To create a Flash movie, you should always use symbols. When you create a symbol, it appears in the document Library, which means you can use the symbol in other places in your Flash movie without having to re-create it.

Flash symbols come in three flavors:

• Button: A button symbol links to another part of your movie or to another Web page. You can create invisible buttons as hot spots for areas of a Flash game or for a large portion of text that you want the viewer to read and then click to advance to another part in the movie.
• Graphic: A graphic symbol stores a graphic element that you create with the Flash drawing tools, or it houses a vector graphic you import. Graphic symbols can also be used to store bitmap objects.
• Movie clip: A movie clip symbol stores an animation or bits of ActionScript.

You can use a symbol repeatedly in a movie, and if you use a graphic symbol, you can change the symbol’s characteristics by changing its properties.

Here’s how you can create a graphic symbol:

1. Choose Insert, Symbol to open the Create New Symbol dialog box.

2. Type a name for the symbol, click the radio button for the type of symbol you want to create, and then click OK.

3. Use the drawing tools to create a symbol. Alternatively, you can import an object to the Stage and it will appear as part of the symbol.

4. Add layers or objects to create the symbol you envision. If you already have a symbol in the Library that’s similar to the object you need to create, drag it from the Library into the editing window. You can then use the Free Transform tool to size and position the symbol as needed. Putting a symbol within a symbol is known as nesting and is an effective way to decrease the file size of your published movie.

5. Click the Scene button or the Back button to exit symbol-editing mode.

Your new symbol is added to the Library.