Working in Flash > Using frames and keyframes > Working with frames in the Timeline |  |

Working with frames in the Timeline

In the Timeline, you work with frames and keyframes, placing them in the order you want the objects in the frames to appear. You can change the length of a tweened animation by dragging a keyframe in the Timeline.

You can perform the following modifications on frames or keyframes:

| Insert, select, delete, and move frames or keyframes
| Drag frames and keyframes to a new location on the same layer or on a different layer
| Copy and paste frames and keyframes
| Convert keyframes to frames
| Drag an item from the Library panel onto the Stage to add the item to the current keyframe

The Timeline provides a view of tweened frames in an animation. For information on editing tweened frames, see Creating Animation.

Flash offers two different methods for selecting frames in the Timeline. In frame-based selection (the default) you select individual frames in the Timeline. In span-based selection, the entire frame sequence, from one keyframe to the next, is selected when you click any frame in the sequence. For information on using span-based selection, see Setting preferences in Flash.

To insert frames in the Timeline, do one of the following:

| To insert a new frame, choose Insert > Frame.
| To create a new keyframe, choose Insert > Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the frame where you want to place a keyframe, and choose Insert Keyframe from the context menu.
| To create a new blank keyframe, choose Insert > Blank Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the frame where you want to place the keyframe, and choose Insert Blank Keyframe from the context menu.

To delete or modify a frame or keyframe, do one of the following:

| To delete a frame, keyframe, or frame sequence, select the frame, keyframe, or sequence and choose Insert > Remove Frame, or right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the frame, keyframe, or sequence and choose Remove Frame from the context menu. Surrounding frames remain unchanged.
| To move a keyframe or frame sequence and its contents, drag the keyframe or sequence to the desired location.
| To extend the duration of a keyframe, Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Macintosh) the keyframe to the final frame of the new sequence duration.
| To copy a keyframe or frame sequence by dragging, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) and drag the keyframe to the new location.
| To copy and paste a frame or frame sequence, select the frame or sequence and choose Edit > Copy Frames. Select a frame or sequence that you want to replace, and choose Edit > Paste Frames.
| To convert a keyframe to a frame, select the keyframe and choose Insert > Clear Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the keyframe and choose Clear Keyframe from the context menu. The cleared keyframe and all frames up to the subsequent keyframe are replaced with the contents of the frame preceding the cleared keyframe.
| To change the length of a tweened sequence, drag the beginning or ending keyframe left or right. To change the length of a frame-by-frame sequence, see Creating frame-by-frame animations.
| To add an item from the library to the current keyframe, drag the item from the Library panel onto the Stage.