The most common problem that we face here in the Middle East is writing Arabic with Flash. There was a version that I was using it to write Arabic in Flash and it was very easy to use, it was a special version of Flash 6.
And now, many Flash designers face a problem with this issue in their projects, especially when copying and pasting paragraphs.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to fix that problem, let us start:
Step 1:
Choose the Text tool, or click (T), for shortcut, and transform it to a dynamic text.
Step 2:
Now if you copy and paste the arabic text directly in the dynamic text field, you’ll find something that looks like this:
And once you publish your file, the paragraph will be reveresed.
mmm.. That doesn’t look right to me
So, let’s do it again.
Copy the arabic text and paste it in Notepad where the Encoding is set to Unicode, and save type as: All files
Step 3:
Then, copy again the text from Notepad and paste it in the dynamic text
As you can see the text is in a big mess!
But once you publish the file, the text will be written right.
Enjoy !
Rony Mattar
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Nice work man
The problem is in the way that flash embeds and renders arabic fonts.
If you don’t embed the font, it will render correctly, cause flash will ask the operating system to render the font for it. But then you can’t animate or mask that textfield cause that needs an embeded font.
If you embed the font, flash will embed one symbol for each letter, and then it will just place the letters next to each other.
I have developed a system to convert arabic text into a series of symbols that flash will know how to draw correctly - check http://www.nhdrlebanon.org/
Of course, due to this being property of the company where I work I cannot share the code to do it, but I will be sharing the concept soon enough on my website.
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Hello,
Thanks for the illustration.
but the problem is that the dynamic text has a white background (unlike the static text-transparent BG).
i wonder if there is a way to make the dynamic text background to be transparent! or make the previous steps on a static text.
thanks alot
Yes Loay, if you check the image in the link below.
click here
There’s a button in flash where you can show border around text, if it is clicked, then it will show a border and a white background, click it again and the white background will disappear.
I hope I was helpful
Thank you Rony for sharing this.
I am using Flash 8 Professional and I was able to load Arabic text from an xml file (saved as UTF-8) and display it in dynamic text as you can see here:
http://alfikra.org/radio_a.php
However one of the site visiters complained that the player displayes the charachetrs as you’ve shown above (reversed and unlinked) and I am not sure why because I test it from other PCs where Arabic is not installed and did not see an issue there. Both my site visitor’s computer and mine use Flash 9 player in Windows XP. I tried to embed the font (Traditional Arabic) but that messed things up even for my PC so I reverted back into using Arial Unicode font without embeding.
The only other problem I faced was when I tried to mask or apply any effects on the text. That did not work.
Omer
thank you very much for this tutorial,
I was looking for a while for a solution to write arabic text on flash8,
the main problem now for me is that flash does not “understand” words in arabic
I mean it can just write the first letter of the word in the end of a line and continue to the next line.
But it’s better than cpying arabic text as image ! (that’s what i’m doing now)
Thanks again, good work,
Hanen.
This is an amazing site by the way.
I still have problems even with your tutorial. Yes the sentences are correct, but the first word of each paragraph is missing, some words are broken with line breaks and if I highlight the text with my cursor and move the text scrolls horzontally. (Very weird)
Thanks for the tutorial!
Ameirah
Also, I have scroll space which the dynamic text doesnt appear. Does the text there have to be input? If so, what can I do for the arabic in that case?
Hello Ameirah!
The dynamic text must be not selectable, so it doesn’t scroll when highlighting it.
Concerning the first letter of each word, this tutorial is just a way to write small text. If it doesn’t work well, you can load the arabic text from a .txt file also, it works fine, I can send you a tutorial about that if you want.
Rony
Merci kteer Rony, Yes please send me the tutorial. I am new at flash and this arabic issue is making it even harder!
hey guys, this was really a helpfull forum, i got the problem solved, but still i would like to know, how do i call arabic tect from a external unicode 8 text file to keep the content dynamic. so that the client can update the content by himself @ a period of time.
thanks in advance for any support.
mail me @ gonchu24@yahoo.co.in
kumar
Hello!This forum is great! I have the same problem as Kumar (whell almost.. I’m designing a page for a client who needs too go in and update info now and then, but doesn’t know anything about flash. I alsoo use the unicode8-system because the page is in spannish, and flash8 doesn’t support the specail caracters)Therefor it will be great to hear if anyone have an anser to Kumars questieon (and mine….)
In advance: Thanks a lot for the support!
Thank you for sharing!
For embeded Arabic | Persian | Urdu text in Flash you can use Flaraby3:
http://www.arabicode.com/flaraby/
Thank you.
The Solution is realesed as alpha version on:
http://www.heavenstudios.net
guys try this you can do the same thing with flash,xml and css.
http://www.aarif.be/creativeUAE/arabic-in-flash-using-xml-css/
thank you that was so helpful
Hi Guys,
there is an application specialized for that. it is called Kalimat (for MAC), or Al Rassam (for windows…).
the text would appear correct in flash when editing and when compiling.
the website of the company is http://www.layoutltd.com
NB: We are hiring:)
hey, it’s now possible to write arabic in Flash CS3, without having to convert the text to UNICODE! but the it still has to be dynamic.
