Printing a coloring book...

[hmp]

Hi.

I'm making a coloring book for kids. My problem at the moment is the printing... There are several frames where each frame contains a drawing, and the user can print it out, before or after they have filled it with color.

Since I can't figure out how to print specific frames and multiple layers, I'm wondering if I could do something like this:

When the user wants to print the current drawing, all the movieclips on this frame are copied to a different movie, which is then loaded into an empty movieclip (movieclipholder) and then printed.

Am I way off on this one, or is there some sense in my idea? Any suggestions on how to solve this would be appreciated!

[magicwand]

hum....
instead of dividing timeline y not attach different 3 different mcs?
that way you can print everything in 1 frame.
just a thought.

[hmp]

Yeah, maybe that will work. I'll give it a try when I get back to school. But if anyone has any suggestions on this, please let me know! I'm totally new with Flash...

[hmp]

Hi again.

I have now modified my application to have just one frame. I attach movieclips which can be filled with color. I can now print the drawings with color, but the whole stage is printed and the #b thingy doesn't seem to work. ( I've got a box with the wanted print size on a separate layer named #b).

If I create a keyframe on frame 2 and move the boundary box there, the print size is adjusted to the box, BUT... the colors are not printed, and all the movieclips which have _visible = 0 are also printed.

So it seems I have to choose between printing the whole stage and printing the wanted area without color and with hidden lines... Does anybody know a way to solve this? I'm getting a little desperate now...

[rpantso]

Perhaps you've already solved this, but I think your problem is the "print" command. It will not print anything that has an _alpha percentage.

I believe you can use "printAsBitmap"

hope this helps.

-wing

[hmp]

Thanks for replying, but I have already solved the problem. It wasn't more complicated than adding a frame #2 on the layer I wanted printed. So I made a frame on layer 'outline' (which also is the layer where the color fillings are..!) and named that frame #p. I used printNum(_root, "bframe"); for printing. Hope this helps others with similar problems.