Problem: Flash 8 text is rRandomly Disappearing on playback

[nankerp]

I am creating a presentation in Flash 8 that runs from a local computer. As a result, I am not all that concerned with file size etc. and use a lot of photos, animations and video. Additionally I use masking, filters (mostly just drop shadow) and probably every other feature that is available to me.

During playback, I have text blocks disappearing. It is not consistent... text disappears on different slides at different times. Nor does it happen all the time. Sometimes the playback is perfect. Which makes it all the more frustrating. You know that Murphy says it will happen during the actual presentation!

I am using standard fonts and not embedding them as they are resident in both the production computer and the playback system. They are anti-aliased for readability.

Of course, I can break apart each text block and reduce them to graphics (which alleviates the problem), but the presentations change often, and I'd like to be able to make quick edits.

Any ideas out there? Is this a Bug in Flash 8? If so, does anyone know if it has been addressed in CS3?

Any and all help is welcome!

[jcodec]

I am using standard fonts and not embedding them as they are resident in both the production computer and the playback system.

It's considered best practice to embed your fonts anyway, especially if you are masking fonts. If filesize is not a consideration you can embed the entire typeface. Many transformations on MovieClips with unembedded fonts will fail (like _alpha, for example).

Even if a font of the same name is present on the presentation machine, subtle differences between them (different build, version, kerning table, foundry, etc.) can yield unexpected results.

I doubt this will completely alleviate your problem but it's a place to start.

[nankerp]

Thanks for the tips. I'll go ahead and embed the fonts (it couldn't hurt!).

That said, the problem also occurs on my own system, obviously using the same fonts. The masking I am using is not with the fonts, but on other graphic elements... and I am also using no type transformations.

The reason I even mentioned the masking was from another thread where people were having issues with dynamic text not showing up when masking was used.