Flash CS3: The Missing Manual

Adding Text to Your Drawing

Just as Flash offers tools for adding shapes and lines to your drawings, it offers a tool specifically designed to let you add text to your drawings—the Text tool.

To use the Text tool:

1. In the Tools panel, select the Text tool (Figure 5-33, top).

   Flash highlights the Text tool; when you mouse over to the Stage, your cursor changes to crosshairs accompanied by a miniature letter "A".

   

   Figure 5-33. After you select the Text tool, click anywhere on the Stage and drag to create a text box. Then, inside the newly created text box, type the text you want to add to your drawing. (If you want to make the text box bigger or smaller, just drag one of the corners.) The Property Inspector lets you change any of the properties associated with the text: font size, style, color, and so on.

2. Click the Stage where you want your text to begin.

   Flash displays a squished-up empty text box, and the Property Inspector displays text-related properties.

3. Drag the box a few inches.

   Flash widens the text box.

4. If you like, in the Property Inspector, change the font size, color, or any other text-related property:

   • Text Type (Static, Dynamic, Input). Static text is the text you add directly to your drawing, as shown in Figure 5-33; dynamic text is a placeholder for text that changes when your finished animation plays (for example, the current date or stock prices); input text is a text placeholder ...