10 Replies Latest reply: May 17, 2010 5:49 AM by maltdrink RSS

    Text not displaying in Swf"s

    rezun8 Community Member

      I made a number of Flash Movies during the week on my MACbook using CS4.  Today when I open the files to continue building, I do a control movie and/or export movie  and all my images display and move as designed but ALL TEXT is invisible. these same files worked fine yesterday. Aside from a shut down, with no issues, at the end of the workday nothing has changed that I can forsee. 

      When I publish an FLA, I get this message prompt:

      "Some characters could not be converted to outlines because an appropriate outline font is not available. These characters will disappear in the swf movie file. The characters that failed will look jagged if you choose Anti-Alias Text in the view menu.   "

       

      obviously I tried resetting the preferences and editting the anti alias preferences.. it is happening to all FLA files going back years and versions.

       

      I am hoping someone can help me fix this issue, it's killing my deadline end time limit.

       

      Thanks in advance.

        • 1. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
          AttaBoy2 Community Member

          It  sounds like your textfields are usng a font that's not installed on your Mac.  Either install the font or set a different font for yout textfields.  If you want others to see the text in a particular font then embed that font on all textfields.

          • 2. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
            rezun8 Community Member

            thanks Attaboy,   unfortunately it is Tahoma, not really a hard to find font. I did try embedding in the of chance that might be the issue to no avail.

             

            I appreciate the thought!

            • 3. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
              AttaBoy2 Community Member

              I just spent a few minutes searching the web for articles about Tahoma fonts for Mac.  Some said Macs before 2008 didn't have it one said it cane with Macs but wasn't listed as a web font.  Also you mentioned they you tried embedding.  I guess that means you did embed and it didn't work but then it could mean you tried and failed to embed the font. Which is it?

              • 4. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                riquigley Community Member

                Another possibility is if you're using a mask.  Text fields and masks don't mix very well.

                 

                Also, check to make sure that after you embedded the font, that you went back and picked that embedded font and not the original font from the drop-down list.

                 

                If there's still no solution, I would use AS3 to create the fonts and textfields.

                • 5. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                  rezun8 Community Member

                  Hi Riquigly,  it appears that the issue may lay with the Mac Books FontBook program. I went back and opened older fla's from different projects as well as different versions of Flash and any text that is used within the site turns to graphical lines. I have also discovered that fonts I know for sure were installed as I have used them for projects all before tuesday of this week no longer are in the font folder.

                   

                  I am using Masks but not in this section of where the font problem takes place.

                   

                  again thanks for the help you have provided to me in solving this issue.

                   

                  Regards

                   

                  Russ

                  • 6. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                    maltdrink

                    Hi Russ, I have the exact same problem as you. There is a .fla which i worked on previously on my macbook using fonts which have definitely been installed (I selected them from the dropdown list in the flash 'character' family list). At that time, this .fla has been successfully exported and everything was ok. Now, after about 2-3 months, I tried opening the same .fla in the same macbook I have been using, and the message 'Some text could not be converted...' came up and all my texts disappeared and replaced by groups of long diagonal lines at their original positions. I couldn't understand what had happened either, as the "missing fonts" are apparently all still in the font book and these fonts are still usable in other Adobe programs like Illustrator and photoshop. Could it have something to do with a update we have installed in between?

                     

                    Sorry haven't finished.... after I found out that all the text disappeared off, I re-created all the text using another font, and then it was all fine during exporting etc. No more warning message. But after another month or so, I opened this revised .fla, and the same problem occurred again. Even with the revision, the texts were all gone...again....

                     

                    Message was edited by: maltdrink

                    • 7. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                      AttaBoy2 Community Member

                      sounds like it might be a bug in Flash.  Try going here https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform  to report the problem.

                      There's also a member of this forum you could contact but I don't recall her name.

                      • 8. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                        kglad CommunityMVP

                        there are known issues with flash caused by corrupt fonts.  even corrupt fonts that aren't used in your textfields can cause flash problems especially if you've had a flash and/or system crash.

                         

                        check your fonts for corruption and repair, if indicated.

                        • 9. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                          rezun8 Community Member

                          hi everyone,

                           

                          sorry for not replying with a solution if any for the issue. Apparently, this coming from the Mac genius bar, Since I have slowly been migrating from a PC based system to the MAC family, it was a strong possibility that some pc fonts when brought into the Mac came thru but contained zero data. so the font technically was there but had no form so Flash read it, and then due to the loss of data within the font - showed noting. obviously the font could not be rendered and then began the font issue.

                           

                          I also like to collect fonts and I had a larger amount of fonts which also contributed to the slowing of the entire system. So I had multiple copies of PC fonts with no data in them and being a new Mac user wasn't managing them properly either.

                           

                          What I've had to do is basically wipe out the font folders of all fonts installed and then recopied the basic system fonts (mac) as when it shipped. From here I have been very careful in adding fonts versus just installing fonts as I find them. I also bought FontCase, which was recommended to me by the Mac genius bar and utilizing that vs. the fontbook that ships w/ OSX has seemed to yield better results and almost no repeat issues.

                           

                           

                          as for my Flash files, I went back and opened the files with issues, just deleted the bad txtfields and or dynamic txt areas. and just recreated them, saved and published and have had no problems to date.

                           

                          * I cant help to think though that although I had a font management issue and a pc font integration issue, that the update I did just prior to this Flash text issue arising MAY have had some sort of impact in the entire scheme of things.

                           

                          hopefully some of my ranting hear may help someone.

                           

                          R2

                          • 10. Re: Text not displaying in Swf"s
                            maltdrink Community Member

                            Thanks everyone for the advice. I have now removed all fonts which might be corrupted (I try validating every font using Font Book and remove anything which it said got error or have issues). I then check on Flash to see if there's any improvement but there wasn't. Out of shear frustration I uninstalled the whole adobe package and then reinstalled again to check (without doing any adobe update, in case this is caused by an 'update' issue).

                             

                            Now the texts are still 'disappeared' in the .fla, but at least the font dropdown list doesn't crash that often anymore (it used to crash quite alot). so I think sorting out the fonts definitely did help! And as a bonus,  all of my adobe products now run very smoothly and they don't crash as often as they used to... but then does this mean it really is a problem with one or more of its update?

                             

                            And from now on I would be very careful when choosing and installing fonts. Thanks again you guys!