User Guide

Creating Web Graphics and Animation 375
When compressing artwork in a bitmap format, you should choose a file format
based on the color and tonal characteristics of the original artwork, and on the
type of browser you expect your Web audience to have.
In general, the GIF format is best for illustrations with flat color and sharp detail,
such as type. The JPEG format is best for artwork with a wide range of colors or
continuous-tone color, such as gradients or scanned photographs. The PNG
format, like JPEG, preserves a wide range of colors. However, the PNG format is
not as widely supported as the JPEG format for display in browsers.
For detailed information on using these file formats, see “GIF” on page 437,
“JPEG (.jpg)” on page 439, and “PNG (.png)” on page 440.
Publishing FreeHand documents as HTML
The Publish as HTML feature converts a FreeHand document to an HTML
document, which can be displayed as a Web page in a browser.
You can choose an HTML setting to control the HTML conversion, including
the location where the HTML document will be saved, the document layout
formatting, the font encoding, and file formats for vector and bitmap artwork.
You can select a setting manually, or use the Wizard (Windows) or Assistant
(Macintosh) to help you.
FreeHand has a built-in Default setting, which saves the HTML document to a
desktop folder titled FreeHand HTML Output, formats the document with layers
(not tables), encodes fonts with Western (Latin 1) formatting, and converts vector
images to SWF files and bitmap images to JPEG files. You can create additional
settings and edit settings (including the Default setting).
You can convert a document to HTML multiple times with different settings, to
create different versions of a document that can be viewed on different browsers or
with different plug-ins. For example, you can create one version of a document
that requires the Flash Player and one that does not. You must give each HTML
document a different name, to avoid overwriting the files.
You can also choose options to control which pages in a document are converted
and to preview the HTML document or HTML code in a browser or editor when
the conversion is complete.
Note: If you assign a URL to a FreeHand object with a stroke but no fill, the link in the
HTML document will be active only when the user rolls over the stroke.