Overview

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 provide a variety of text features and options. This lesson introduces you to the three primary types of text you can add to a document. You can add static text for titles, labels, or other text content you want to appear in a document. You can also use input text options to allow viewers to interact with your Flash application—for example, to enter their name or other information in a form. The third type of text is dynamic text. You use dynamic text fields to display text that changes based on criteria you specify. For example, you might use a dynamic text field to add values stored in other text fields, such as the sum of two numbers.

After taking this lesson, be sure to explore additional text options described in "Working with Text" in Using Flash Help.

In this lesson, you'll add text and text fields to a document as you accomplish the following tasks:

• Create an expanding-width text block
• Create a fixed-width text block
• Edit text and change font attributes
• Select device fonts
• Add an input text field
• Copy a text field
• Assign instance names to text fields
• Create a dynamic text field
• View ActionScript that links the text field to an external text file
• Set up and check spelling