The first thing you will notice about this book is that it is project-based. Each chapter contains a lesson that covers certain Flash^R techniques, concepts or features and, along the way, introduces you to what is new in Flash CS3. But, instead of the information being presented in a vacuum, the Adobe^R Creative Team presents each technique with a real-world project. In my opinion, this is the easiest and best way to learn and master a complex software program such as Adobe^R Flash Professional CS3. The authors have minimized the complexity of Flash with the use of some very interesting, and customizable, projects and each of the eleven lessons has step-by-step instructions for creating a project or a part of a larger project.

The book begins with basic Flash techniques and acquaints you with the new improvements to the Flash workspace. This first project is a simple animation which deals with the Flash Library, Stage, Timeline, tools, panels, Property Inspector and more. The next lesson's project is a logo animation which can be used for a website or as a preloader. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce you to Flash's drawing modes and tools. You will also learn about importing images, selecting and grouping elements, masks and tweening.

In the next lesson, you learn about Flash symbols which are important to building Flash projects. The project for this lesson is a DVD control interface and you will learn about the integration between Illustrator^R and Flash, how to convert bitmap images into Flash objects, and creating and using symbols. The fourth lesson's project is an animated birthday card and the tasks you perform will teach you how to work with text in Flash. You will create and format text, convert text to a Flash symbol and apply a mask and filters to the text.

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