About importing artwork into Flash

Adobe® Flash® CS3 Professional can use artwork created in other applications. You can import vector graphics and bitmaps in a variety of file formats. If you have QuickTime 4 or later installed on your system, you can import additional vector or bitmap file formats. You can import Adobe® FreeHand® files (version MX and earlier) and Adobe® Fireworks® PNG files directly into Flash, preserving attributes from those formats.

Graphic files that you import into Flash must be at least 2 pixels x 2 pixels in size.

To load JPEG files into a Flash SWF file during runtime, use the loadMovie action or method. For detailed information, see loadMovie (MovieClip.loadMovie method) in ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference or “Working with Movie Clips” in Programming ActionScript 3.0.

Flash imports vector graphics, bitmaps, and sequences of images as follows:

• When you import Adobe® Illustrator® and Adobe® Photoshop® files into Flash, you can specify import options that let you preserve most of your artwork's visual data, and the ability to maintain the editability of certain visual attributes with the Flash authoring environment.

• When you import vector images into Flash from FreeHand, select options for preserving FreeHand layers, pages, and text blocks.

• When you import PNG images from Fireworks, import files as editable objects to modify in Flash, or as flattened files to edit and update in Fireworks.

• Select options for preserving images, text, and guides.

  Note: If you import a PNG file from Fireworks by cutting and pasting, the file is converted to a bitmap.

• Vector images from SWF and Windows Metafile Format (WMF) files that you import directly into a Flash document (instead of into a library) are imported as a group in the current layer.

• Bitmaps (scanned photographs, BMP files) that you import directly into a Flash document are imported as single objects in the current layer. Flash preserves the transparency settings of imported bitmaps. Because importing a bitmap can increase the file size of a SWF file, consider compressing imported bitmaps.

  Note: Bitmap transparency might not be preserved when bitmaps are imported by dragging and dropping from an application or desktop to Flash. To preserve transparency, use the File > Import To Stage or Import To Library command for importing.

• Any sequence of images (for example, a PICT and BMP sequence) that you import directly into a Flash document is imported as successive keyframes of the current layer.

For a video tutorial about the Flash and Fireworks workflow, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0194.