Flash CS5.5 specifying device font

1
votes

I'm using Flash CS5.5 and want to specify a device font, rather than embed.

The problem is that, although I know the precise name of the font on the device, I cannot type the font name into the Flash authoring environment. All's I have is the drop down list of fonts installed in the authoring machine. Choosing 'use device fonts' with the similar font name from dropdowns selected causes the movie to default to _sans on the device.

I would prefer not to start specifying text boxes and assigning fonts using AS3.

Thanks in advance.

2
flashfontsdevice

2 Answers

0
votes

To the best of my knowledge, there isn't any way to do this - it's a feature I've seen a lot of people bemoan the absence of!

The best/only thing you can do is use the embed settings to only embed the characters you need (if it's not practical to figure this out, 'basic latin' is fine 99% of the time - apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here), and limit the number of fonts you use, which is probably a good idea from a design perspective too.

Re your last sentence, you only have to embed a font once - every text box with that font will be able to reference it.

Sorry I can't be more help, but I don't think what you're looking to do can be done.

PS As an alternative to this, you can embed fonts in a separate swf file and load them dynamically from it, so you needn't bloat your main file with fonts you don't need:

http://www.mokisystems.com/blog/flash-as3-loading-fonts/

0
votes

AFAIK this can only be done with AS3. I know you said you'd prefer to not use AS3, but it's very simple. Here's the code:

To know the exact name of the font use this

var f:Font;
var fonts:Array = Font.enumerateFonts(true);
for(var i:int = 0; i < fonts.length; i++) {
    f = fonts[i];
    trace(f.fontName + "," + f.fontStyle + "," + f.fontType);
}

To use the font first you create a TextFormat object this way

var myFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
myFormat.font = "Helvetica"; //use your own font here

Then you can apply this format to any textfield, created by AS3 or manually in the Flash IDE.

myTextfield.setTextFormat(myFormat);

If your TextFormat is accessible globally, for example using a singleton pattern, then you will be able to use it anywhere in your code. But that's another story...