Selecting An Encoding Language - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING FLASH Use Manual

For Unicode-encoded text to appear correctly, users must have access to fonts containing the
glyphs (characters) used in that text. For more information, see
that are not Unicode encoded" on page
This chapter contains the following sections:

Selecting an encoding language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Fonts for Unicode-encoded text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Authoring multilanguage text with the Strings panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Creating documents with multilanguage text without using the Strings panel . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Using external text or XML files that are not Unicode encoded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Selecting an encoding language
All text in a computer is encoded as a series of bytes. Many different forms of encoding (and
therefore, different bytes) represent text. Different kinds of operating systems use different kinds
of encoding for text. For example, Western Windows operating systems usually use CP1252
encoding; Western Macintosh operating systems usually use MacRoman encoding; Japanese
Windows and Macintosh systems usually use Unicode encoding.
Unicode can encode most languages and characters used throughout the world. The other forms
of text encoding used by computers are subsets of the Unicode format, tailored to specific regions
of the world. Some of these forms are compatible in some ranges and incompatible in other
ranges, so using the correct encoding is critical.
Unicode comes in several forms. Flash Player versions 6 and 7 support text or external files in the
8-bit Unicode format UTF-8, and in the 16-bit Unicode formats UTF-16 BE (Big Endian) and
UTF-16 LE (Little Endian). For more information, see
on page 237.
Unicode and Macromedia Flash Player
Macromedia Flash Player 6 and later supports Unicode text encoding. Any user with Flash
Player 6 or later can view multilanguage text, regardless of the language used by the operating
system running the player, if they have the correct fonts installed.
Flash Player 6 and later assumes that all external text files associated with a Flash Player
application are Unicode encoded, unless you tell the player otherwise. If you use external text files
that are not Unicode encoded, you can set the
Flash Player to use the traditional code page of the operating system running the player. For more
information, see
For Flash applications in Macromedia Flash Player 5 or earlier that are authored in Flash MX or
earlier, Flash Player 6 and earlier versions display the text using the traditional code page of the
operating system running the player.
For background information on Unicode, see www.Unicode.org.
236 Chapter 13: Creating Multilanguage Text
"Using external text or XML files that are not Unicode encoded" on page
251.
"Text encoding in Flash Player 7"
system.useCodepage
"Using external text or XML files
property to
true
to tell
251.