Creating a Size Report

Another useful troubleshooting feature built into Flash is the Size Report. (See Figure 5.14.) The Size Report is a text file that lists the size (in bytes) of every frame and every element in your Flash file. The report is broken up into different sections:

• Movie Report. This tells you how much information has to download for each individual frame.

• Page. This gives the size of all items on the stage that are not symbols. Text, grouped items, and drawn graphics are listed here.

• Symbol. This lists the name and the size of each symbol, as well as the size of any text used in the symbol, for your movie.

• Bitmap. This lists the imported bitmapped images. This section is particularly useful because it shows the uncompressed size, along with the compressed size for each element. Thus, you can get a quick visual check of how compressed each element is.

• Sound. This lists all the sounds, their sizes, and the compression ratios.

• Font. This lists all the fonts that you use in your movie. Notice that Flash imports only the characters actually used in your movie.