Changing Advanced Text Options Change Advanced Character Options Select the TLF text box you want to change with the Selection tool or select text within the TLF text box with the Tex
Trang 1The Properties Inspector provides advanced options for TLF text (New !) In the Advanced Character section, you can change the text case (such as upper or lower case), specify a baseline for multi-lan-guage text or baseline shift (such as superscript or subscript), apply line breaks, and select the user’s language and region Similar to a fea-ture in Adobe Photoshop, you can apply blending modes (New !) and color effects (New !) to a text box in front of another element, such as
a graphic, to create a new look from the mix of color pixels
Changing Advanced
Text Options
Change Advanced Character
Options
Select the TLF text box you want to
change with the Selection tool or
select text within the TLF text box
with the Text tool.
In the Advanced Character section
of the Property Inspector (New !),
specify any of the following:
◆ Case Changes the text to upper
or lower case, or caps
◆ Digit Case Changes the text to
settings specified by the font
designer
◆ Digit Width Changes the text
to proportional or tabular
widths
◆ Dominant Baseline Changes
the multiple language text to a
common baseline
◆ Alignment Baseline Changes
the baseline alignment for
multiple language text
◆ Ligatures Changes the running
together of letters, such as
“Th.”
◆ Break Specifies the use of line
breaks
◆ Baseline Shift Specifies the
shift in the baseline in points
(pt) or percentage (%) You can
also select Superscript or
Subscript for standard shifts.
◆ Locale Specifies the user’s
language and region
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Trang 2Add Display and Color Effects
Select the TLF text box you want to
change with the Selection tool.
In the Display and Color Effect
sections of the Property Inspector
(New !), specify any of the
following:
◆ Display Click the Blending list
arrow, and then select a
blending effect
◆ Normal Removes the
current blending effect
With that in mind, the modes
that produce the most stunning
results are Multiply, Screen,
Hard Light, and Difference
◆ Color Effect Click the Style list
arrow, and then select a color
effect
◆ None Removes the current
color effect
◆ Brightness Specifies the
lightness/darkness of the
text
◆ Tint Specifies the blending
of a color and white (which
increases lightness) for the
text
◆ Advanced Specifies the
blending of a color and an
alpha blend for the text
◆ Alpha Specifies the
blending of two colors
(allowing for transparency)
for the text
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Loading an External Text File
If you have a body of text that may change over time, you can use the ActionScript command LoadVars to load a text file (.txt) To load the text file headlines.txt (which contains headlines=”sample text”) into the headlines dynamic text box (instance is headlines_text and var is news_lv) using the LoadVars object, you can use a similar script:
var news_lv:LoadVars = new LoadVars();
news_lv.load(“c:/yourfolderlocation/headlines.txt”);
news_lv.onLoad = function () { headlines_txt.text = news_lv.headlines;
}
For Your Information
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Trang 3When a line of text is created in Flash, it appears in a bounding box that
is editable Sometimes you might need to adjust the characters sepa-rately or you might want to modify the shape of the characters them-selves to create new character styles The Break Apart command allows you to do this There are two levels of breaking that you can uti-lize The first break will separate the text box into singular, editable characters This is useful if you want to reposition or align the letters of
a word independently The second break severs the text from its font reference: in essence it becomes a shape that you can edit with any of the drawing tools or pen modifiers
Using Break Apart to
Modify Characters
Break a Text Box into
Single Characters
Select the text box you want to
change with the Selection tool.
Click the Modify menu, and then
click Break Apart.
Each character appears in its own
editable box
TIMESAVER Press A+B
(Mac) or Ctrl+B (Win) to use the
Break Apart command
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The text box is broken into separate text boxes that can be moved and edited separately.
Broken text box
Trang 4Break a Text Box into Shapes
Select the text box you want to
change with the Selection tool.
Click the Modify menu, and then
click Break Apart.
The characters become individual
text boxes
Click the Modify menu again, and
then click Break Apart.
The characters become simple
shapes that you can adjust with
Flash's drawing tools
TIMESAVER Press A+B
(Mac) or Ctrl+B (Win) twice to
break text into editable shapes
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Text boxes become editable shapes.
See Also
See “Using the Free Transform Tool”
on page 118 for information on
trans-forming objects
Transforming Text
You can use the Free Transform tool or the options on the Modify menu under Transform to transform text boxes in the same ways you transform other objects You can scale, rotate, skew and flip text boxes, but the text might become hard to read However, you can still edit it Important: when you scale a text box as an object, the point size in the Property Inspector may not be accurate To restore a transformed object, select the object, click the Modify menu, point to Transform, and then click Remove Transform
For Your Information
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Characters become individual text boxes.
