Embed fonts for consistent text appearance

Adobe Community Help


Contact support

 
 x

How are we doing?

1. Please rate your web experience

1 2 3 4 5
Hated it It was ok Loved it

2. Why did you choose this score?


By clicking Submit, you accept the Adobe Terms of Use.

Thank you for taking our survey. We value your feedback.

If you need help, we want to hear from you.

Get answers from experts 24/7.

Close

When your published SWF files play on computers across the Internet, there is no guarantee that the fonts you used are available on those machines. To ensure that your text maintains the appearance you intended, you can embed entire fonts or specific subsets of characters from a font. By embedding the characters in your published SWF file, you make the font available to the SWF file regardless of the computer that plays the file. Once a font is embedded, you can use it anywhere in your published SWF file.

Beginning with Flash Professional CS5, Flash automatically embeds all characters used by any text objects that contain text. Creating an embedded font symbol yourself allows your text objects to use additional characters, such as when accepting user input at runtime or when editing text with ActionScript. Embedded fonts are not necessary for text objects that have the Anti-alias property set to Use Device Fonts. You specify which fonts you want embedded in your FLA file, and Flash embeds the fonts when you publish a SWF file.

There are 4 common situations in which to ensure correct text appearance by embedding fonts in a SWF file:

  • When creating text objects in your FLA file that are part of a design that requires consistent text appearance.
  • When you are using an anti-alias option other than Use Device Fonts, you must embed the fonts or text may disapppear or appear incorrectly.
  • When generating text dynamically with ActionScript in your FLA file.
  • When creating dynamic text with ActionScript, you must specify in ActionScript which font to use.
  • When your SWF file contains text objects and may be loaded by another SWF file that does not have the required fonts embedded.

The Font Embedding dialog box allows you to:

  • Manage all embedded fonts in one place.

  • Create font symbols for each embedded font.

  • Select custom ranges of embedded characters for a font as well as pre-defined ranges.

  • Work with both Text Layout Framework (TLF) text and Classic text in the same file and use embedded fonts with each. Note that TLF text is unavailable with Flash Professional CC. For more information, see Opening Flash CS6 file with Flash Professional CC.

  • Continue to work with Flash Professional CS4 and earlier FLA files that contain fonts embedded with the older method that associated the embedded characters with a specific text object. When you open an older FLA file, Flash Professional CS5 and later allow you to edit these older embedded fonts with the Font Embedding dialog box.

To embed characters from a font in a SWF file:

  1. With your FLA file open in Flash, open the Font Embedding dialog box by doing one of the following:

    • Choose Text > Font Embedding.

    • From the Library panel options menu, choose Add Font.

    • Right-click in empty space in the Library panel tree view, and choose New Font.

    • In the Text Property inspector, click on the Embed button.

  2. If your font is not already selected in the Font Embedding dialog box, click the Add (+) button to add a new embedded font to your FLA file.

    When you open the Font Embedding dialog box from the Library or the Text Property inspector, a font item appears automatically in the dialog box.

  3. In the Options tab, select the Family and Style of the font you want to embed.

    If you opened the Font Embedding dialog box from the Text Property inspector or from the Library panel, the font used by the current selection appears automatically in the dialog box.

  4. In the Character Ranges section, select the character ranges you want to embed. The more characters you embed, the larger your published SWF file will be.

  5. If you want to embed any additional specific characters, enter them in the “Also include these characters” field.

  6. To enable the embedded font symbol to be accessed with ActionScript code, select Export for ActionScript in the ActionScript tab.

  7. If you selected Export for ActionScript, select an outline format also. For TLF text containers, select TLF (DF4) as the Outline Format. For Classic text containers, select Classic (DF3).

    You must create separate embedded font symbols for use in TLF and Classic text containers. The TLF (DF4) outline format is not available for PostScript Type 1 fonts. TLF (DF4) requires Flash Player version 10 or later.

  8. If you want to use the font symbol as a shared asset, select options in the Sharing section of the ActionScript tab. For more information about using shared assets, see Sharing library assets across files.

To edit the parameters of an embedded font symbol:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Right-click the font symbol in the Library and choose Properties.

    • Select a text container on the Stage and click the Embed button in the Character section of the Property inspector.

    • Select the font symbol in the Library and choose Edit Properties from the panel options menu.

    • Double-click the icon of the font symbol in the Library.

    • Choose Text > Font Embedding, and then select the font symbol you want to edit in the tree view on the left of the dialog.

  2. Make changes in the Font Embedding dialog box and click OK.

The tree view in the Font Embedding dialog box displays all font symbols in the current FLA file, organized by font family. You can edit any or all of the fonts while the dialog is open, and the changes will be committed when you press the OK button.

Note:

If you save a Flash Professional CS5 FLA file to CS4 format, font symbols are converted to CS4 Font Symbols which will embed the entire range of characters in a font, not a selected sub-range. All TLF text blocks are converted to Classic text fields. Font symbols are saved in DefineFont3 format to ensure compatibility with Classic text. Each CS4 font symbol will contain an entire copy of the embedded font information for each font it uses. Saving in CS4 format also causes the embedding information to move into any text objects that referenced font symbols, as this is how embedded font information was stored in Flash Pro CS4 and earlier versions.

Additional resources

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License  Twitter™ and Facebook posts are not covered under the terms of Creative Commons.

Legal Notices   |   Online Privacy Policy

Choose your region    Products   Downloads   Learn & Support   Company

Copyright © 2014 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use | Privacy | Cookies