Section 12.4. FlashPaper

12.4. FlashPaper

Dreamweaver's Insert FlashPaper command is another exercise in Macromedia cross-marketing. FlashPaper is a PDF-like technology that lets you print out a document into a format that's readable by the Flash player; it's one easy way to get a Word document or Excel spreadsheet into a Web-ready format (see Figure 12-9).

Visitors can zoom in on a FlashPaper document, scroll through it, and print it out. Unfortunately, Dreamweaver doesn't create these documents. Studio 8 includes FlashPaper and Contribute 3 (as well as Flash and Fireworks). But if you bought the standalone version of Dreamweaver, you'll have to buy Contribute 3 or shell out a little moola for the Windows-only FlashPaper program (www.macromedia.com/software/flashpaper/).

Since FlashPaper documents are just Flash movies.swf filesthe Insert FlashPaper command is nothing more than the Insert Flash command with a couple of extra options. To insert a FlashPaper document, choose Insert Media FlashPaper or choose FlashPaper from the Media menu on the Common tab of the Insert bar. When the Insert FlashPaper window opens, click the browse button and select the FlashPaper document (an .swf file), type a height and width, and then click OK. The height and width you specify determine the size of the "window that contains the FlashPaper document. Viewers of your page can use the FlashPaper controls to zoom, scroll, and print the document.

After inserting the FlashPaper document into the page, it acts like a regular Flash movie. You can select it and use the Property inspector to set any of the normal Flash movie properties discussed on Section 12.1.2.1. However, don't turn off the "Autoplay" checkbox (see Section 12.1.2.5); if you do, the FlashPaper document won't appear on the page.