[jkranig]

I have been working on a site these last couple days and experienced an annoying problem with rotated text not always showing up in the .swf file.

I rotated a text box onto its side on one of my pages and when attempting to preview it, nothing would show up. I discovered that the problem went away when I changed my font to something other than the generic _sans font. The same happens with the _serif & _typewriter fonts.

Has anyone else experienced this? What's up with that?

[skyhawk133]

Can you attach the .swf/.fla so I can see if it's doing it on my machine locally.

[jkranig]

Here's a quick test flash file I threw together.

Attached File(s)

•  rotateTest.fla (21K)
  Number of downloads: 162

[pioSko]

The font isn't being exported along with the .swf. Select the textfield and in Properties press the button below the Format button. (Sorry, I'm writing this on my wife's laptop and there's no flash on it so I'm doing it from memory). Whatever it's called, it will allow you to select which characters of the font to be exported. You can select all uppercase, lowerscase, numeric, punctuation and many others... or you can type in just the letters you need.

Just guessing here. You probably have the textfield set as a "Dynamic" text field with the anti-ailiseing turned on. Rotation is NOT gonna happen. As soon as it is rotated by 1 degree it will disappear. Taht's just the way it is. You have to export the font and turn off anti-ailising to have rotating text

[EDIT] you posted the file before I finished my post I'll be able to check it out in about 8+ hours when I wake up tho. In the mean time have a look if those two point I mentioned above don't help.

[jkranig]

I'm not following the first half of that...but in regards to the second comment, my text is Static text. The Anti-aliasing was on, but I turned it off and its still not visible in the .swf.

Explain the exporting font part again please.

[pioSko]

After looking at your fla, I'd suggest you just use a font other than the generic one.

_serif = Times New Roman
_sans = Arial
_typewriter = Courier New

... just out of curiosity, as a designer, why do you have text rotated?generly tought of as a big no-no.

[jkranig]

I've already come to the solution of using a different font other than the generic ones. I just wanted to share the issue with everyone because I thought it was strange.

In regards to the rotated text and good design question, I rotated my text 90 degrees and placed it in a online evaluation form for a client. It actually fits the chart much better than having the text horizontal. Besides, there is always a way to bend and break the design rules successfully if you know them well enough.

Anyways, thanks for your help.

[pioSko]

Charts and tables cool... i just envisioned animating rotating text and cringed that's all lol

Flash and text have not had a good history. Especially with efficiency. From what I've seen tho, macormedia has improved text in Flash 8 a lot! I haven't tried disappearing rotating text in it yet, though.