Click File > New to create a new file. The following dialog appears:

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2 MACROMEDIA FIREWORKS QUICK REFERENCE Fireworks is an application designed to create and edit graphics for use on the Web (or, more specifically, graphics to be viewed on a screen rather than on paper). While very complex graphics can be created with Fireworks, just about any user can create impressive graphics after learning just a few essential skills. Creating a new file Click File > New to create a new file. The following dialog appears: Enter the dimensions of the new canvas you want to create. In the example to the right, we are creating a 640x480 canvas to draw on. Notice the resolution of 72 pixels (or, dots) per inch. This is ideal if you are creating graphics that will only ever be viewed on a screen (such as images for a website or CD- ROM application). However, if you foresee a need to make quality prints of your graphics, you will want to start with a resolution of 300 dpi. Drawing on the canvas Fireworks contains drawing tools for creating shapes, typing text, painting with brushes, applying textures, and adding special image effects. These are selectable using the Tools palette, and can be modified using the Properties Inspector. Some oft-used tools: By clicking to choose a tool on the Tools palette, the Properties Inspector will display options for using the currently selected tool. If you re unsure what a particular tool does, move your mouse over its button on the Tools palette and momentarily, a screen hint appears indicating what tool it is. You can also discover more about tools using the Fireworks Help.

3 Working with effects and textures One of the immediately useful features of Fireworks is the ability to apply effects and textures to fonts, lines, brushes and shapes. Notice the web page example below: The welcome to biology 121 banner consists of only two elements: text and a line stroke. The text tool was used to type the text on a blank canvas, and the Properties Inspector was used to select a font face and size, as well as a drop shadow effect. Notice the text options displayed in the Property Inspector when the Text tool is selected.

4 Finally, the splatter texture was created using the Line tool to draw a line near the text. Then, the Properties Inspector was used to apply the texture with an orange color (see below). Once finished, the image was exported from Fireworks and placed into the web page using a web editing application (i.e., FrontPage, Contribute or Dreamweaver). Using Layers Similar to other graphics applications, Fiireworks affords users the ability to use Layers when editing graphics. This means that each element in an image can be treated as a separate entity. Notice the Layers panel from our previous example: The text and line each reside on their own layer, as evidenced by the Layers panel (located by default on the right of the screen). The advantage here is the ability to apply an edit to one layer without affecting the other. Notice how each layer can be hidden from view if necessary. Layers can also be moved atop other layers, and can be edited at any time. This allows the user a great deal of flexibility when editing images with multiple elements such as text, shapes, or photographs.

5 Saving and exporting files You will notice that when choosing File > Save As in Fireworks, you are able only to save in a single file format: PNG (Portable Network Graphic). This is the program s native file format, meaning that whenever you create a new file or save an existing file, this is the file type the program uses. You may wonder then, how do I save in a GIF or JPG format? Fear not this is easily done by choosing File > Export Preview. Here, you are able to choose file format, perform quality control (i.e., reduce color content and image quality to reduce download time), change image size, crop, and set a transparency value for an image. The Export process creates a new file, separate from your source file, so you need not worry about affecting your original. When exported, your new file is ready for implementation on the Web, in a Flash movie, on a CD-ROM, in a presentation, or wherever else you need it to go. You will notice that Export Preview provides several color palettes to choose from (accessible on the left of the window from the Palette menu). Much of the time, you can leave this to its default value, Web Adaptive. ALWAYS SAVE YOUR ORIGINAL.PNG FILE, AS CHANCES ARE YOU WILL NEED TO MAINTAIN A BACKUP IN THE EVENT YOU NEED TO EDIT YOUR IMAGE AND RE-EXPORT. Copyright 2005 Radford University Technology in Learning Center.