MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-USING FLASH Use Manual page 161

About using device fonts
For static horizontal text only, you can use special fonts in Flash called device fonts as an
alternative to exporting font outline information. Device fonts are not embedded in the Flash
SWF file. Instead, 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 results in a somewhat smaller SWF file. In addition, device fonts can be sharper and
more legible than exported font outlines at small point sizes (below 10 points). However,
because device fonts are not embedded, text may look different than expected in user systems
that do not have an installed font corresponding to the device font.
Flash includes three device fonts, _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 SWF file playback, Flash
selects the first device font that is located on the user's system. See "Making text selectable by
users" on page 172.
About masking device fonts
You can use a movie clip to mask text that is set in a device font and converted into a movie
clip. For a movie clip mask on a device font to function, the user must have Macromedia
Flash Player 6 (6.0.40.0) or later.
When you use a movie clip to mask text set in a device font, Flash uses the rectangular
bounding box of the mask as the masking shape. That is, if you create a nonrectangular movie
clip mask for device font text in the Flash authoring environment, the mask that appears in
the SWF file takes the shape of the rectangular bounding box of the mask, not the shape of
the mask itself.
You can mask device fonts only by using a movie clip as a mask. You cannot mask device fonts
by using a mask layer on the Stage.
For more information on using a movie clip as a mask, see "Using movie clips as masks" in
Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Flash.
About anti-aliasing text
Anti-aliasing lets you smooth text so that the edges of characters displayed onscreen look less
jagged. The anti-aliasing options makes text more readable by aligning text outlines along
pixel boundaries and is particularly effective for more clearly rendering smaller font sizes.
When anti-aliasing is enabled, all text in the current selection is affected. Anti-aliasing
operates with text of all point sizes in the same way.
About font outlines and device fonts 161