Publishing A Flash Movie

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When you're ready to deliver your movie to an audience, you can publish the Macromedia Flash MX document (FLA file) for playback. By default, the Publish command creates the Flash SWF file and an HTML document that inserts your Flash movie in a browser window.

The Macromedia Flash file format (SWF) is the format for deploying Flash content.

You can play a Flash movie in the following ways:
In Internet browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer that are equipped with the Flash Player 6
With the Flash Xtra in Director and Authorware
With the Flash ActiveX control in Microsoft Office and other ActiveX hosts
As part of a QuickTime movie
As a stand-alone movie called a projector

Publishing Flash documents

Publishing a Flash document is a two-step process. First, you choose publishing file formats and select file format settings with the Publish Settings command. Then you publish the Flash document using the Publish command.

Depending on the options you specify in the Publish Settings dialog box, the Publish command creates the following files:

The Flash movie.

Alternate images in a variety of formats that appear automatically when the Flash Player is not available (GIF, JPEG, PNG, and QuickTime).

The supporting HTML document required to display a movie (or an alternate image) in a browser and control browser settings.

Stand-alone projector files for both Windows and Macintosh systems and QuickTime videos from Flash movies (EXE, HQX, or MOV files, respectively).

Note: To alter or update a Flash movie created with the Publish command, you must edit the original Flash document and then use the Publish command again to preserve all authoring information. Importing a Flash movie into Flash removes some of the authoring information.

You can also publish a Flash document using default or previously selected settings.

To set general publish settings for a Flash document:

Do one of the following to specify where you will save the published files:

Create the folder where you want to save the published files, and save your Flash document.
Browse to and open an existing folder, and save your Flash document.

Choose File > Publish Settings.

In the Publish Settings dialog box, select the option for each file format you want to create.

The Flash SWF format is selected by default. The HTML format is also selected by default, because an HTML file is required to display a SWF file in a browser. Tabs corresponding to the selected file formats appear above the current panel in the dialog box (except for Windows or Macintosh projector formats, which have no settings). For more information on publishing settings for individual file formats, see the sections that follow.


Publish Settings dialog box, with Flash and HMTL file types selected


For Filename, choose one of the following options:

Select Use Default Names (the default setting).

Deselect Use Default Name and enter a new filename for each selected file format.

You can enter a path with the filename to specify where you want to publish the file. You can set a different path for each file format (for example, if you want to publish the Flash SWF file in one location and the HTML file in another location). In Windows, use backslashes (\) to specify the directory-folder-file hierarchy; on the Macintosh, use colons (:). Specify the drive name for an absolute path. In Windows only: for a relative path, use ..\ to indicate the path to the hard drive. For example:

In Windows, specify an absolute path as C:\Folder\filename.swf where C: is the drive name, \Folder specifies the folder name, and filename.swf is the name of the file. Specify the relative path as ..\Folder\filename.swf.

On the Macintosh, specify an absolute path as HardDrivename:Folder:filename.swf.

To create a stand-alone projector file, select Windows Projector or Macintosh Projector.

Note: The Windows version of Flash names a Macintosh projector file with the .hqx extension. You can create a Macintosh projector using the Windows versions of Flash, but you must use a file translator such as BinHex to make the resulting file appear as an application file in the Macintosh Finder.

Click the tab for the format options you want to change. Specify publish settings for each format, as described in the following sections.

When you have finished setting options, do one of the following:

To generate all the specified files and close the dialog box, click Publish.

To save the settings with the FLA file and close the dialog box without publishing, click OK.