworks, allowing you to work with color schemes that may have been created in other projects. Additionally, you can create ASE files from Adobe Kuler themes and use them in your design.

Sharing ASE files allows you to maintain color consistency among design teams, including those using Adobe Kuler, and across design projects.

Fireworks templates
Save time by jump-starting your project with a variety of templates, including web and mobile designs, wireframes, grids, and document presets.

Type enhancements
In Fireworks CS4, integration of the Adobe text engine introduced exciting new capabilities for high-quality typographic design and efficient text handling. In Fireworks CS5, we've continued to harness the power of the text engine to provide enhanced features for editing and formatting text. Together, these refinements make it much easier for you to efficiently achieve the typographic quality and effects you want. Now you can:

• Select text with similar attributes, such as bold and italic, inside a text block
• Select non-contiguous text elements within a single text block
• Undo/Redo text-editing changes
• Take advantage of greater fidelity when copying and pasting text, including double-byte text, from Illustrator into Fireworks
• Search for a font by typing the first few characters of the name in the font list box (Windows only)
• Use keyboard shortcuts to adjust kerning and tracking characters up to 200 points in 10-point and 100-point increments, and enjoy accurate mapping of kerning and tracking values when opening Fireworks CS3 files
• See a text overflow indicator showing when text doesn't fit on or in a path
• Triple-click a text block to select an entire paragraph
• Use line and paragraph breaks and specify the space after a paragraph
• Paste text copied from Microsoft Office applications as text rather than a bitmap
• Copy and paste more text into a text block at once

Emulating CSS text styling is significantly easier in Fireworks CS5. Thanks to improved selection features, you can quickly style your text to resemble the styling of a specific CSS rule (color, line height, character spacing, weight, style, or size).

Pixel-perfect precision
Fireworks CS5 includes numerous features to enable you to precisely control the placement and appearance of design elements. In addition to stroke alignment, type-handling enhancements, proportional scaling, and FXG export, Fireworks CS5 allows you to create crisp graphics that align to the underlying pixel grid.

The Compound Shape tools
Creating complex vector shapes is much faster and more flexible in Fireworks CS5, thanks to the Compound Shape tools in the Properties panel. The Compound Shape tools allow you to group vector shapes temporarily as you draw them, so you can both move the objects as a group and edit individual objects one at a time. You can also achieve nondestructive effects such as punching, intersecting, or cropping overlapping vectors. With the Compound Shape tool, you can use simple shapes to build complex vectors faster and more flexibly.

Extensibility enhancements
Fireworks offers a high degree of built-in extensibility. Fine-tune workflows to your personal preferences or the needs of specific projects using simple JavaScript commands for batch processing. Use the History panel to capture a custom workflow sequence, add it to the Commands menu, and apply it to multiple images.

To take advantage of the extensibility in Fireworks, third-party developers release numerous extensions. From Flash panels to Auto Shapes (artwork with JavaScript logic attached) to workflow commands, extensions can streamline your workflow in numerous ways. Many of these extensions are free and available at the Adobe Exchange and Marketplace (www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange).

System requirements:

• Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 3; Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1; or Windows 7
• 512MB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on removable flash-based storage devices)
• 1,024x768 display (1,280x800 recommended) with 16-bit video card
• DVD-ROM drive
• Internet Explorer 7 or 8 or Firefox 3 or 3.5 required for the Adobe® Contribute® web browser plug-in
• Office 2003 or 2007 required for the Microsoft Office plug-in