- New MAPublisher release to provide geospatial PDF export from Adobe® Illustrator® -

Toronto, ON,— July 14, 2009 — Avenza Systems Inc., producers of MAPublisher cartographic software for Adobe Illustrator and Geographic Imager® spatial tools for Adobe Photoshop® is pleased to announce that the upcoming release of MAPublisher, version 8.2, will provide MAPublisher and Adobe Illustrator users with geospatial PDF export capability.

Geospatial PDF export functionality is to be included as a standard feature with the new MAPublisher 8.2 release, the upcoming version of this powerful mapmaking software used to produce high quality maps from GIS data, and will offer complete support for the Adobe geospatial PDF specification which was released with Acrobat 9 along with an advanced attribute feature set.

"MAPublisher users, map-makers and GIS professionals in general have demanded an “intelligent” spatial PDF solution for a long time and we are very pleased to offer support for the Adobe geospatial PDF specification,” said Ted Florence, President of Avenza, “Users of MAPublisher and Adobe Illustrator will now be able to import GIS data, create publication quality maps and output a PDF file of the same publication quality that retains all the geospatial and attribute data in a searchable and queriable manner.” he added.

The MAPublisher Geospatial PDF exporter offers the ability to generate Adobe Acrobat PDF files that contain all the cosmetic features of the completed Adobe Illustrator map document as well as all the GIS data attributes and co-ordinate information of the original GIS data files such that within Adobe Acrobat the following functionality can be performed without the aid of any special tools, plugins or special extensions to Adobe Acrobat.

• View map locations in various coordinate systems including decimal degrees, DMS, Military Grid and more.
  
• Find a location in a map and mark it with a comment.
  
• Measure distances on a map using real-world units (miles, kilometers, feet, etc.).
  
• Reveal the attributes of map features by clicking on the feature within the map document.
  
• Search by map attribute values to reveal all map features that satisfy the query.

MAPublisher 8.2 for Illustrator, including export to geospatial PDF will be available in the third quarter of 2009 and will be provided free-of-charge to all MAPublisher Maintenance Program subscribers. Users without a valid maintenance subscription may purchase MAPublisher 8.2 as an upgrade. Academic, floating license and volume pricing is available. Prices include 1 year of maintenance. Full details are available at www.avenza.com.

About MAPublisher for Illustrator

MAPublisher for Illustrator is powerful map production software for creating cartographic-quality maps from GIS data. Developed as a suite of plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator, MAPublisher leverages the superior graphics capabilities of this graphics design software for working with GIS data and producing high-quality maps with efficiency. Full details are available at www.avenza.com.

About Adobe Geospatial PDF

“Geospatial PDF” is the terminology used by Adobe Systems Inc. to identify PDF files that have embedded georeference information and is an Adobe specification that georeferences the appropriate components of a map or other spatial document layout. Map documents are now being published by USGS, NGA, and others in this extended PDF format.

About Avenza Systems Inc.

Avenza Systems Inc. is an award-winning, privately held corporation that provides cartographers and GIS professionals with powerful software tools for making better maps. In addition to software offerings for Mac and Windows users, Avenza offers value-added data sets, product training and consulting services. Visit www.avenza.com for more details.



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Web: www.avenza.com