SAN JOSE, Calif.--Aug. 1, 2001--Adobe Systems Inc., the leader in Network Publishing, today announced that it is working with leading education publishers Addison Wesley Higher Education Group; Digital Scanning, Inc.; Houghton-Mifflin, College division; McGraw-Hill; South-Western, a division of Thomson Learning and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. to deliver electronic textbooks based on Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) for the Adobe Acrobat® eBook Reader(TM). In addition to study guides, the eTextbooks will cover a broad range of general topics such as accounting, business, chemistry, English, history, marketing, mathematics and political science. Students will be able to download the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader at no charge and purchase the eTextbooks directly from the publishers' Web sites, university bookstores, online book retailers and Adobe.com. "By working with these leading education publishers, Adobe is helping students, faculty and administrators experience the benefit of quickly and easily accessing compelling and up-to-date course content,'' said Susan Altman Prescott, vice president of product marketing, Cross Media at Adobe. "Adobe PDF is the key enabling technology for publishers who want to easily convert their existing textbook libraries into dynamic, interactive electronic textbooks. Whether they are exact replicas of the print version or custom material published by faculty members, Adobe is delivering the tools to make education content digitally accessible.'' "IDC believes that digital textbooks, which combine the content of traditional educational texts with the sophisticated functionality and portability of digital technology, are a natural complement to the student lifestyle,'' said Susan Kevorkian, an analyst with IDC. "By making titles available in a digital format, publishers can generate new revenue streams for their products. At the same time, publishers can tailor content to meet the specific needs of the tech-savvy yet physically overburdened student population.'' New Version of Acrobat eBook Reader Adobe recently released version 2.2 of its Acrobat eBook Reader with new features that enhance students' reading experience. The Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader offers users vivid, visually accurate representations of graphics-intensive eBooks, such as college textbooks and course materials. New features in the Acrobat eBook Reader 2.2 make large-sized textbook pages easier to read by making the page fit the width of the window. Users can then scroll up and down the page. Additional features include the ability to highlight and make annotations within an eBook, two-page layout, electronic bookmarks, quick text search, access to the Web and an interactive dictionary. Additionally, if the publisher grants permission, users can lend and give their eBook selections between Acrobat eBook Readers, as well as print the content. The Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader 2.2 for Windows and Mac is available at no charge from the Adobe website at www.adobe.com