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Exporting Your Flash File (.fla) for Web delivery (.swf)

When you save a Flash file, it will have the native .fla file extension. These can be opened back into Flash and edited. However, when preparing a move for the Web, use the File-->Export Movie menu option, which prepares web-ready Shockwave Flash files with an .swf file extension.

When you have finished creating your Flash animation and have tested your movie by going to Control-->Test Movie then you are ready to publish your movie.

There are 2 ways to do this:

1. Use Dreamweaver to place your swf file in your HTML page (use this if you are placing a Flash file in a Web page that already exists). This is the recommended route to take.

2. Use Flash to generate a new blank seperate HTML page that contains your movie (use this if you are creating a stand alone Flash movie)

To use Dreamweaver:

1. In Flash, export your movie as a swf file. File-->Export Movie

2. Be sure to save your file in the right folder. If this is your film credits assignment, you should save your .swf file inside the credits folder inside the portfolio folder of your root Web folder (your last name.) If you are working on the multimedia narrative or files for you final revision site, then you should save your files in a folder that houses all relevent files to a particular project. (i.e, each subfolder inside the portfolio folder should have all of the relevent files for each assignment.)

Just give it a file name and make sure it is saved as type Flash Player (*.swf)

3. In Dreamweaver, you always must "define your site" to remind Dreamweaver where your local root folder is. (Your local root folder is your last name.)

4. Then, go to Insert->Flash or click the Flash Object button and then select the swf file you exported from Flash.

5. Select the Flash movie so that the Property Inspector reflects the Flash Properties controls.

Here you can check whether or not you want looping, and you can test the way the animation will display (by hitting the green arrow)

To Use Flash:

1. Define your publishing settings, File-->Publish Settings

Under the Formats tab you will select the type of formats you wish to generate:

• check Flash (.swf), to export a your movie
• check HTML is you want this movie to be on it's own blank white Web page (you can also opt to use Dreamweaver to embed your Flash movie into a Web page)
• check either GIF or JPG to generate a substitute image to display if visitor's do not have Flash installed on their computer.

2. You can ignore the Flash and GIF tabs for now, but open the HTML tab to select the movie's dimensions and whether or not it loops.

3. When you're done click Publish and then find the HTML page that Flash generated. Be sure you keep the HTML page and the swf file together in the same folder.