Multilanguage text

You can configure a FLA file to display text in different languages depending on the language of the operating system that plays the Animate content.

Multilanguage text in Animate

You can include multilanguage text in your document in the following ways:

• (Deprecated with Animate) The Strings panel lets localizers edit strings in a central location in Animate or in external XML files with their preferred software or translation memory. Animate upports multiline strings in both the Strings panel and the XML files.

• Select which character sets to embed in your applications, which limits the number of character glyphs in your published SWF file and reduces its size.

• Use a Western-style keyboard to create text on the Stage in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

• If you have Unicode fonts installed on your system, enter text directly into a text field. Because the fonts are not embedded, your users must also have Unicode fonts.

  Other, less common methods of including multilingual text in your Animatedocuments include the following:

• Include an external text file in a dynamic or input text field by using the #include action.

• Load external text or XML files into a Animate application at runtime by using the loadVariables or getURL actions, or the LoadVars or XML objects.

• Enter Unicode escape characters in the string value for a dynamic or input text field variable.

• Create an embedded font as a symbol in your Library.

  For Unicode-encoded text to appear correctly, users must have access to fonts containing the glyphs (characters) used in that text.

For a sample of multilingual content, see the Animate Samples page at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_samples. Download and decompress the Samples zip file and navigate to the Text\MultilingualContent folder to access the sample.

About fonts for Unicode-encoded text

When you use external files that are Unicode encoded, your users must have access to fonts containing all the glyphs used in your text files. By default, Animate stores the names of fonts used in dynamic or input text files. During SWF file playback, Flash Player 7 (and earlier versions) looks for those fonts on the operating system running the player.

If the text in a SWF file contains glyphs that the specified font does not support, both Flash Player 7 and Flash Player 8 attempt to locate a font on the user’s system that supports those glyphs. The player cannot always locate an appropriate font. This behavior depends on the fonts available on the user’s system, as well as on the operating system running Flash Player.

XML font embedding table

When you select ranges of fonts to embed in a FLA file, Animate uses the UnicodeTable.xml file to determine which characters to embed. The UnicodeTable.xml file contains ranges of characters required for various languages and resides in the user configuration folder of your computer. The file is located in the following directories:

• Windows: <boot drive>\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Flash<version>\<language>\Configuration\FontEmbedding\

• Macintosh: <user>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Flash <version>/<language>/Configuration/FontEmbedding/

The font set groupings are based on the Unicode Blocks as defined by the Unicode Consortium. To provide a simpler workflow, when you select a particular language, all related glyph ranges are embedded even if they are scattered into disjointed groupings.

For example, if you select Korean, the following Unicode character ranges are embedded:

3131‑318E Hangul symbols

3200‑321C Hangul specials

3260‑327B Hangul specials

327F‑327F Korean symbol

AC00‑D7A3 Hangul symbols

If you select Korean + CJK, a larger font set is embedded:

3131‑318E Hangul symbols

3200‑321C Hangul specials

3260‑327B Hangul specials

327F‑327F Korean symbol

4E00‑9FA5 CJK symbols

AC00‑D7A3 Hangul symbols

F900‑FA2D CJK symbols

For more information about specific Unicode ranges for different writing systems, see the Unicode 5.2.0 specification.

The following table gives more details about the font selections for embedded fonts:

Non-Unicode external files

If you load external text or XML files that are not Unicode-encoded into a Flash Player 7 application, the text in the external files does not appear correctly when Flash Player attempts to show them as Unicode. To tell Flash Player to use the traditional code page of the operating system that is running the player, add the following code as the first line of code in the first frame of the Animate application that is loading the data:

Set the system.useCodepage property only once in a document; do not use it multiple times in a document to make the player interpret some external files as Unicode and some as other encoding, because this can yield unexpected results.

If you set the system.useCodepage property to true, the traditional code page of the operating system running the player must include the glyphs used in your external text file for the text to appear. For example, if you load an external text file that contains Chinese characters, those characters do not appear on a system that uses the CP1252 code page, because that code page does not include Chinese characters. To ensure that users on all platforms can view external text files used in your Animate applications, encode all external text files as Unicode and leave the system.useCodepage property set to false by default. This causes Flash Player to interpret the text as Unicode. For more information, see useCodepage (System.useCodepage property) in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference.

