I developed a business presentation using Flash CS4 (because it required some custom charts and animation), of which I created an executable application for the client to run on his local machine. I finished designing all of the slides in Illustrator and had to start transferring assets into Flash so I could get to animating and programming… SO, here’s where it gets interesting, at least for a computer nerd graphic designer, like myself. Normally, in past versions of Illustrator/Flash, when you’d like to transfer content, you would go to File > Export, change the Filetype setting to SWF, and simply press the button. Now, over the last few versions of Illustrator/Flash, more and more new features like transparent gradients, drop-shadows (well this one’s been around for a while but there’s a good reason why I included it, keep reading), and even text effects… So, with this particular project, I start by trying the standard time-engraved method of File > Export, import into Flash and, low and behold… it’s horrible… I mean, unrecognizable font issues and characters going every which way, gradients are actually rasterized images of the original ‘Vector’ gradient with just a mask cutting out the correct shape. I’d say MAYBE 10% of the content that’s imported is even usable. Now, if I do recall, Flash has had vector gradients since it was invented. So what’s the deal? Who knows… But I can say that I’ve figured out a solution and you’re definitely going to laugh at this one. So here’s the new method which I honestly just HAPPENED to stumble across…

get ready for it… reeeeeady…. okay, here goes….

you’re gonna love this…

First, you select whatever you want to transfer in Illustrator and then… wait for it… Copy (Command/Control+C)……. and, you guessed it, go into Flash and Paste (Command/Control+V). How you like dem apples?

There’s no way you say… right? There’s no way it’s that easy… Well it’s true. Try it out for yourself. I don’t understand the logistics of making the import method different between copying/pasting your assets into Flash, or importing an exported SWF file. Actually, I’m guessing there weren’t any logistics involved at all. But there’s more.

Do you remember how I mentioned the drop-shadows that you can apply to any shape or text in Illustrator? Well get this, you can even copy over the drop-shadow effects over to Flash seamlessly. Here’s what I mean by seamlessly… to apply an effect like a drop-shadow to anything in Flash, you have to convert the object into a MovieClip first, then apply a number of effects including changing the opacity, add a glow, even blur to name a few. So when you copy/paste your ‘effected’ item from Illustrator into Flash, it automatically converts the graphic into a Movieclip (I’m assuming this only works for effects that are included in Flash) and automatically applies the according effect for you. Now if you’ve worked with Flash as long as I have, this is as big as the invention of toast.