ActionScript: The Definitive Guide

HTML Support

The Character panel lets us set a text field’s font size, font face, and font style, but it sets the attributes of the entire text field only. To set styles on a character-by-character basis and to add hypertext links, use HTML (which was added as a text field feature in Flash 5).

Though HTML can be used with both dynamic text fields and user-input text fields, we normally use HTML text fields for display purposes only. To add HTML support to a text field, select the HTML option in the Text Options panel.

The set of HTML tags supported by text fields is limited to: <B>, <I>, <U>, <FONT>, <P>, <BR>, and <A>.

<B> (Bold)

The <B> tag renders text in bold, provided that a boldface exists for the font in question:

<B>This is bold text</B>

<I> (Italics)

The <I> tag renders text in italics, provided that an italic face exists for the font in question:

<I>This is italic text</I>

<U> (Underline)

The <U> tag renders the tagged text with an underline beneath it. For example:

<U>This is underlined text</U>

Because linked text is not underlined in Flash, you should use the <U> tag to identify hyperlinks:

<A HREF="http://www.thesquarerootof-1.com"><U>Click here</U>
</A> to visit a neat site.

<FONT> (Font Control)

The <FONT> tag supports the following three attributes:

FACE

The FACE attribute specifies the name of the font to use. Note that a list of multiple font faces is not supported in Flash as it is in HTML. Flash attempts to render only the first font listed in the FACE attribute. ...