Text encoding

All text in a computer is encoded as a series of bytes. Many different forms of encoding (and therefore, different bytes) represent text. Different kinds of operating systems use different kinds of encoding for text. For example, Western Windows operating systems usually use CP1252 encoding; Western Macintosh operating systems usually use MacRoman encoding; Japanese Windows and Macintosh systems usually use Unicode encoding.

Unicode can encode most languages and characters used throughout the world. The other forms of text encoding that computers use are subsets of the Unicode format, tailored to specific regions of the world. Some of these forms are compatible in some areas and incompatible in other areas, so using the correct encoding is critical.

Unicode has several forms. Flash Player versions 6 and 7 and later support text or external files in the 8‑bit Unicode format UTF‑8, and in the 16‑bit Unicode formats UTF‑16 BE (Big Endian) and UTF‑16 LE (Little Endian).

Unicode and Flash Player

Flash Player 6 and later versions support Unicode text encoding. Users with Flash Player 6 or later can view multilanguage text, regardless of the language that the operating system running the player uses, if they have the correct fonts installed.

Flash Player assumes that all external text files associated with a Flash Player application are Unicode encoded, unless you tell the player otherwise.

For Animate applications in Flash Player 5 or earlier that are authored in Flash MX or earlier, Flash Player 6 and earlier versions display the text by using the traditional code page of the operating system running the player.

For background information on Unicode, see Unicode.org.

Text encoding in Flash Player

By default, Flash Player 7 and later assumes that all text it encounters is Unicode encoded. If your document loads external text or XML files, the text in these files should be UTF‑8 encoded. Create these files by using the Strings panel or using a text or HTML editor that can save the files in Unicode format.

Unicode encoding formats that Flash Player supports

When reading text data in Animate, Flash Player looks at the first two bytes in the file to detect a byte order mark (BOM), a standard formatting convention used to identify the Unicode encoding format. If no BOM is detected, the text encoding is interpreted as UTF‑8 (an 8‑bit encoding format). It is recommended that you use UTF‑8 encoding in your applications.

If Flash Player detects either of the following BOMs, the text encoding format is interpreted as follows:

• If the first byte of the file is OxFE and the second is OxFF, the encoding is interpreted as UTF‑16 BE (Big Endian). This is used for Macintosh operating systems.

• If the first byte of the file is OxFF and the second is OxFE, the encoding is interpreted as UTF‑16 LE (Little Endian). This is used for Windows operating systems.

  Most text editors that can save files in UTF‑16BE or LE automatically add the BOMs to the files.

  note: If you set the system.useCodepage property to true, the text is interpreted using the traditional code page of the operating system that is running the player; it is not interpreted as Unicode.

Encoding in external XML files

You cannot change the encoding of an XML file by changing the encoding tag. Flash Player identifies the encoding of an external XML file using the same rules as for all external files. If no BOM is encountered at the beginning of the file, the file is assumed to be in UTF‑8 encoding. If a BOM is encountered, the file is interpreted as UTF‑16BE or LE.

Creating multilanguage text

You can configure a FLA file to display text in different languages depending on the language of the operating system that plays the Animate content.

See the discussion of creating multilanguage text in web Help at https://helpx.adobe.com/support.html  to learn about adding multilanguage text to your FLA files.

Workflow for authoring multilanguage text with the Strings panel

The Strings panel lets you create and update multilingual content. You can specify content for text fields that span multiple languages, and have Animate automatically determine the content that should appear in a certain language based on the language of the computer running Flash Player.

The following steps describe the general workflow:

Author a FLA file in one language.

Any text to enter in another language must be in a dynamic or input text field.

In the Strings Panel Settings dialog box, select the languages to include and designate one of them as the default language.

A column for the language is added to the Strings panel. When you save, test, or publish the application, a folder with an XML file is created for each language.

In the Strings panel, encode each text string with an ID.

Publish the application.

A folder is created for each language you select, and within each language folder is an XML file for that language.

Send the published FLA file and XML folders and files to your translators.

