Adobe Product Glossary


As the principal of the Multimedia Resource Group (http://www.multigroup.com) an Adobe Authorized Training provider in Silicon consequently, we often get questions from people about which product they should buy and use.

We put together this Adobe Product Directory and Glossary together to give people
a simple overview of Adobe Products.

This list is still a work in progress. Note this glossary is not complete but it does list most major Adobe products; all definitions are our interpretation of the major features and purpose of each product.
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Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a program for creating animations, presentations and interactive productions for the web.It can be used for everything from animated banners, to online training, to interactive games, to creating entire web sites and more. Flash files (.swf) can contain graphics, sounds, videos, interactivity (buttons that do something when clicked using Actionscript, the scripting language built in Flash.). A very popular technology on the web today. Flash files are played back though the "Flash Player" a browser plug in that most people already have.

Flash can also be used to encode and playback video files. All "YouTube" videos are encoded as Flash video files.

Adobe Flex

An application or framework that allows you to output swf files that are played back using the Flash Player. Flex is available as an application from Adobe: Flex Builder, or an open source application Flex 3 SDK. Much of the functionality of Flex is typically implemented using componenents (pre-build "widgets" that come with Flex). Actionscript 3.0 is also used in Flex as its scripting language (as it is in Flash). Flex also uses mxml, a custom mark-up language similiar to xml.

Flex files are used to create web applications that playback using the Flash Player, as does Flash. Flex has no animation capability but swf files created in Flash can be used in Flex. Typicallly, Flex files tend to be highly interactive web applications. Both Flash and Flex can be used to create web applications, though some applications may be more expediantly created in Flex.

Adobe AIR

Adobe Integrated Run time (AIR): desktop applications (doesn't play on the web) created in either Flex or Flash. Twitter Deck and Thwirl are AIR applications.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver is the industry-leading professional product for creating, maintaining and deploying web sites.

Adobe InDesign

InDesign is the industry leading product for producing page layouts for print: everything from a one page flyer, newsletter, magazine or book. InDesign files can be displayed on the web when output as .pdf files.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is the industry leading product for creating and working with bitmap graphics for print or web.

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator is the industry leading product for creating and editing graphics using vector shapes for output to print or web.

Adobe Fireworks

A product Adobe acquired from Macromedia created specifically to create graphics and related resources for the web.

Adobe Captivate

Captivate is an eLearning tool allowing you to create online present ions, as well as software demonstrations and simulations with or without interactivity.

Adobe Contribute

A product that allows people with no knowledge of the tools and techniques needed to create web pages to manage and update web sites.

Adobe Acrobat

An application that allows you to create pdf files from various sources for print or web. The resulting files may include forms, interactivivity and a variety of different media.

Adobe FrameMaker

An application typically used to create and mange long documents such as books.

Adobe Cold Fusion

A server technology and scripting language (Cold Fusion Markup Language; cfml) used for the creation and support of dynamic web sites.


Training, Consulting and Development

The Multimedia Resource Group offers training, consulting and development services using all of these products, call or email us for more information: training@multigroup.com; 408-315-8720.

If there is an Adobe product that you need more information about, whether it's on this list or not, feel free to email us with your question: training@multigroup.com