Publishing Digital Media
Publishing is a set of trade-offs, not a button
Publish Settings (File > Publish Settings, then Publish) determine the target and output quality. Targets include HTML5 Canvas (default for modern web and banner work), ActionScript 3.0/Flash Player, AIR for packaged desktop and mobile apps, and WebGL for GPU-heavy canvas content. Each target has its own options: HTML5 Canvas exports an HTML wrapper plus a JavaScript library (CreateJS) and supports sprite sheet output that packs bitmap sequences into a single image plus a data file; SWF output exposes image and audio compression settings directly.
Know the asset settings that shrink files: JPEG for photographic images, PNG-8 or GIF for flat indexed color and simple transparency, PNG-24 only when full alpha or gradients justify the size. Audio needs a sample rate and bitrate, and speech tolerates far lower bitrates than music. Use preloaders so viewers do not stare at a blank canvas, test with Control > Test (Ctrl/Cmd+Enter) in a browser rather than trusting the authoring preview, and keep a separate publish profile per client. OAM export packages an animation for InDesign and similar host applications.
Traps: publishing SWF for a mobile web audience; assuming the HTML file alone is enough when the folder also needs the JS library and asset files; assuming PNG is always smaller than JPEG; forgetting that a responsive stage needs scale-to-fit and alignment set in Publish Settings.
Rule of thumb: publish, open the exported folder, and check total size plus the first three seconds of playback on the slowest target device - if either fails, optimize before shipping.
Worked example: a 3 MB banner cap. Export bitmap art as a sprite sheet, choose PNG-8 for flat color, JPEG for the photo panel, and verify the published folder total against the cap in a browser.