Dynamic text; dynamic gradient fill

Wow. Its been a long time since I asked a question here!

I'm trying to re-create a tweened banner with gradient filled (and broken apart ) text with dynamic text.

I'm using this code inside a loop: aTxt is an array of strings populated from an XML object

code:

---

	var fmtText:TextFormat = new TextFormat();

	fmtText.font = "TrajanPro";

	fmtText.size = 30;

	fmtText.color = 0xE3D280;

// ...

// get the width of the textfields

	var txtMetrics:Object = fmtText.getTextExtent(aTxt[i]);

		

	this["mv_"+i].createTextField("txt", 2, 0, 4, txtMetrics.textFieldWidth, txtMetrics.textFieldHeight);

	this["mv_"+i].txt.text = aTxt[i].toUpperCase();

	this["mv_"+i].txt.setTextFormat(fmtText);

---

I need to use the TextFormat method because thats the only way i can get the width of the newly created text filed, which I use for some maths later.

Is there any way to use a gradient fill instead of the color 0xE3D280? Or must I make the text as a mask for a gardient fill layer?

you will need to make a mask