Macromedia Flash Player Missing fonts

Forum: Multimedia
Topic: Macromedia Flash Player Missing fonts
started by: mrcrab

Posted by mrcrab on Jan. 10 2006,03:30

I couldn't get fonts to appear in my Flash movies. With the help of DSL member 'fanboy', here's how I finally got it working - FYI.

- First, install XFree86.dsl
- Then cp XF86Conf-4_vesa to /ext/X11/XF86Config-4 from the XFree86 folder the install left in /home/dsl/
- Adjust font paths in XF86Config-4 to include TTF, Type1 and 100dpi font folders. Putting your preferred font family on top of the list.
- Create new font folders if needed in /usr/lib/X11/fonts/
- Load up the new folders with fonts (gsfonts into the Type1 folder, windows standard TT fonts into the TTF folder, and the standard 100dpi versions into the 100dpi folder).
- Change /home/dsl/.xserverrc to: exec /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 -nolisten tcp -dpi 100

This makes the screen fonts *much* better looking all around, and in particular, makes the FireFox fonts bigger and cleaner.

Also solves the Macromedia Flash Player missing font problem by giving it gsfonts (Type 1) to use. I noticed in the install script for Flash Player, that it says it requires gsfonts and gsfonts-X11, but installing those fonts through apt-get, or with source became a nightmare.

Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on Jan. 12 2006,03:48

You could also try embedding your fonts in your Flash files, this means that no matter what system is viewing it, the font will always be there. If done wisely it won't add much filesize at all.
Make the text dynamic, then click on "Characters", and you should be able to figure it out from there.

Posted by clacker on Jan. 12 2006,13:33

The problem is that people who have already written flash files might have tried to use one of the three browser fonts that are always supposed to be there: _serif, _sans, and _typewriter. It makes their file smaller and also should be more compatiple. When you try to play most flash games in dsl, everything is there except for the score and timers (things that use those default fonts).

Posted by davea0511 on Jan. 18 2006,14:21

okay, so where do I get these fonts? Do I just drop the *.TTF files from my windows machine? The existing font folders have thier fonts compressed as *.pcf.gz files - as a linux newbie I don't know how to do that.