printing dynamic text in flash mx

[raznov]

Okay.. I got the one frame to print.. but all I get in the print out is the scroll bar.. what about the text. Why won't that print?

KIM

 

[billwatson]

it might work better if the text box was in a movie clip and you printed the movie clip.

if that dont help then look here

http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/printing_from_browsers.htm

 

[raznov]

I have it in a movie clip.. one frame with a stop action... then the frame has a lable that says #p and the button is on the level above it. The text is in a dynamic box, because I am using the built in scrolling component. The print command is recognized by my computer.. but it only prints the scroll bar and not the text.. also I have embedded the font to see if that would help but no luck.

KIM

 

[billwatson]

ok..it was just something that worked for me once and i couldnt explain it...looked back at what i did and i see why i had trouble understanding why it worked

what i did was just target the movie clip and not go the level deeper to target the textfield.

 

[raznov]

No.. thank you.. I was just trying to make it clear what I did. Does yours use a dynamic text field?

 

[billwatson]

yes with font embedded

 

[raznov]

I still cant make it work.. very strange.. all that prints is the scroll bar, which is the only other thing in the movie clip besides the text. I even tried to switch it to static text, and it printed then.

I checked out the support pages at Macromedia like you suggested, but nothing about dynamic text.

Do you possibly have a sample file you can send me?

KIM

 

[billwatson]

sure ill dig out an fla..but it will be tomorrow..that fla is on my machine at work

 

[raznov]

np... thanks.. I will be really intersted to see what the hell I am doing wrong.

KIM

 

[billwatson]

that printing stuff is closely entwined with other bits and pieces but now that i have seen it let me explain what i did.

i had 2 textfields...1 with scrollbar to display the text and another i called printArea which was a page sized text box inside a movie clip with the font embeded. I had this print area off screen and the clip set to invisible. I directed the print button not at the field with the scrollbar but at the field containing only the text. The onload fuction populated both text boxes at once.

let me know if you still cant get it to work and when i get the time later today i will stick up a sample fla.

 

[raznov]

Thanks Bill.. that worked. It is interesting though, becuase I am researching building a shopping cart in flash. Now I am wondering about being able to give the customer the abilitiy to print their order. This is a real problem, if flash won't print dynamic text, since the trick you explained would not be possible with the cart, as all of the text would have to be dynamic only.

It is strange too that noone else on this forum has tried to answer this question as I think it is important, and I can not find any documentation on Macromedia's site regarding it.

Well, thanks again.

KIM

 

[billwatson]

the same method will work...thats what i meant when i said the fla was full of other bits and pieces..on the printarea i had input from 2 textboxes, a combobox, and a logo at the top of the page (to improve the look when printed)
remember its printing the clip not the textbox.

 

[raznov]

So then why cant I get it to print my dynamic text box. I set the print area text box to static text and that prints fine.

Also, I can not get it to center on the page and I had to use a font size of 24 to get it to look large enough.

KIM

 

[wangbar]

The size issue may be down to the size of the bounding box of your movieclip.

I had a problem with a clip printing tiny no matter what I scaled it to on the screen. Turns out the printed image will scale to fill the paper size completely and my clip had a masked off area (the bit I was printing out) but some of the elements that the mask was hiding were way out there (like a 1000 pixels) and the printed image was scaling to include them even though they were invisible.

Also have you tried 'printAsBitmap' instead of just 'print' which may be the problem with the dynamic text not showing. Like Bill I've been able to print dynamic text in the past so it's definitely possible.

 

[raznov]

This whole printing this is driving me nuts.. I have spent a ton of time on it and still I have not solved it.

First.. the dynamic text box will not print. Why? I would rather print the dynamic text.

Second...if I make it a static text box, it prints, but the size of the font changes and the positioning seems to be dependent on a border of about two inches from the top and three inches from the left side. I checked the bounding box of the mc... there is nothing in it besides the text.


Kim

 

[wangbar]

Weird - can you post your fla?

 

[raznov]

Okay.. dummy me.. I got the static text to print where I want it on the page at the size I want it. I put it on the root timeline and set the x and y to 0.

But I really want to print the dynamic text.. as I will need to do this with other projects.

So my question remains.. what am I doing wrong?

KIM

 

[raznov]

sure.. lemme put it into a new movie, so it is smaller and you will be able to find it.

 

[raznov]

Okay.. so when i put the button and the text movie clip into a new blank movie, the text does print. Very strange because the target is on the same timeline as the button.. so my target can not be wrong.. but I can work with that.

Now the last problem is .... the entire text box does not print.. only the text that is on the screen, not what is still scrollable.

 

[billwatson]

thats why i used a print area so i could have a box large enough to hold the text without the scroll.
works for me combining the two.