Flash
Intro Tutorial Home > Step1
Step1: Replacing text
In this step you will edit the .FLA file to customize text symbols. You will play movie in Flash editor step-by-step to find occurrences of symbols that you need changed, select these symbols, switch to symbol editing mode, enter your text, and switch back to movie editing mode to observe the results of changes you made. The substeps give more detailed explanation to this:
1. Open the .FLA file from your downloaded SampleIntro directory.
2. Make sure the timeline is visible and the movie is rewound to start (pink square in the timeline ruler highlights frame 1). You can rewind the movie by selecting Control>Rewind. Adjust zooming by using View>Magnigication.
3. Play movie step-by-step by using Control>Step Forward or typing '.' (a dot). Search the scene for text that needs to be changed.
4. When found the text you wish to change switch to Arrow tool
(use Window>Tools to display and hide Toolbox).
5. Make sure the needed text symbol can be selected. Click it with Arrow tool
and proceed to step 1.8 if succeeded (if a blue box around the symbol and a black cross over it display). Else go to the next step.
6. Identify the layer to which the text symbol belongs trying to make layers transparent or displaying contents in contours. When found the needed layer select keyframe in which the symbol appears for the first time. The symbol should get selected automatically. If one keyframe does not work try successive keyframes - it does not matter from which keyframe you start editing symbol. If succeeded go to step 1.8, else go to the next step.
7. Display Library Window by selecting Window>Library and find the text you need by scrolling through all symbols in the movie.
8. If you were able to select the symbol with a click go to symbol editing mode by right-clicking it and selecting Edit. If you located the symbol in Library double-click on symbol icon.
9. When in symbol editing mode select Text tool
and click on scene to create a single-line autosize textbox. Type and highlight text, make sure the Character tab displays (if not, select Window>Panels>Character) and match text appearance as good as you can using options provided in the character formatting tab.
10. When finished formatting text switch to Arrow tool
and select the text block. Select Modify>Break Apart to transform text into curves. This makes it impossible to edit text in future but playback becomes more robust on various systems.
11. Finally, delete the initial text block and drag the one you created in its place. Return to movie editing mode by selecting Edit>Movie.
Note that, though infrequently, symbols themselves happen to be animated movies with their own layers, keyframes, tweening, and embedded symbols. You can freely apply the above described movie editing procedures (1.2..1.8) to animated symbols.
