Flash 8 Documentation

Using Flash > Publishing > Publishing Flash documents

Publishing Flash documents

To publish a Flash document, you select publish file formats and file format settings with the Publish Settings dialog box. Then you publish the Flash document using the Publish command. The publishing configuration that you specify in the Publish Settings dialog box is saved with the document. You can also create and name a publish profile so that the established publish settings are always available.

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

• The Flash SWF file
• Alternate images in a variety of formats that appear automatically when Flash Player is not available (GIF, JPEG, PNG, and QuickTime)
• The supporting HTML document(s) required to show SWF content (or an alternate image) in a browser and control browser setting
• Three HTML files (if you keep the default, Detect Flash Version, selected): the detection file, the content file, and the alternate file
• Stand-alone projector files for Windows and Macintosh computers and QuickTime videos from Flash content (EXE, HQX, or MOV files, respectively)

  NOTE

  To alter or update a SWF file 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 SWF file into Flash removes some of the authoring information.

For information on publish settings, see Configuring publish settings for Flash Player detection. For general information, see Specifying publish settings that create HTML documents with embedded Flash content.

To set general publish settings for a Flash document:

1. Open the Publish Settings dialog box. Do one of the following:
   • Select File > Publish Settings.
   • In the Property inspector for the document (which is available when no object is selected), click the Settings button.

     NOTE

     To create a publish profile for the publish settings that you specify, see Using publish profiles.

2. 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 you need an HTML file for a SWF file to appear 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 publish settings for individual file formats, see the following sections.

3. In the File text box for each selected format, either accept the default filename, which corresponds to the name of the document, or enter a new filename with the appropriate extension (such as .gif for a GIF file and .jpg for a JPEG file).
4. Decide where to publish the files. By default, the files are published in the same location as the FLA file. To change where files are published, click the folder beside the filename and browse to a different location in which to publish the file.
5. To create a stand-alone projector file, select Windows Projector or Macintosh Projector.

   NOTE

   The Windows version of Flash adds the .hqx extension to the filename of a Macintosh projector file. 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.

6. Click the tab for the format options you want to change. Specify publish settings for each format, as described in the following sections.
7. When you have finished setting options, do one of the following:
   • To generate all the specified files, click Publish.
   • To save the settings with the FLA file and close the dialog box without publishing, click OK.

To publish a Flash document without selecting new publish settings:

• Select File > Publish to create the files in the formats and location specified in the Publish Settings dialog box (either the default settings, the settings you selected previously, or the selected publish profile).

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