Problems importing Illustrator files into Flash

Question

Illustrator files don't always import correctly into Flash. What are the common reasons for failure and is there any way to improve the import quality?

Answer 1

Illustrator supports many advanced graphics features that Flash does not. Certain shapes are converted to bitmaps, and certain shapes don't import properly at all. Some of them are:

• Mesh gradients - Flash only supports linear/radial gradients, so if you want to preserve these, you'll have to import these as bitmaps
• Opacity masks - Flash only supports fully opaque masks, not alpha masks. May not import properly no matter what settings you use. Will need touch-up work post-import.

The things that easily import 1:1 are:

• Shapes - Imports perfectly
• Solid fills/strokes - Imports perfectly
• Linear & Radial gradients - Imports perfectly
• Text - Can be problematic but mostly perfect - Imports perfectly