Flash Tip: Publishing In Different Versions of Flash Player

Did you know that you don't have to, by default, publish your SWF files in the latest version of Flash player supported by your software? In fact, in Flash MX, you can publish in any version from Flash 1 to the most recent version supported by your version of Flash MX (in my case, Flash 6). This can be useful if you're targeting a demographic with older versions of Flash, or even if you yourself run an older version of the Flash player for various reasons (older computer, low memory, older OS, personal preferences, etc.).

You can change the version that your SWF publishes in by going to File->Publish Settings (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+F12 PC, Option+Shift+F12 Mac). Make sure that Flash (swf) is selected on your Formats tab, and then click on the Flash tab.

The first field available on the Flash tab will be a dropdown labeled Version. Click on that to expand it; it should list all available versions. Select the version that you want to publish in, and then click OK to make sure the changes "take" and are saved. And that's it; you're done. Your SWFs for this file will now publish in the version selected.