SWF and AMF Technology Center

The SWF file format delivers vector graphics, text, video, and sound over the Internet and is supported by Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR software. Flash Player already reaches over 98% of Internet-enabled desktops and more than 800 million handsets and mobile devices.

The SWF file format is designed to be an efficient binary delivery format, not a format for exchanging graphics between graphics editors.

SWF File Format Specification (version 19)

The SWF 19 specification includes bug fixes as well as the EnableTelemetry metadata tag. The SWF file format is available as an open specification to create products and technology that implement the specification. SWF 9 introduced the ActionScript 3 language and virtual machine. The SWF 10 specification expands text capabilities with support for bidirectional text and complex scripts with the new DefineFont4 tag. TheDefineBitsJPEG4 tag allows embedding JPEG images that have an alpha channel for opacity and also a smoothing filter. SWF 10 also adds support for the free and open-source Speex voice codec and for higher frequencies in the existing Nellymoser codec. A new EnableTelemetry tag was introduced in Flash Player 11.4 and that affects all SWF versions.

Action Message Format (AMF) Specification

Action Message Format (AMF) is a compact binary format that is used to serialize ActionScript object graphs. Once serialized an AMF encoded object graph may be used to persist and retrieve the public state of an application across sessions or allow two endpoints to communicate through the exchange of strongly typed data.

File format specification archive

Adobe seriously considers all feedback to the SWF file format specification. E-mail any unclear or potentially erroneous information within the specification to Adobe at fileformat@adobe.com.

Note: All e-mail submissions shall be subject to the Terms of Use.