You may use UrduNigar to type Arabic, Urdu or Farsi (Persian), You can embed ALKATIB1 True Type font in Flash, this will allow rendering of required Right to Left language.
AT first I want to geart you second I have problem and I need your help:
When I replaced English text with Arabic text the arabic text became hide and disappear
and we must know that arabic text is static not dynamic because there are animation effects please help me especially in static case not dynamic case why the text became hidden.
thanks alot please reply me fastly because that is importanr.
Great,
it worked for me
Thanks alot
i tried that but it is not working
i found another software that is working good
there is two software which is the best
1. farsi editor
2. al-rassam
download it and you can write in every where like photoshop, flash etc…. by: Bashir Afghani
I have some problem in copy & paste arabic text into flash, when i paste arabic text in flash & give the specific font to it, the text start from the end of the line & end from the start of the original line. so plz help me in this problem & give me feed back as soon as posible
thanks,
Abdul Rauf
I have some problem in copy & paste arabic text into flash, when i paste arabic text in flash & give it specific font it show left to righ but i want it written in right to left so plz solve my problem & give me feed back as soon as possible
thanks,
Abdul Rauf
thank you Rony Mattar !
it’a a great tutorial …
I followed the process of the “How to write arabic in Flash 8?” article. It works well in swf file and in the browser (in that pc which have installed the language pack setting from “regional setting ” of control panel).
But that pc which have not installed the language pack it shows the arabic text left to right.
Thats a great problem. Because every visitor may not installed the language support from control panel.
So what is the solution?
The Text properties should be: input, or dynamic.
If you use the static option the layout will be not readable.
usign Mac, you can use a software called Arabic Genie, where you can type the arabic you want, once export it, the text will be copied to the clipboard and you can paste it inside flash, and then choose AXTManal font so u can read it normally, and you can even embed the font to the textbox for dynamic textboxes,
using PC, you can use a software called AlRassam, it works in the same concept as Arabic Genie for Mac.
Enjoy!
If anyone wants a tool that converts Bidirectional Arabic and English text to a text that can be read in Adobe Flash or Adobe Flex at design time, please check: FlarabySWF.
The converted text can be read in Adobe Flash versions: MX, MX 2004, 8, CS3.
Download a free trial version from here:
http://www.arabicode.com/en/flaraby/swf/setup.php
Thank you.
but what if i want to write arabic in a static textbox?
How it can i do this, i tried it but using the _sans font it works but what if i need to use other fonts?
Wael,
You can use FlarabySWF to convert Arabic text, copy and paste it into a static textField in Flash.
The target textField MUST have the exact same settings as the settings you set in FlarabySWF.
To use other fonts than the system’s default font (_sans), you must use embedded Fonts.
Check the “Use embeded Fonts” checkbox right below the input textField in FlarabySWF, then select a font from the Font list.
In Flash, your static textField must be set to the same font you chose from the Font list, ie. the font you selected must be installed on your system.
To download the ae_fonts set, go to:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=34866&package_id=75554
@ahmad: Thank you for your input
Guys, we have only two ways for that:
1: Vector images, which is takes double time to be finished, but great look, and heavy some times..
(Write in AI, copy text then paste it in flash, you will be able to edit text only in AI then recopying and pasting…)
2: Inside the text field, write the Arabic text, the view will be having the wanted result.. but not smooth one, so use the Hebrew Arial font, then character embedded..
The software mentioned above is just wasting of time, because you need to use it whenever you are using flash Arabic designs. I believe that all designers have AI and PS in their systems..
You can make the same effect and result using the vector method.
Aware also for web integration, sometimes the flash container, HTML Page, auto applies its encoding to the flash movie.. then the Arabic become from LTR than RTL.
I have links for live examples I did before, in case anyone needs to check..
Thanks
FlarabySWF is an Arabic only solution, and it’s not affected by the encoding issue, because simply the text copied into Flash should be pasted in a “static” textField, not a dynamic one.
The text can also be embeded into a dynamic textField, which again, eliminates the chance to be affected by html encodings if any.
If you visited http://www.arabicode.com/en/flaraby/swf/
you’d also know that it virtualy can be used in ANY software that doesn’t support Arabic, such as Publishing, Video Editing, 3D, … softwares.
So, go waste your time and try it, it’s free.
Thank you.
hhi guys! i m from brasil i am doing one part in our web that are in arabic, and e web is all in flash so i see your tutorial about it but in my conpylter here in brazil do not have fonts, do you know were i can found someone?
howa can i write arabic in inbut text in flash movie
kindly any one answer me ASAP
if you want to use arabic and you don’t want to change it again, use vectors. copy from another design software and paste it in flash.
Else:
read the above dicussions
if you want to use arabic and you don’t want to change it again, use vectors. copy from another design software and paste it in flash.
Else:
use swishmax
or
read the above dicussions
You can use swishmax very nice and ready to use animations and effects. also the arabic is editable.