In Flash: Make it Legible!
         by kirupa

A common problem plaguing Flash sites is not a lack of design. Often times, the depth and complexity in some Flash animations easily rival the paintings of famous contemporary artists. The problem is not the design, but the problem is the presentation of the content that supports the design: the text.

The following animation includes examples of three text styles that I find commonly used on many animations:

[ click on the 'good', 'bad', and 'ugly' links to see examples of text ]

Adding Text
As you could tell from clicking the three links in the animation, the text in the "good" looks the best. Why? I will give you a brief rundown of why the good and the bad and the ugly options are not proper for a Flash animation:

  1. The text in the good option is sharp and very legible. There is no blurriness in the edges and the spacing is good.
  2. Option bad is very similar to option good, but there is noticeable blurriness. Thank Flash's anti-aliasing feature for that. Overall, it makes for bad reading.
  3. Option ugly is just what the name says...ugly and of very bad quality! Unless you really want to have your users look through blurry text that is Times New Roman, you should consider using a different font besides the age-old default font.

If your site's text falls into the bad/ugly categories, don't worry. There are ways to make your text better, and this tutorial will help you to learn that.

  1. Create a new movie in Flash. Make the movie any size you want. It really doesn't matter for this tutorial.
  2. Copy the text from the following text box. Don't paste it anywhere just yet:


  1. Click the Text Tool icon from the toolbox on the left:

[ the text tool icon ]

  1. After you clicked the Text Tool icon, go to your movie stage and draw a rectangular box to house the text. After you have drawn that, paste the text you copied just two steps ago.

    Your animation will look like the following image:

[ note the font selection and the blurriness; may be different on your screen ]

  1. Save the file and preview the animation in your browser.

More likely than not, you probably do not like what you see. The presentation of the text you are seeing in your browser is how majority of all Flash sites present their text. Let's find out how to make the text better.

Making the Text Sharp and Legible
I am sure you are interested in finding out how you can make your text better:

  1. Go back to the Flash animation and select the text with your mouse pointer.
  2. The Text Properties panel will appear toward the bottom of your Flash window. Click the Static Text drop-down menu (the menu to the right of the "A" graphic). Select Dynamic Text:

[ select the Dynamic Text option ]

  1. Once you have done that, click the Font drop-down menu and select a font that you like. For the Font Size, enter an even value. Most fonts don't scale well when set to an odd value such as 9, 11, 13, 15, etc. Set your font to size 10 or 12.
  2. The next step is for you to set your font to a color that is easier to see. You should try to achieve contrast between the text color and your background.
  3. The final steps involve some minor formatting. Unless you want your visitors to highlight the text you have in your Flash animation, make sure the Selectable button is not depressed. Also, click the Single Line drop-down menu and select Multiline.

    Your text properties panel for Step V should look like the following image:

[ the Multiline and Selectable option and button ]


  1. Preview your animation by going to File | Publish Preview | HTML.

You are  finished with this lesson. You  may have noticed that the text in Flash still looks blurred. The effects of the font formatting will only be visible in the browser and the Flash Player. To remove the blurriness seen while editing, go to View | Antialias. That should fix the problem with blurry text seen while editing in Flash MX.

 using the Fonts For Flash fonts
If you are on the look out for some sharp, pixel fonts that don't blur regardless of how you place them in Flash, you should give the fonts over at Fonts For Flash a shot: http://www.fontsforflash.com.

To make the most out of using their fonts, try to adhere to the following guidelines:

  1. Set your font size to multiples of 8 such as 8, 16, 24. The fonts look odd at other sizes.
  2. Your text's position on the Flash movie should be in actual pixel values. Look in the X: and Y: fields in the bottom-left of your Flash interface and ensure that the position is not in a decimal value such as 11.5, 12.4, etc.
  3. Embed the Font outline for the font that you use. In your Text Properties panel, make sure the text is Dynamic text, and press the Character button. The Character Options dialog box should appear. Select the option that is most appropriate.
    You should be warned that embedding a font's entire outline can dramatically (Shakespeare anyone?) increase the file size of the final Flash SWF file. Try to play with the options in the Character Options dialog box and make sure you don't select "Numerals (0-9)" when your text does not contain any numbers.

Remember, Flash is not a bad tool for presenting text on the internet. Flash, when used properly, can create outstanding results for both personal and educational sites with a lot of information. Some examples of good sites that use text in Flash properly:

Thanks to Stan Vassilev for notifying me of a technical error I made in reference to a font's position and making other useful suggestions.









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