Adobe Works with Leading Screen Reader Vendors to Make Acrobat and Adobe PDF Documents More Accessible; Supports Microsoft Active Accessibility API

FOSE, WASHINGTON, DC., (April 18, 2000) Building on its efforts to deliver software solutions to the disability community, Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced plans to make Adobe® Acrobat® software more accessible with support from Microsoft Corporation, GW Micro and Henter-Joyce. As part of today’s news, Adobe also announced its intention to support the Microsoft® Active Accessibility (MSAA) Application Programming Interface (API) in future releases of Adobe Acrobat software for the Windows® platform.

By enhancing the accessibility of Adobe Acrobat software and the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), Adobe is enabling businesses and government agencies to easily distribute a wide range of web-based content such as forms, newsletters and other documents to the broadest number of users, even those with disabilities. The ability to access everything from IRS tax forms to consumer catalogs narrows the gap for members of the disability community to easily tap the wealth of information available on the Internet.

"Adobe’s support for accessibility in Acrobat software extends the value of Adobe PDF as a web standard for electronic documents and opens up the vast amounts of information available in Adobe PDF to a much larger audience," said Sarah Rosenbaum, group product manager at Adobe. "Now users with disabilities can more easily use the Internet to collaborate and exchange information critical to their work and everyday lives."

Microsoft Active Accessibility is an API that allows programs to expose information about their content and user interface to assistive technologies. Through support of MSAA and relationships with the assistive technology vendors such as GW Micro and Henter-Joyce, Adobe will enable users with disabilities to not only more easily use Adobe Acrobat software, but to easily access documents in PDF.

"It is great news for the disability community when popular mainstream programs like Adobe Acrobat become more accessible," said Gary Moulton, group product manager for the Accessibility and Disabilities Group at Microsoft. "By taking advantage of MSAA, Adobe has made it much easier for individuals with disabilities to tap into the full benefits of the Windows platform."

Technology Demonstration at FOSE
Adobe will be demonstrating Adobe Acrobat software working with GW Micro’s Window-Eyes screen reader at the Adobe booth #1550 at FOSE this week in Washington, DC. For this technology demonstration Adobe Acrobat software developers utilized the MSAA API to make Adobe Acrobat and PDF files accessible via the Window-Eyes screen reader. The demonstration illustrates how blind or vision-impaired people can use Adobe Acrobat in a Windows environment.

Current Adobe Solutions for the Disability Community
Since 1997, Adobe has offered web-based services at http://access.adobe.com that enable sight-impaired users to convert Adobe PDF files into formats, including HTML and plain text, that screen readers can understand. Adobe has also developed a plug-in for Acrobat for Windows that provides similar functionality on a user’s local system.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Founded in 1982, Adobe Systems Incorporated (www.adobe.com) builds award-winning software solutions for Web and print publishing. Its graphic design, imaging, dynamic media, and authoring tools enable customers to create, publish and deliver visually rich content for various types of media. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Adobe is the fourth largest U.S.-based personal software company, with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion.

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, delays in shipment of the Company’s new products and major new versions of existing products; lack of market acceptance of new products, introduction of new products by major competitors, and dependence on third parties. For further discussion of the risks and uncertainties, readers should refer to the Company’s SEC filings including the 1998 annual report on Form 10K and the quarterly reports on Form 10Q available at http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/main.html.