User Guide

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CHAPTER 13
Creating Multilanguage Text
As more applications are distributed to worldwide audiences, it is becoming common to author
applications that can appear in multiple languages. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and
Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 provide several new features that greatly enhance the
work flow for authoring multiple language Unicode-based applications. You can include
multilanguage text in your document in the following ways:
• The new Strings panel lets localizers edit strings in a central location inside Flash or in external
XML files with their preferred software or translation memory. For more information, see
“Authoring multilanguage text with the Strings panel” on page 240.
• You can select which character sets you want to embed in your applications, which limits the
number of character glyphs in your published SWF file and reduces its size. For more
information, see “Using embedded fonts” on page 238.
• You can use a Western-style keyboard to create text on the Stage in Chinese, Japanese, and
Korean. For more information, see “Using a Western keyboard to enter Asian characters on the
Stage” on page 248.
• If you have Unicode fonts installed on your system, you can enter text directly into a text field.
Because the fonts are not embedded, your users must also have Unicode fonts. For more
information, see “Creating documents with multilanguage text without using the Strings
panel” on page 248.
Other, less common, methods of including multilingual text in your movie include the following:
• You can include an external text file in a dynamic or input text field, using the #include
action. For more information, see “Creating documents with multilanguage text using the
#include action” on page 249.
• You can load external text or XML files into a Flash application at runtime using the
loadVariables action, the getURL action, the LoadVars object, or the XML object. For more
information, see “Using ActionScript to load external files” on page 248.
• You can enter Unicode escape characters in the string value for a dynamic or input text field
variable. For more information, see “Creating documents with multilanguage text using text
variables” on page 250.