Trang 5Anti-aliasing affects the pixels on the edge of a shape by allowing
them to blend in with the background It is a crucial feature when work-ing with some text as it makes it appear smoother and more integrated
Flash includes FlashType, a new text rendering feature that improves anti-aliasing and readability for fonts FlashType is enabled whenever Flash Player 7 or later is the selected player, and anti-aliasing is set to anti-aliasing for readability or custom The drawback with anti-aliasing
is that at smaller font sizes the text can appear blurry To avoid this problem, use sans serif text, such as Helvetica or Arial, and don’t use bold and italic You can use anti-aliasing with static, dynamic, and input text You apply anti-aliasing to text boxes instead of characters
Using Anti-Alias Text
Set a Text Box to Anti-Alias Text
Select the text box you want to
change with the Selection tool.
In the Character section of the
Property Inspector (New !), click
the Anti-Alias list arrow, and then
select one of the following:
◆ Use Device Fonts The SWF file
uses fonts installed on the local
computer to display fonts
◆ Bitmap Text (No Anti-Alias)
(Classic) No text smoothing.
◆ Anti-Alias for Animation
(Classic) or Animation (TLF)
Smooths out animation
◆ Anti-Alias for Readability
(Classic) or Readability (TLF)
Smooths out text
◆ Custom Anti-Alias (Classic)
Modify font properties
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Anti-alias text
at small sizes
Alias text produces crisp
Alias text
Anti-aliasing blends the edge pixels with the background.
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Classic text
2 TLF text
Trang 6If you open a document with a missing font on a computer, a Missing Font alert appears, asking you to choose a substitute font You can open and use the Font Mapping dialog box to map a substitute font to the missing font, view the mapped fonts in the document, and delete a font mapping After you select a substitute font, text appears with the correct font (if available) or the substitute font (if missing) When you use a substitute font, the text box or attributes might need to be adjusted
Using Font Mapping
Select Substitute Fonts
Open the document with the fonts
you want to map
◆ To view all the font mappings
saved on your computer, close
all documents
Click the Flash (Mac) or Edit (Win)
menu, and then click Font
Mapping.
Click a font in the Missing Fonts
column
TIMESAVER Press Shift+click
to select multiple missing fonts to
map to the same substitute font
Click the Substitute Font list arrow,
and then click a font, or click
System Default.
Click OK.
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Did You Know?
You can delete the font mapping Close
all documents, click the Flash (Mac) or
Edit (Win) menu, click Font Mapping,
select a font mapping, click Delete, and
then click OK
You can turn off the Missing Font alert.
Click the Flash (Mac) or Edit (Win)
menu, click Font Mapping, select the
Don’t Show Again For This Document,
Always Use Substitute Fonts check
box, and then click OK
Trang 7When you include a font in your Flash document that is installed on your computer, you can include the font into the exported Flash movie
This is called an embedded font and it ensures that your fonts will look
consistent when displayed on other computers This adds to the file size, as each character from the selected font family has to be included
in the final SWF If file size is an issue, and the exact character match-ing is not important, you can choose to use device fonts The Font Embedding dialog allows you to add or remove the fonts (all or part) you want to embed in the Flash document (New !) You can view a list
of all your embedded fonts in one place When a font is set to device, Flash will not embed the font information in the exported file Instead the Flash Player will substitute the closest resembling font by name on the computer playing the Flash movie The drawback is that you won't
be able to predict how the fonts will display on every computer To combat this uncertainty, Flash includes three device fonts Each is designed with characteristics of typical fonts usually found by default
on most computers You can also choose device fonts when using small font sizes because they are not anti-alias and display clearly
Setting Device Fonts
Versus Embedded
Fonts
Embed Fonts
Select the text box with the fonts
you want to embed with the
Selection tool.
Click the Embed button in the
Property Inspector
Click the Options tab, and then
specify a font name, family, style,
and character ranges you want
To add or delete an embedded
font, do either of the following:
◆ Add New Font Click Add New
Font button, and then specify
the font information in the
Options tab
◆ Delete Font Select a font from
the Font list, click the Delete
Selected Font button, and then
click OK.
Click the ActionScript tab, and
then select options to export font
information for ActionScript or to
share font information for runtime
sharing
Click OK.
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Embedded fonts