I've lately seen a few posts on the Adobe forums and here on CMX about batch processing in Fireworks. Considering the Fireworks 8 Batch Processing utility had some noteworthy revisions, I thought it would be a good idea to go over the wizard in detail. Streamlined and enhanced file renaming, the ability to check file dimensions when scaling during a batch process and the addition of a status bar and log file are the most notable improvements to Batch Processing. There are many articles here on CMX that touch on Batch Processing, but they are geared towards specific goals. In this article, we'll examine the utility itself piece by piece. In a nutshell, you can do the following with Batch Processing:

• Convert a selection of files to another format.
• Convert a selection of files to the same format with different optimization settings.
• Scale exported files.
• Find and replace text, colors, URLs, fonts, and non-Web216 colors.
• Rename groups of files by any combination of adding a prefix, adding a suffix, replacing a substring, and replacing blanks.
• Perform commands on a selection of files.

At this point. FW wants you to select your images. If you have images you want to batch right away, it's a good idea to make your image choices now. FW will not prompt or remind you at any stage after this if you have not selected images to process. It just goes on its merry way until you hit the Batch button. At that point, if you haven't chosen images, you will be prompted once again to choose some.

Why doesn't Fireworks prompt you to select images? Because you can use this utility to create and save Batch Process Scripts as well. Creating a script is a great way to speed up future batching and does not require images, so FW just lets you go ahead and gives you the option to decide later.

In the image selection dialog, you can select specific images or a contiguous series of images by pressing Ctrl/Cmd or Shift and clicking on the images. Click Add to add the selected files to the processing list. If you want to batch the entire folder, just click Add All. You can even remove images from the processing list by selecting them and clicking (you guessed it) Remove.

At the very bottom of the dialog box you see a check box. If you have files that are currently open, you can add them to the processing list as well just by clicking on the check box. It doesn't matter if those images are in the same folder that is in the browse window. These files do not appear in the list of files, but they are included in the process.

Batch Processing does not require that the original files all be in the same folder. You change folder locations in the browse window to add files from other folders to the same batch process.

Clicking Next brings you to the Batch Options dialog. Here is where you select the batch operations you want FW to perform on the selected images (or the operations you want to add to a batch script for later use).

The top four options in the left window are the stock operations that come with Fireworks 8. The fifth option, Commands, is also a stock category, but its contents will change as you create or install more custom commands.

To add an operation to the process, just select it with the mouse and click the Add button. If you change your mind, select the operation in the window on the right and click the Remove button. You can also combine several operations into one batch process. More on this later.

The top four batch options, once added, will present you with various attributes that can be modified for your end goals. We'll look at those details in a moment. Before we do, however, notice the Back button at the bottom of the dialogue box. At any time-up until you press the Batch button further down the road-you can go back to the previous dialog boxes to make changes. So, if you forgot to add images to the processing list, you can click the Back button and make your selections.

The Export Option
Export allows you to automate the process of optimizing your images, or converting them from a non-web format such as TIFF to a format like JPEG. Once you add the Export option to the batch list and highlight it, a context-sensitive area displays at the bottom of the window. As you can see from the image below, you are given many options, including the standard export options you find in the Optimize Panel. In fact, in my screen shot you see four options at the bottom of the list that don't exist in yours. These are custom export settings I created for a tutorial a while back. I was able to save these settings while I was in the Image Preview window and make them available to the Batch utility.

At the very top of the list are two options unique to the Batch utility: Use settings from Each File and Custom. If you have already spent a great deal of time optimizing your images, you can choose the first option for exporting. If you want to override those settings, but don't like any of the preset options in the list you can choose Custom. This launches the Image Preview window and lets you create your own settings. Note however, that because several, or no images have been selected, you do not see an actual image in the preview window. In essence, you're flying blind.

Scale Option
Choosing the Scale Option gives you three ways to resize your chosen images. Oddly, it also gives you the choice of No Scaling. Why someone would selecting Scale and then choose No Scaling is beyond me.

Scale to Size
Use this setting if all your images are larger than the target size, are the same orientation and you want an exact dimension. You can choose preset dimension from the list or input your own value.

You can also scale one dimension to a specific height or width and let Fireworks proportionately adjust the other dimension. All you do is enter the desired dimension and then choose Variable for the other dimension. This allows for scaling without distortion.

Scale to Fit Area
Chose Scale to Fit Area if you have horizontal and vertical images in the same folder. This ensures that the longest dimension doesn't exceed a certain height or width, and your images will not be distorted. This choice can also force FW to only scale files larger than the the desired target size. Scale to Size will increase or decrease the size of the selected images, to make them fit your target size.

Scale to Percentage
This option is handy if you have a group of images where you are not concerned about accurate pixel dimensions; you just want all the images proportionately smaller (or larger) based on percentage. This is also a quick way to create thumbnails for an image gallery

Find and Replace (Batch Replace)
So far, the options we've looked at are really about dealing with individual images. It's unlikely you will use these operations for sliced images, or Fireworks PNG files. Find and Replace, though, is all about batching Fireworks PNG's or even Freehand files. Find and Replace is a great way to increase productivity even though you may only be working on a single file in the batch process. Chances are that you have several objects that use the same color, or several text objects using the same font. You can either open the file and make all the changes manually, or use Find and Replace to change every appearance of a specific attribute all at once. Think of it as an External Style Sheet for FW PNGs.

The one limitation to this feature is you can only do ONE batch replace operation per Batch Process. For example. I cannot Find and Replace a string of text AND change a font.

You can search for:

• text
• fonts
• colors
• URL's
• even non-web safe colors

Find and Replace allows you to find and replace text strings, fonts, colors and urls. If you are using Fireworks for prototyping web pages or kiosk interfaces, this feature could save you a lot of time. Because of the editability of a Fireworks PNG file, you can search for a specific word (maybe a company name) and replace it with a new word. You can look for specific colors that appear in strokes, fills or fonts and alter them. You can change fonts throughout a design when a client changes their mind.

It will not work, however, on standard flat images such as GIF, JPEG or TIFF.

Batch Rename
This feature got a serious overhaul in FW8. Prior to the version 8 release, the Batch Rename option was pretty weak and limited. Now we have a lot more flexibility and control over the renaming of files. For each changed filename, you can do any combination of Replace, Replace blanks, Add Prefix, and Add Suffix. For example, you could replace "dsc" with "shoreline" remove all blanks, and add a prefix and a suffix, all at the same time.

Replace with lets you replace characters in each filename with a different character that you specify, or you can delete characters from each filename. For example, when I download images from my digital camera, each file starts with the letters "dsc." I can tell FW to remove those letters and replace them with something like "img" or "image" or even something more relevant such as the event or location name.

Replace blanks with lets you replace existing blanks in the filename with a character or characters you specify, or you can delete all blanks from each filename. This happens to me ALL the time when I get files from clients who insist on treating file names like sentences.