Author in your native language and let the translators make the translation. They can use translation software directly in the XML files or in the FLA file.

When you receive the translations from your translators, import the translated XML files back into the FLA file.

Select and remove languages for translation

As many as 100 languages can appear on the Stage and in the Strings panel for translation. Each language you select becomes a column in the Strings panel. To show the text on the Stage in any of the languages you selected, change the Stage language. The selected language appears when you publish or test the file.

When selecting languages, use any of the languages provided in the menu, as well as any other Unicode-supported language.

Select a language

Remove a language

Add strings to the Strings panel

Assign text strings to the Strings panel in the following ways:

• Assign a string ID to a dynamic or input text field

• Add a string to the Strings panel without assigning it to a text field

• Assign an existing string ID to an existing dynamic or input text field

Assign a string ID to a text field

Add a string ID to the Strings panel without assigning it to a text field

Assign an existing ID to a text field

Editing strings in the Strings panel

After you enter text strings in the Strings panel, use one of the following methods to edit the text strings:

• Directly in the Strings panel cells.

• On the Stage in the language selected as the Stage language, using features such as find and replace and spelling checking. Text that you change using these features is changed on the Stage and in the Strings panel.

• Edit the XML file directly.

Change the language displayed on the Stage

Enter Asian characters on a Western keyboard

With Animate, you can use Input Method Editors (IMEs) and standard Western keyboards to enter Asian characters on the Stage. Animate supports more than two dozen IMEs.

For example, to create a website that reaches a broad range of Asian viewers, you can use a standard Western (QWERTY) keyboard and change the IME to create text in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Publishing multilanguage FLA files

When you save, publish, or test the FLA file, a folder with an XML file is created for each available language you selected in the Strings panel. The default location for the XML folders and files is the same folder indicated as the SWF publish path. If no SWF publish path was selected, the XML folder and files are saved in the folder in which the FLA file is located. For example, if you have a file named Test in the mystuff folder, and you selected English (en), German (de), and Spanish (es) as active languages, and you did not select a SWF publish path, when you save the FLA file, the following folder structure is created:

When you start a SWF file, you also need to start the associated XML files with the string translations in the web server. The first frame that contains text cannot appear until the entire XML file is downloaded.

Manually replace strings at publish time

Manually replace strings by using the Stage language when you publish your Animate SWF file. This method uses the Stage language to replace all instances of input and dynamic text with an associated string ID. In this case, text strings are only updated when you publish the SWF file; language detection is not automatic, and you must publish a SWF file for each language to support.

Use automatic language detection with the default language

You can change the default runtime language to any language that you selected as an available language. When automatic language detection is on, and you view the SWF file on the system that uses the language, any system that is set to a language other than one of the active languages uses the default language. For example, if you set your default language to English and you select ja, en, and fr as active languages, users who have their system language set to Japanese, English, or French automatically see text strings in their chosen language. However, users who have their system language set to Swedish, which is not one of the selected languages, automatically see text strings in the default language you selected—in this case, English.

Animate generates the following ActionScript®, which stores the language XML file paths. Use this code as a starting point for your own language detection script.

Use custom language detection

To access the language XML files to control text replacement at a time that you designate, create your own custom component or use ActionScript code. For example, you might create a pop‑up menu that lets users select a language for viewing content.

For information on writing ActionScript code to create custom language detection, see About the Strings panel in Learning ActionScript 2.0.

Additional resources

• Article: Formatting text for localized Animate projects (Adobe.com)

XML file format for multilanguage text

When you use multilanguage text in Animate, the text is stored in XML files.

When you use multilanguage text in Animate, the text is stored in XML files.

See the discussion of the XML file format in web Help to learn about working with these XML files and importing them into a FLA file.

About the XML file format

Exported XML is in UTF‑8 format and follows the XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF)1.0 standard. It defines a specification for an extensible localization interchange format that lets any software provider produce a single interchange format that can be delivered to, and understood by, any localization service provider. For more information about XLIFF, see www.oasis-open.org/committees/xliff/.

