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Using embedded fonts

You can embed fonts for dynamic or input text fields. However, some fonts, particularly those used for Asian languages, can add significantly to the SWF file size when embedded. With Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004, you can select ranges of fonts you want to embed.

To select and embed a range of fonts:

  1. On the Stage, select a text field. Then display the Property inspector (Window > Properties).
  2. Click the Character button to display the Character Options dialog box.
  3. Select one of the following options:

    No Characters Select this option if you do not want to embed any characters, but rather the use the font specified during authoring or provide appropriate font substitution when using device fonts.

    Specify Ranges Select this option to select a range of characters to embed into the SWF file. By choosing only the characters you want to embed, you can create a smaller and more efficient SWF file.

  4. If you have selected Specify ranges, select the ranges of font sets you want to embed by doing the following:
    • Click on a font set in the pop-up menu.
    • Select multiple ranges by Shift-clicking the first and last fonts of a continguous range of fonts, or by Control-clicking (Windows) or Command-clicking (Macintosh) to select noncontiguous fonts.

    The size of each font group is displayed in parentheses next to the font name. As you select multiple font sets, the panel displays the total number of glyphs you have selected.

    Note: For example, to embed both Chinese characters and western characters, you would need to select both Chinese and western font sets. Select only the font sets you want to embed, however, so you do not exceed the internal maximum number of glyphs for the authoring tool (approximately 30,000). If you select more than the maximum, a warning dialog box appears.

  5. Click OK. If you exceed the internal maximum number of glyphs for the authoring tool a warning dialog box appears.

    Note: Flash does not perform error-checking to confirm that glyphs actually exist in the font for the selected character set. During the actual publish or export procedure, only glyphs that are present in the font are embedded in the SWF file.

To embed font sets from text on the Stage:

  1. Select the text on the Stage.
  2. In the Property inspector (Window > Properties), click the Character button to display the Character Options dialog box.
  3. If necessary, select Specify Ranges.
  4. Click the AutoFill button.
  5. Click OK.

    The font glyphs for the selected fonts are embedded.

XML font embedding table

The list of selected fonts is stored and maintained as an external XML file and resides in the user configuration folder. It is named Unicode_Table.xml and contains the one-to-many relationship between a particular language and all the necessary Unicode glyph ranges as illustrated in the following Korean examples.

The font set groupings are based upon the Unicode Blocks as defined by the Unicode Consortium. They are organized in Flash in a manner that makes selection quick and easy. To provide a simpler workflow, when you select a particular language, all related glyph ranges are embedded even if they are scattered into disjointed groupings.

For example, if you select Korean, the following Unicode character ranges are embedded.

3131-318E Hangul symbols 3200-321C Hangul specials 3260-327B Hangul specials 327F-327F Korean symbol AC00-D7A3 Hangul symbols

If you select Korean + CJK, then a larger font set is embedded:

3131-318E Hangul symbols

3200-321C Hangul specials

3260-327B Hangul specials

327F-327F Korean symbol

4E00-9FA5 CJK symbols

AC00-D7A3 Hangul symbols

F900-FA2D CJK symbols

Font set selections

The following table gives more details about each font set selection.

Range

Description

Uppercase [A-Z]

Basic Latin uppercase glyphs

Lowercase [a-z]

Basic Latin lowercase glyphs

Numerals [0-9

Basic Latin numeral glyphs

Punctuation [!@#%...]

Basic Latin punctuation

Basic Latin

Basic Latin glyphs within the Unicode range 0x0021 to 0x007E

Japanese Kana

Hiragana and Katakana glyphs (including half-width forms)

Japanese Kanji - Level 1

Japanese Kanji characters

Japanese (All)

Japanese Kana and Kanji (including punctuation and special characters)

Basic Hangul

Most commonly used Korean characters, roman characters, punctuations, and special characters/symbols

Hangul (All)

11,720 Korean characters (sorted by Hangul syllables), Roman characters, punctuations, and special characters/symbols)

Simplified Chinese - Level 1

5000 most commonly used Traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan

Traditional Chinese (All)

All Traditional Chinese characters used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and punctuations

Simplified Chinese - Level 1

6000 most commonly used Simplified Chinese characters used in Mainland of China and punctuations

Chinese (All)

All Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters and punctuations

Thai

All Thai glyphs

Devanagari

All Devanagari glyphs

Latin I

Latin-1 Supplement range 0x00A1 to 0x00FF (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letter-like symbols)

Latin Extended A

Latin Extended-A range 0x0100 to 0x01FF (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letter-like symbols)

Latin Extended B

Latin Extended-B range 0x0180 to 0x024F (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letter-like symbols)

Latin Extended Add'l

Latin Extended Additional range 0x1E00 to 0x1EFF (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letterlike symbols)

Greek

Greek and Coptic, plus Greek Extended (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letterlike symbols)

Cyrillic

Cyrillic (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letterlike symbols)

Armenian

Armenian plus ligatures

Arabic

Arabic plus Presentation Forms-A and Presentation Forms-B

Hebrew

Hebrew plus Presentation Forms (including punctuation, superscripts and subscripts, currency symbols, and letterlike symbols)

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