.swf file extension

.swf

Shockwave Flash file.

A .swf file is a Shockwave Flash file. It is also known as an Adobe Flash file - because Adobe took over the company which originally developed the Flash file. A Flash file is a format for delivering graphics and animation over the internet.

For a Flash file to be incorporated into an html file requires html similar to the following:

<object width="300" height="200"> <param name="movie" value="someflashfile.swf"> <embed src="someflashfile.swf" width="300" height="200"> </embed> </object>

For more information see:

www.adobe.com - Whilst Macromedia were the original developers of Flash, they have been bought by Adobe. The Adobe Flash player (a plug in for internet explorer and other browsers) and related flash information and authoring products can be found on the Adobe site.
www.adobe.com/licensing/developer - File format information. Primarily of interest to developers. This page also provides access to the Search Engine SDK, which includes a utility "swf2html" that extracts text and links from a .swf file and uses this to generate an HTML document.
www.the-labs.com/MacromediaFlash/SWF-Spec/SWFfileformat.html - Concise guide to the SWF file format.
www.verticalmoon.com/tutorials/general/flashhtml/flashhtml.htm - Guide to how to embed a Flash movie in an HTML page.
www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_4150 - Macromedia Flash OBJECT and EMBED tag syntax.
www.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer - Download site for browser plug-in to play shockwave files.
www.irfanview.com - Popular image viewer, will play Shockwave files (.swf) provided it has the shockwave plug-in (available from www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm) installed
http://everything.explained.at/SWF/ - The SWF file format explained.

Download Filestar to convert .swf files. Filestar is an universal file converter for Windows that supports over 600 different file types.

Can you add to this? Do you know of any applications not already listed which will work with .swf files, view .swf files or open .swf files? Are you able to contribute any additional reference information or file format information about .swf files or have you spotted any errors or omissions? If so please let us know by emailing us at feedback@cryer.co.uk - Thank you.