swfchan: Text Scaling Tutorial.swf (info)

Text

TEXT ISSUES.

Scaling text in Flash -

Professionally

Just something small that
no one really notices.

Continue >

Mute/UnMute

WATCH ME!

Now what you may notice here, is that the top example is, well, choppy in its animation. Where as
the bottom one is nice and smooth. This is because Flash renders its text differently to, say, a
group that contains shapes that just happen to resemble text. Let's move on to the "how to"
section, shall we? (Unless you're one of those clever people who have understood what I meant
back there, heh heh.)

EXAMPLE TEXT

First off, we need some example text. Let's get some going, shall we?

Select the text, and then let's BREAK APART the text
(ctrl-b is the default hotkey)

It should now look something like this. Break it apart again, and we will
have no more of this silly Text business! It will simply be shapes! But
beware, this can be awful for some text types that are hard to vectorize.

< Back

You should have something that looks like this (or whatever text you've
decided on using, but, it should be selected and looking like this)

Now, if you're going to scale this text, you are NOT going to be using a
shape tween, and I'm not going to tell you to just go motion tweening
either. You will create unwanted symbols and it's messy. For this, you
will need to either make the text a symbol, or simply group it. I like the
latter, and it should end up looking something like this.
(ctrl-g is the default hotkey for grouping)

From here, you should be able to make your own little motion tweens
and such, and it will run nice and smoothly, because Flash will be using
its very own vectors, instead of linking to some font document
somewhere and trying to make the font size perfect on every frame.
Although a little pointless and short - I think it is a good thing for the
Flash community to know.

ActionScript [AS1/AS2]

Frame 1
	stop();
Instance of Symbol 19 MovieClip "sound" in Frame 1
onClipEvent (load) {
	this.musicisplaying = 1;
}
Frame 2
	stop();
Frame 3
	stop();
Frame 4
	stop();
Symbol 10 Button
on (release) {
	nextFrame();
}
Symbol 17 Button
on (release) {
	if (_root.sound.musicisplaying == 1) {
		_root.music.stop();
		_root.sound._visible = false;
		_root.sound.musicisplaying = 0;
	} else {
		_root.music.play();
		_root.sound._visible = true;
		_root.sound.musicisplaying = 1;
	}
}
Symbol 44 Button
on (release) {
	prevFrame();
}

Library Items

Symbol 1 Font	Used by:2 3 6 7 8 13 15 20 23 26 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 40 41 42 46 47 50
Symbol 2 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 3 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 4 Font	Used by:5
Symbol 5 Text	Uses:4	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 6 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 7 Text	Uses:1	Used by:10
Symbol 8 Text	Uses:1	Used by:10
Symbol 9 Graphic	Used by:10
Symbol 10 Button	Uses:7 8 9	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 11 MovieClip	Uses:SS1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 12 Graphic	Used by:17
Symbol 13 Text	Uses:1	Used by:17
Symbol 14 Graphic	Used by:17
Symbol 15 Text	Uses:1	Used by:17
Symbol 16 Graphic	Used by:17
Symbol 17 Button	Uses:12 13 14 15 16	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 18 Graphic	Used by:19
Symbol 19 MovieClip	Uses:18	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 20 Text	Uses:1	Used by:22
Symbol 21 Graphic	Used by:22
Symbol 22 MovieClip	Uses:20 21	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 23 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 24 Bitmap	Used by:25 45
Symbol 25 Graphic	Uses:24	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 26 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 27 Graphic	Used by:28
Symbol 28 MovieClip	Uses:27	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 29 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 30 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 31 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 32 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 33 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 34 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 35 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 36 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 37 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 38 Graphic	Used by:39
Symbol 39 MovieClip	Uses:38	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 40 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 41 Text	Uses:1	Used by:44
Symbol 42 Text	Uses:1	Used by:44
Symbol 43 Graphic	Used by:44
Symbol 44 Button	Uses:41 42 43	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 45 Graphic	Uses:24	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 46 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 47 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 48 Graphic	Used by:49 Timeline
Symbol 49 MovieClip	Uses:48	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 50 Text	Uses:1	Used by:Timeline
Symbol 51 Graphic	Used by:52
Symbol 52 MovieClip	Uses:51	Used by:Timeline
Streaming Sound 1	Used by:Symbol 11 MovieClip

Instance Names

"music"	Frame 1	Symbol 11 MovieClip
"sound"	Frame 1	Symbol 19 MovieClip

Special Tags

FileAttributes (69)

Timeline Frame 1

Access local files only, Metadata not present, AS1/AS2.