Changing Text in Flash

To fit flash header your company needs you have to change company name, company slogan and buttons text.

Its quite easy. So lets do it step by step.

Open your FLA file from web design template package in Macromedia Flash.

Now you should locate text that you want to change. There are two ways of how to do that.

The first way is to access it from the timeline. After youve opened FLA file in Macromedia Flash, move red timeline slider and watch the animation process. When youll see text that needs to be modified, stop the timeline slider. Choose Selection Tool from tools panel or call this tool by pressing V hotkey. Double click this text until youll get type cursor in it. Then just type your own text instead of original once.

Fig 9.2 Edit Text

But some of flash headers have complicated structure to create powerful animation effects. So it will be hard to access symbols containing text from the timeline. The easiest and most reliable way to locate elements in flash is to use symbols library.

To open symbols library you can use Ctrl + L hotkey or choose Window/Library from the top menu.

Fig 9.3 Symbols Library

Browse the symbols library to find symbol containing text you want to modify. You can see symbols preview in the preview window at the top of symbols library panel. Actually all symbols the contain text have appropriate names such as Company Name or About Us. If you are unable to see text for some reasons try to change movie background to non white. Because white colored text on white background is invisible. To do those choose Modify/Document from the top menu and change background color in popup window.

When you have found symbol containing text you want to change double click symbols icon to show text symbol in main workspace window. Then just double click text with Selection Tool or single click it with Text Tool (hotkey T) to edit text.

While editing text in Macromedia Flash you have wide choice of attributes able to modify. All that options are accessible from the properties panel at the bottom of Macromedia Flash workspace. If you cant see this panel for any reason you can open it by pressing Ctrl + F3 hotkey.

Fig 9.4 Text Properties

To modify text color or font size just select text using Text Tool and go to Properties Panel to change appropriate option. You can find font family and size dropdowns, color select box and align icons there. Modify any of that options and change will update to selected text.

When you have finished editing of the text block, press Esc key to quit editing mode. Now you can repeat operations described above to edit other text blocks of your flash header.

After youve made all appropriate changes you should publish your flash movie to SWF file and update it to your web design template. You can find instructions about it in Publishing Your Flash Movie section.