Supported HTML tags

This section lists the built-in HTML tags supported by Flash Player. You can also create new styles and tags using Cascading Style Sheets; see Formatting text with Cascading Style Sheets.

Anchor tag (<a>)

The <a> tag creates a hyperlink and supports the following attributes:

href Specifies the URL of the page to load in the browser. The URL can absolute or relative to the location of the SWF file that is loading the page.
target Specifies the name of the target window to load the page into.

For example, the following HTML snippet creates the link "Go home," which opens www.macromedia.com in a new browser window.

<a href="../home.htm" target="_blank">Go home</a>

You can also define a:link, a:hover, and a:active styles for anchor tags by using style sheets. See Styling built-in HTML tags.

Bold tag ()

The  tag renders text as bold. A bold typeface must be available for the font used to display the text.

<b>This is bold text.</b>

Break tag ( )

The   tag creates a line break in the text field, as shown in this example:

One line of text<br>Another line of text<br>

Font tag ()

The  tag specifies a font or list of fonts to display the text.

The font tag supports the following attributes:

color Only hexadecimal color (#FFFFFF) values are supported. For example, the following HTML code creates red text.
```
This is red text
```
face Specifies the name of the font to use. You can also specify a list of comma-separated font names, in which case Flash Player chooses the first available font. If the specified font is not installed on the playback system, or isn't embedded in the SWF file, then Flash Player chooses a substitute font.
Example:
```
This is either Times or Times New Roman..
```
For more information on embedding fonts in Flash applications, see TextField.embedFonts and Setting dynamic and input text options.
size Specifies the size of the font, in pixels. You can also use relative point sizes (+2 or -4).
```
This is green, 24-point text
```

Image tag (<img>)

The <img> tag lets you embed external JPEG files, SWF files, and movie clips inside text fields. Text automatically flows around images you embed in text fields. This tag is supported only in dynamic and input text fields that are multiline and wrap their text.

To create a multiline text field with word wrapping, do one of the following:

In the Flash authoring environment, select a text field on the Stage and then, in the Property inspector, select Multiline from the Text Type pop-up menu.
For a text field created at runtime with MovieClip.createTextField(), set the new text field instance's TextField.multiline and TextField.wordWrap properties to true.

The <img> tag has one required attribute, src, which specifies the path to a JPEG file, a SWF file, or the linkage identifier of a movie clip symbol. All other attributes are optional.

The <img> tags supports the following attributes:

src Specifies the URL to a JPEG or SWF file, or the linkage identifier for a movie clip symbol in the library. This attribute is required; all other attributes are optional. External files (JPEG and SWF files) are not displayed until they have downloaded completely.
Note: Flash Player does not support progressive JPEG files.
id Specifies the name for the movie clip instance (created by Flash Player) that contains the embedded JPEG file, SWF file, or movie clip. This is useful if you want to control the embedded content with ActionScript.
width The width of the image, SWF file, or movie clip, in pixels.
height The height of the image, SWF file, or movie clip being inserted, in pixels.
align Specifies the horizontal alignment of the embedded image within the text field. Valid value are left and right. The default value is left.
hspace Specifies the amount of horizontal space that surrounds the image where no text will appear. The default value is 8.
vspace Specifies the amount of vertical space that surrounds the image where no text will appear. The default value is 8.

For more information and examples of using the <img> tag, see Embedding images, SWF files, and movie clips in text fields.

Italic tag ()

The  tag displays the tagged text in italics. An italic typeface must be available for the font used.

That is very <i>interesting</i>.

The above code would render as follows:

That is very interesting.

List item tag (<li>)

The <li> tag places a bullet in front of the text that it encloses.

Grocery list:
<li>Apples</li>
<li>Oranges</li>
<li>Lemons</li>

The above code would render as follows:

Grocery list:

Apples
Oranges
Lemons

Paragraph tag ()

The  tag creates a new paragraph. It supports the following attributes:

align Specifies alignment of text within the paragraph; valid values are left, right, and center.

class Specifies a CSS style class defined by an TextField.StyleSheet object. (For more information, see Using style classes.)

The following example uses the align attribute to align text on the right side of a text field.

textField.htmlText = "<p align='right'>This text is aligned on the right side of the text field</p>";

The following example uses the class attribute to assign a text style class to a  tag.

var myStyleSheet = new TextField.StyleSheet();
myStyleSheet.secreateTextField("test", 10, 0,0, 300,100);
createTextField("test", 10, 0,0, 300,100);
test.styleSheet = myStyleSheet;
test.htmlText = "<p class='body'>This is some body-styled text.</p>.";

Span tag ()

The  tag is available only for use with CSS text styles. (For more information, see Formatting text with Cascading Style Sheets.) It supports the following attribute:

class Specifies a CSS style class defined by an TextField.StyleSheet object. For more information on creating text style classes, see Using style classes.

Text format tag (<textformat>)

The <textformat> tag lets you use a subset of paragraph formatting properties of the TextFormat class within HTML text fields, including line leading, indentation, margins, and tab stops. You can combine <textformat> tags with the built-in HTML tags.

The <textformat> tag has the following attributes:

blockindent Specifies the block indentation in points; corresponds to TextFormat.blockIndent. (See TextFormat.blockIndent.)
indent Specifies the indentation from the left margin to the first character in the paragraph; corresponds to TextFormat.indent. (See TextFormat.indent.)
leading Specifies the amount of leading (vertical space) between lines; corresponds to TextFormat.leading. (See TextFormat.leading.)
leftmargin Specifies the left margin of the paragraph, in points; corresponds to TextFormat.leftMargin. (See TextFormat.leftMargin.)
rightmargin Specifies the right margin of the paragraph, in points; corresponds to TextFormat.rightMargin. (See TextFormat.rightMargin.)
tabstops Specifies custom tab stops as an array of non-negative integers; corresponds to TextFormat.tabStops. (See TextFormat.tabStops.)

The following code example uses the tabstops attribute of the <textformat> tag to create a table of data with boldfaced row headers, as shown below:

Name	Age	Department
Tim	32	IMD
Edwin	46	Engineering

To create a formatted table of data using tab stops:

Using the Text tool, create a dynamic text field that's approximately 300 pixels wide and 100 pixels high.
In the Property inspector, enter table_txt in the Instance Name text box, select Multiline from the Line Type menu, and select the Render Text as HTML option.
In the Timeline, select the first frame on Layer 1.

Open the Actions panel (Window > Development Panels > Actions) and enter the following code in the Actions panel:

var rowHeaders = "<b>Name\t</b><b>Age\t</b><b>Department";
var row_1 = "Tim\t31\tIMD";
var row_2 = "Edwin\t42\tQA";
table_txt.htmlText = "<textformat tabstops='[100, 200]'>";
table_txt.htmlText += rowHeaders;
table_txt.htmlText += row_1;
table_txt.htmlText += row_2 ;
table_txt.htmlText += "</textformat>";

Note the use of the tab character escape sequence (\t) to add tabs between each "column" in the table.

Select Control > Test Movie to test the movie.

Underline tag ()

The  tag underlines the tagged text.

This text is <u>underlined</u>.

The above code would render as follows:

This text is underlined.

Supported HTML tags

Anchor tag (<a>)

Bold tag (<b>)

Break tag (<br>)

Font tag (<font>)

Image tag (<img>)

To create a multiline text field with word wrapping, do one of the following:

Italic tag (<i>)

List item tag (<li>)

Paragraph tag (<p>)

Span tag (<span>)

Text format tag (<textformat>)

To create a formatted table of data using tab stops:

Underline tag (<u>)