[Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] [Resolved] Check this out - Flash-specific aliased Arial 11 font

[pmineault]

Hi all,

Well, as you know, because of Flash's anti-aliasing, small fonts are hard to read. There are already a few Flash-specific fonts out there that don't anti-alias, i.e., remain crisp at small sizes, most notably on miniml.com. However, I found that most of them were too small to be useful.

So I decided to make a Flash-specific version of my favorite small font, that is, Arial 11. You can download it here.

Copy the ttf file included in the archive to the C:\windows\fonts dir. Restart flash. You should have a new font to choose from, "Arial 11 for Flash beta".

When you right down text, use this new font. The font only works at size 11, and must be aligned to the left. You must place your text block on round pixels. To do this, go into the info panel, and from the position section, choose the top left square in order to get the coordinates from the top left. Then, change the position to a round number. For example, if the position is 123.4 and 531.6, change it to 123.0 and 532.0.

Your text should look aliased right now. If you text your movie using ctrl+enter right now, the font will look blurry. This is a bug in Flash. If you look at your movie by double clicking on it in Explorer, you should see the pixel effect.

As for the characters included in this font, I have redone caps, no caps, most symbols, as well as accuented characters. If you need a very specific character, just drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.

Enjoy.

[DigitalOne]

Thanks man, thats real helpful to me now because im actually working on a site that uses Arial, and its blurry. Thanks... lemme ask you, though, why only 11 point?

[pmineault]

Because I made this for a specific site, and we decided to go with 11. I may do a 12 point version later on, if this one catches on.

[phil'ter design]

Thanks for your work pmineault.

However, would it not work just as well to use device fonts with static text fields or not embed fonts with dynamic text fields to get aliased Arial? I think pretty much everyone has Arial on their machine (or Helvetica for macs). Or am I missing something here? Please do tell.

[DigitalOne]

If you ever get around to 10, that'd be pretty helpful, too,

[pmineault]

phil'ter,

Yes, in fact, you can get pretty much the same aliased effect by using device fonts. However, that only works if your text is strictly static. That is, if your text is either Static with device fonts or Dynamic without embedding, you can't move it, change its alpha, rotation or scale.

Also, when you use device fonts or dynamic text, since the font rendering is left to the OS or browser, you can't be sure where line breaks will end up, or how long the text will be. Those problems are solved by using this font.

[pmineault]

BTW, here's a swf of all the characters included in this font. I also put the original Arial on the left so you compare.

[swf width=550 height=200 background=#ffffff]http://www.rprog.f2s.com/arial11.swf[/swf]

[phil'ter design]

pmineault,

You're right about having limited control over it when it's not embedded fonts (however, i've found that you can move and scale it). Additionally, you can't mask that type of text either.

Thanks.

[pmineault]

Oh, you're right, you CAN move dynamic text with actionscript. And it does scale, but the way it does it is sort of odd, not really smooth.

[squink]

Thank you!

This is awesome!

:

[pmineault]

Hehe, thanks Squink.

Hey, by the way, I've been gone for like, three months, did I miss anything? And what happened to your bear picture and the cubes footer? I love those!!!

[aashu.com]

Originally posted by pmineault
Hehe, thanks Squink.

Hey, by the way, I've been gone for like, three months, did I miss anything? And what happened to your bear picture and the cubes footer? I love those!!!

tripod has removed your file ...

please host it again ...

[grego7y]

very nice, pmineault

[pmineault]

Just copy the URL and open it in a new window. It'll work.

[slinky2000]

ah nice one man, a great help to all use pixel font people in flash, oh btw what url?

[aashu.com]

yeah exactly ... which url ... i open'd the url but its not working ...

[Fadzter]

Originally posted by aashu.com
yeah exactly ... which url ... i open'd the url but its not working ...

http://htmlandbeyond.tripod.com/ari11fla.zip


you have to copu and aste it in a nwe window to get it to work

[aashu.com]

thanks ...

URL is working ...

[Hannibal Smith]

Thanks for the font, dude!

Ever heard of Right Click -> Save As?