Flash's font hell 2 - embedding a font
This time we will learn how we can embed a font into the swf file.
Last time we have heard the way how we embed the font depends on what tool we use to create the swf and what we want to do with the text field.
Flash IDE
In the flash IDE we have two ways to embed a font:
Text field properties
The easiest way to embed a font is to use the embed button in the text field's properties. This allows you to select exactly the characters you need.
pros:
* Holds the swf file as small as possible because just the needed characters can be embedded.
cons:
* There can just be one font linked to a text field. So it's not possible to combine different fonts or font variations like regular, bold or italic in one text field.
Embedding a font in the library.
A more flexible way to embed a font into the swf file is to put it into the library. This way we can link the font to a text field at runtime and so it allows us to use different fonts on the same text field. (If we use the text property we can just use one font at a time. To combine different fonts at the same time we have to use the htmlText property. More about it later.)
Don’t forget to activate the "export for actionscript" checkbox in the library's font entry. The linkage name is not important, we don’t need it. But it has to be activated to make flash putting the font into the swf file.
pros:
* Fonts are more flexible to use.
cons:
* If we put a font into the library, flash embeds all characters and we don’t have a chance to embed just some of them. This leads to bigger file size of the swf file.
Flex
In flex we just have one way how we can embed a font into a swf file. It’s the equivalent version of the second method in the Flash IDE. But here we can select characters to keep file size low.
Here is an example how it might look:
- ...
- [Embed(source='C:/WINDOWS/Fonts/ARIAL.TTF', fontName='_Arial', unicodeRange='U+0020-U+002F,U+0030-U+0039')]
- public static var _Arial:Class;
- ...
More about the embed metatag:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=embed_4.html
That' it for today!
We have now the font embedded in the swf file. The next time we will see how we use this font in a text field.
