Quark Forums

Hi, all,

we have been asked by several people how to keep the exported file size (SWF) as small as possible, which is especially important for Flash ads.

So this might be interesting for everybody:

1. Specify the lowest possible frame rate for the interactive presentation (in File/New or Layout/New). Try different settings to see which frame rate is sufficient to satisfy your quality needs.

2. Delete all unused scripts (in Script tab in Interactive Palette). Also delete the two pre-fabricated scripts ("GoToNext" and "GoToPrevious"), if not needed.

3. Delete all unused keys (in Keys tab in Interactive Palette). Also delete the two pre-fabricated shortcut keys ("Left Arrow" and "Right Arrow"), if not needed. They are assigned to "All Global" pages.

4. Restrict yourself with mouse cursors. Either use none or only a few. To use none leave the mouse cursor for each event to "preferences" (in Event tab of Interactive Palette) and set all three mouse cursor to "OS" in Preferences/Interactive Layout/Presentation.

5. When you have reoccurring objects and size matters, try putting these objects on a window and open the window on each page.

6. When QuarkXPress cannot see the picture (so Usage shows "Missing") then Interactive Designer embeds only the preview (lores) into the SWF. This will keep the file size much smaller when working high-quality pictures.

7. When exporting, click on export options and do not embed fonts. Also choose the JPEG quality as low as possible. Try different settings to see which setting is sufficient to satisfy your quality needs. Experiment with point 6 as stated above.

8. Compress sounds as MP3, especially when using large WAV-Audiofiles. You can do so in the Export Settings dialog. It is even better to not even include sounds, see next point.

9. Try and use all elements such as sounds and pictures "external reference". Pictures can stay external by using the "Object/Display Image" action. Even pages can be external by creating a separate Presentation and loading it with "Other > Open Project".

10. MacOS only: Under Mac OS Quark Interactive Designer adds a custom icon. To see the proper export size on a Mac, click once on the export SWF, call Information (Command+i) and select the icon. Press the delete (backspace) key. Now you see the proper file size. As Unix and Windows systems will ignore this icon this is not necessary for you to do unless you want to find out about the SWF's real file size.

11. If you are using Quark Interactive Designer for QuarkXPress 7 then additionally you might apply a SWF Compressor on the file, which will again reduce the file size significantly. Just search for "SWF Compressor" in the Internet. If you are using Quark Interactive Designer inside QuarkXPress 8, then make sure to check the export option "Compress SWF".

Note: Better quality often is the opposite of smaller files (like with PDF export, the more you compress the smaller the file and less the quality). If you look for quality optimization please read here.

Enjoy!
Matthias