Comments on: Font embedding WTF in Flash

By: Seb Lee-Delisle

Seb Lee-Delisle — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:01:54 +0000

Looks good, thanks delfeld. I just hope I never have to deal with this kind or boring thing again!

By: delfeld

delfeld — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:56:59 +0000

For a better version of a JSFL fix, please visit:

http://delfeld.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/jsfl-textfield-fix/

From deleteaso’s code, I removed a number of problems, and added some missing functionality.

By: TextField JSFL fix « Flash for the masses – AS, JSFL, XUL, etc.

TextField JSFL fix « Flash for the masses – AS, JSFL, XUL, etc. — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:52:21 +0000

[...] was posted that fixed various font embedding issues. This was a response to Seb Lee-Delisle’s idea of fixing fonts using AS3. Though using JSFL is an excellent idea, and the deleteaso code does work, it is pretty bad [...]

By: Tronster

Tronster — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:23:58 +0000

@John Dowdell: I hope the reverse is true; that Adobe keeps abreast of the blogs of Flash notables (like Seb’s).

I tracked down this thread to give some more details on an issue I have with font export in Adobe CS4. I’m sure the problem exists in Win & Mac but I demoed this on Windows XP.

If I create two (or more) named font objects in Flash, $foo and $bar but they both point to the same font face (e.g., “Broadway”) only one will exist in the export.

This happens for both AS2 (where I really need it for work) and as well as for AS3. I confirmed this via Sothink Decompiler 4 on my SWFs.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:46:26 +0000

Flex’s text components automatically check to see if their fonts are embedded or not. Wouldn’t that be nice if it were the default for all TextFields in Flash Player?

By: John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:30:41 +0000

I don’t know whether you’ve notified the authoring or Player team of what you’d like… adobe.com/go/wish or bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer would make sure you’re in there, thanks.

jd/adobe

PS: I haven’t proofed the plaint myself.

By: Ed

Ed — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:59:14 +0000

Great point, I have been built sites/apps for localising in the pass few years, it has always been a pain to embed font for every textfield if not done dynamically, hope Adobe will solve this problem or maybe add one static property like Textfield.embedAll = true…

By: Timbot

Timbot — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:32:28 +0000

Hey Seb,
Here is a post I did regarding several other font issues, some of which are related to Flash and some more to operating system in combination with Flash;
http://www.oddlystudios.com/?p=559
I’d particularly look at the last bit of the post as it has relevance to the embedFonts technique you mention.
Cheers!

By: Tronster

Tronster — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:42:29 +0000

Thank you for this post. Yes, fonts in Flash have been chocked full of bugs in both AS2 and AS3. Gets even worst if you do any of the following:

1) You have one font file and attempt to share the fonts at run-time
2) Have .fla with special (but properly installed) fonts and it’s opened in bot the Mac and PC Flash IDE

I won’t go into all the issues, but this has been my #1 issue for AAA game development with Flash (AS2). This is my #2 hot issue for casual Flash development (AS3), only next to seamless MP3 looping being near impossible requiring a ass-backwards hack to look at raw bytes to get around gaps in looping…but I digress.

Cheers.

By: Seb Lee-Delisle

Seb Lee-Delisle — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:30:22 +0000

@Julian brilliant! That’s such a good script, I particularly like how it snaps the fonts to pixels too. (See you at FOTB!)

@byteface cool! ALthough I haven’t received anything yet… try sebleedelisle at gmail dot com

@Ian Thomas It doesn’t really embed anything so you need to make sure the fonts are embedded in at least one text field. But as long as the font is embedded somewhere in your fla it ensures that all the other text fields also use the embedded version.