Re: FLASH: Formatting for external text.

[Matt Wobensmith]

Hi Mark -


You wrote:


>is there any way that text from an externally linked *.txt

>file can be formatted in any way.  e.g. line breaks, bold etc.


You can specify a line break in your text file by using the proper escape

character for this (%0A). More on escape characters in a bit.


In Flash 4, when loading text data, there is no way to specify text

formatting like you mentioned. A text field can only have one style of text.

If you bold or colorize any text inside a text field in the author time, it

will preserve that text formatting for any text that gets loaded into it,

uniformly. The whole text field will reflect this style.


Currently, the ability to replace text and specify rich text formatting is

the domain of Generator.


>If not, does external text/variables have to link to a *.txt file or can you

>link to another type of file like a *.doc for example?


A .doc file is proprietary to Microsoft Word and contains more info than

just a plain .txt file. This file type is likely to not work properly. The

best way to do this is via a plain text (.txt) file. Additionally, if you

use special characters (non-alphanumeric, or characters with accents) you

will need to URL encode them (aka, "escape characters"). A chart with all of

these is located here:


URL Encoding: Reading special characters from a text file

TN 14143

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/url_encoding.htm


Let us know if you have more questions about this.


Matt


---------------

Matt Wobensmith

Macromedia Tech Support

Flash Team Lead


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