Hi found this article for Corel R.A.V.E users to reduce their file size. Corel R.A.V.E doesn’t make use of symbols.
http://www.tiemdesign.com/HOWTO/2001/August/Rave2Flash/default.htm
Geoff H
3D Animator
I have to say that although programs like Optimaze aren’t going to cut your swfs in half all the time, in certain situations they really do give you a much smaller file, with almost no change in the appearance.
It only works on the vector art in your movie and it really will only have an effect on shapes that need to be optimized. If you create all your art with the basic shapes built into Flash (rectangle, oval, etc) you won’t really see any difference since those shapes are already as optimized as they can be. But if you do a lot of freeform drawing or importing of vector art from other programs, it can make a difference.
If you have a 300k swf and 200k of it is audio files and 75k is a bunch of bitmap images, you’re not gonna be able to optimize it with one of these progams. At that point you need to optimize the images and/or the audio to make any difference.
I am going to disagree with everything that has been said here about using jpg or png or gif.
That does NOT help reduce the file size of the swf.
You are better off to use a bmp and keep your image quality as high as possible for as long as possible as the compression for the final output comes from Flash itself not the image used.
You can however gain a very slight reduction in file size by breaking the photo apart and then making it an object in Flash.
Try it for yourself. I used 2 identical photos one was a 24k jpeg the other was a 340k bmp. both were imported into Flash and identical compression settings were used within Flash.
Upon export as .swf files both were exactly identical in file size.
One quickie if you are using all vector art is publish your movie small but to scale and blow it up in the html page it is displayed on 
Of course this is not going to work if you have imported images however helpful if you don’t, cheers!
One common but often missed option, is to check the elements within the Library for the relevant SWF that you are exporting. If you aren’t using them on the stage or referencing them for dynamic creation / inclusion at runtime, then delete them as they will bloat the final SWF (especially components)
Go on, you are free to do that.
Oh really??
Then it means that I spent all these months while working with Flash Optimisation in vain, no? :eek2:
Oh Yeah, now why I didn’t think of that? Ok lets see, I’ve created 3 SWF files with just one image in it & nothing else(not even in library). Their details as on my Windows2000 are:-
flash_fool_bmp.swf –> 471KB, A BMP image file using the default settings. BMP file worth 1.37MB.
flash_fool_jpg.swf –> 112KB, A JPG file using JPG compression in Flash at 100% quality. JPG file worth 111KB with Maximum(100%) quality.
flash_fool_png.swf –> 123KB, A PNG-24 file using JPG compression in Flash at 100% quality. PNG file worth 378KB.
Do I need to say more? You can find these files attached to this post.
Oh wow!! Why was this secret unknown to many a flash champs & optimisation specialists till date?
Please, excuse me, I don’t have un-necessary free time to waste on such a discussion, so if you don’t mind, I’ll not take part in the discussions that may go from now on regarding your comments.
Note:- Attahed files are zipped as the forum doesn’t allow SWF files to be attached. flash_fool_bmp.swf can’t be attached as its size(471KB) exceeds the limit imposed by the forums(256KB).
Phew, is it getting hot in here?, someone turn on the air-con 
I have heard that getting rid of boders if your drawing in flash can reduce the size some… The less verticies the smaller the file. like for button hit area I draw the hit area with a flash rectangle or whatever but remove the borders… Not much differeince but every little trick adds up 
In my experience - dump chuncks of actionscript into .as files and just include them & stay away from bitmaps! Have fun
Try using only flash created vector graphics.
Graphics created in other programs (like Illustrator) have more anchor points than those created in Flash. Each anchor point adds up to equal quite a few kb.
This can cut your file size down dramatically!!
One other technique I read about in The Macromedia Flash Usability Guide is to keep all your text external.
Apparently Macromedia do this on their site for their menus which (from memory the book says) are less than a 1K!!
Yeah, keeping text external surely helps keep the size less of the SWF files & it helps maintaining the website too.
Have you figured this out yet? I can help if you like.
well, since he hasn’t posted here for well over 2 months, I assume that he’s figured it out.
Inlcuded actionscript gets compiled into the swf, so that would save you nothing. It is only for organization’s sake.
Also, if you are using too many fonts… try to reduce them… otherwise flash saves all those fonts in the swf file…
And the fonts you use very little in the file… (e.g. just one heading with some cool font…)…then you better break it to vector art and optimize it if possible…
yeah asp_funda but this is turning into a great resource thread.
I also optimize the hell outta my images in fireworks before i use them.
chopping into chunks also works well as their smaller and load faster giving you a large picture in the end.
If there is no motion in the layer and you have a tween
remove it.
That will shave a small amount off.