[vvsprog]

When you use a font installed on your system in a Flash movie, Flash embeds the font information in the Flash SWF file, ensuring that the font is displayed properly in the Flash Player. Not all fonts displayed in Flash can be exported with a movie. To verify that a font can be exported, use the View > Antialias Text command to preview the text; jagged type indicates that Flash does not recognize that font's outline and will not export the text.

You can use special fonts in Flash called device fonts as an alternative to embedding font information (for horizontal text only). Device fonts are not embedded in the Flash SWF file. Instead, the Flash Player uses whatever font on the local computer most closely resembles the device font. Because device font information is not embedded, using device fonts yields a somewhat smaller Flash movie file size. In addition, device fonts can be sharper and more legible than embedded fonts at small point sizes (below 10 points). However, because device fonts are not embedded, if users do not have a font installed on their system that corresponds to the device font, text may look different than expected on a user's system.

Flash includes three device fonts, named _sans (similar to Helvetica or Arial), _serif (similar to Times Roman), and _typewriter (similar to Courier). To specify a font as a device font, you select one of the Flash device fonts in the Property inspector. During movie playback, Flash selects the first device font that is located on the user's system. You can specify text set in a device font to be selectable, so that users can copy and paste text that appears in your movie. See Using device fonts (horizontal text only).