XLIFF examples

If any of the following characters are entered in the Strings panel, they are replaced by the appropriate entity reference when written to XML files:

Exported XML file sample

The following examples show what an XML file that the Strings panel generates looks like in the source language—in this example, English—and in another language—in this example, French:

English source version sample:

French source version sample:

Translate text in the Strings panel or an XML file

When sending files to translators, include not only the FLA file but also the folders for the XML files and the XML file for each language.

Translators can either work directly in the language columns in the Strings panel or work in the XML files for each language to translate the FLA file to selected languages. If you translate directly in the XML file, you must either import the XML file to the Strings panel or save it in the default directory for that language.

Translate text in the Strings panel

Translate text in an XML file

Import an XML file into the Strings panel

After you modify an XML file, if you place it in the folder specified in the Strings panel for that language, the XML file is loaded into the Animate document (FLA file) when it opens.

Regardless of where the XML file you imported was located, when you save, test, or publish the FLA file, a folder for each language in the Strings panel and an XML file for each language are created in the location indicated for publishing SWF files. If no publish path is indicated, the folder and file are saved in the same folder in which the FLA file is located. The XML files that the Strings panel generates are always populated with the information in the Strings panel.

Alternatively, import an XML file into the Strings panel from another location. After you import it, when you save, test, or publish the file, the XML file in the folder specified for that language is overwritten. You cannot import an XML file for a language unless it is already selected as an available language in the Strings panel. You can also add a language and import an XML file with the translation for that language.

Multilanguage text and ActionScript

You can control multilanguage text and import multilanguage XML files with ActionScript®.

You can control multilanguage text and import multilanguage XML files with ActionScript®.

See the discussion of creating multilanguage text in web Help to learn about working with multilanguage text in ActionScript.

Use ActionScript to load external files

To load existing XML data, or use a different format for the XML file, use the loadVariables action, the getURL action, the LoadVars object, or the XML object to create a document that contains multilanguage text by placing the text in an external text or XML file and loading the file into the movie clip at runtime.

Save the external file in UTF‑8 (recommended), UTF‑16BE, or UTF‑16LE format, using an application that supports the format. If you are using UTF‑16BE or UTF‑16LE format, the file must begin with a BOM to identify the encoding format to Flash Player. The following table lists the BOM to include to identify the encoding:

note: Most text editors that can save files in UTF‑16BE or LE automatically add the BOMs to the files.

Create multilanguage documents using the #include action

To create a document that contains multiple languages, use the #include action.

Use an application that supports UTF‑8 encoding, such as Dreamweaver, to save the text file in UTF‑8 format.

To identify the file as Unicode to the Animate authoring tool, include the following header as the first line of the file:

By default, the Animate authoring application assumes that external files that use the #include action are encoded in the traditional code page of the operating system running the authoring tool. Using the //!-- UTF8 header in a file tells the authoring tool that the external file is encoded as UTF‑8.

Creating multilanguage documents by using text variables

To include Unicode-encoded contents in text variables, use the syntax \uXXXX, where XXXX is the four-digit hexadecimal code point, or escape character, for the Unicode character. The Animate authoring tool supports Unicode escape characters through \uFFFF. To find the code points for Unicode characters, see the Unicode Standard at Unicode.org.

You can use Unicode escape characters only in text field variables. You cannot include Unicode escape characters in external text or XML files; Flash Player 6 does not recognize Unicode escape characters in external files.

For example, to set a dynamic text field (with the myTextVar instance name) that contains Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English, and Greek characters and the Euro sign, enter the following:

When the SWF file plays, the following characters appear in the text field:

For best results when creating a text field that contains multiple languages, use a font that includes all the glyphs your text needs.

Using the XMLConnector component to connect to external XML files

Use the version 2 XMLConnector component to connect to an external XML document to bind to properties in the document. Its purpose is to read or write XML documents by using HTTP GET operations, POST operations, or both. It acts as a connector between other components and external XML documents. The XMLConnector communicates with components in your application by using either data-binding features in the Animate authoring environment or ActionScript code.

Related Resources

• Embed fonts for consistent textappearance
• Publishing overview
• Working with Text Layout Framework(TLF) text
• Find and Replace
• Check spelling
• Publishing Animate documents
• Working with Unicode Text