# External File Paths Question

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-file-paths-question/182521>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [March 19, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-file-paths-question/182521 "2006-03-19T01:31:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![misterpatrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@misterpatrick](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/misterpatrick)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-file-paths-question/182521/1 "2006-03-19T01:31:44Z")

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Hello all,

I have a question regarding proper usage of paths in Flash 8. I usually set my projects up so they look something like this:

index.html  
SWF  
CSS  
AS  
TXT  
IMAGES  
FLA

According to the help docs, setting a path like this: “…/XML/file.xml” should work. usually it does, but I have been running into problems where files don’t seem to get found. They’ll be loaded fine in the index.html file, but in the FLA preview it won’t find it. I have publish set to publish to the correct subdirectories but still run into problems.

Would using a global path declaration in the start of th AS help? Any tips of best practices? Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KyoKusanagi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@KyoKusanagi](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/KyoKusanagi)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-file-paths-question/182521/2 "2006-03-19T03:26:21Z")

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you may omit the … and / as in:

```auto
"XML/file.xml"

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![misterpatrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@misterpatrick](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/misterpatrick)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/external-file-paths-question/182521/3 "2006-03-19T05:26:07Z")

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No luck with that. I’m on OS X so don’t know if that makes a difference. I need the …/ becasue the swf file is located in the subdirctory SWF, so I need to go back one directory and then into the subdirectory.

Like I mentioned, it works fine when I preview it from within Flash, but not when I preview HTML in Flash. I’ve tried using a global:

```auto

_global.CSSPath = "../CSS/";
var format = new TextField.StyleSheet();
var path = CSSPath + "main_styles.css";

```

Again, previews fine but not in HTML. anyone have any idea what’s wrong here? Thanks!