Typophile

Problems with dynamic text in Flash

Corey Holms

I've got a problem with this typeface that was designed as a bitmap font - whenever it is rendered as dynamic text, it blurs. I have read the FontLab manual, and the FontFlasher manual, followed the directions to the letter, and still the typeface blurs when used dynamically in Flash.

I would be eternally grateful to anyone with advice on how to solve this problem. I am completely at a loss and very frustrated.

Here is a sample of the typeface in action (on the right is a sample of one that works correctly in Flash) -
http://www.stereotypography.com/bfuq2/

Sucks, doesn't it?

There are only two ways to fix this that I know of:

1. Use FlashMX 2004 and switch aliasing ON for the text field. The drawback is that you if you export this for pre-Flash 7 players, it doesn't work.

2. Set the quality setting for the movie to LOW. This is the only way to do it for pre-MX 2004 versions. Unfortunately, this affects everything, not just the text field.

Hmm. Now that I look at your example again, I'm not sure I'm understanding what's happening. It works okay for one font, but not the other? Any other details you can provide about the fonts? (PostScript, TrueType, etc.) In other words, I'm not sure how it's even working in the lower right text box. It seems like it shouldn't...

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