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Align text in vertical center of text box on mac

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
July 12, 2009
18 replies
27869 views

I am having a problem with my text alignment and I can't figure out a way to correct this. Unfortunately, I'm using a mac with CS3 and a Windows computer with CS4, so it could either be an OS difference, a version difference, or a software bug which I can't figure out.

Update: I downloaded a trial CS4 and the problem persists. This seems to be a mac issue.

For some reason, the text on my Mac with CS3 are not in the vertical center of the text fields. This causes a problem with my "align vertical centers" alignments, meaning I've had to do the alignment by hand to get it to look right. When I moved my file to my laptop to keep working on my project at home, I noticed that the text alignment was correct on my laptop, causing all of the text placement throughout my document to be off. This means that I can only work on the one computer and can't bring the project home to work through the weekends.

I have made an image showing the difference of how the text is aligned on the two versions, and a sample of how it affects my project when i bring it between computers.

I made the file on the mac (CS3) first, and so the alignment is designed to look correct on there. When i bring it to the PC (CS4) the text shifts down, placing it back in the center of the text boxes and ruining the alignment.

When I publish the file it keeps the formatting of each system. IE - publishing on the mac makes the final product look like it does on the mac, and publishing on the windows computer makes it look like it looks on the windows computer. The file published from the mac has the mac alignment on both computers, and the file published from the pc has the alignment of the pc on both computers.

Just to clarify, the way flash handles text fields on windows / cs4 is how I imagine it should be. I made the file on mac/CS3 however, and so when i said "ruins the alignment" I should have said "fixes the alignment problem, but breaks my alignment which was made to compensate for the problem I was experiencing."

I hope that someone will be able to help me with this issue, and thank you in advance for your feedback!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer OMA2k

For people still suffering this problem, you can use this to convert text fields placement from Windows to Mac and vice-versa:

GitHub - TheGood/ShiftTextFields: Allows all TextField instances within a FLA to be shifted along the X or Y axis by N p…

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NinaBos

Participant

The only thing I've found on Adobe forums is formatting via Actionscript 3.0.

Are you working in CS4 at all? I'm in CS3 but curious as to whether it still happens in CS4...

S

Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

Does anyone have any ideas about this? Are there any official Adobe people on this forum? Is this just a problem with Flash on macs?

R

Rothrock

Inspiring

Use a Mac all the time. The text aligns where it aligns. That is how it works. There is no other way than the way it is.

Yes, it isn't ideal that it doesn't like up the same way and, yes, there will always be font problems going between different platforms.

So what is your question?

R

Rothrock

Inspiring

Thank you all for the replies!

This isn't really just a "fonts being displayed differently" issue. That does happen going between platforms in all programs, and is (for the most part) unavoidable. When moving something like illustrator between platforms you may get a bit of a text display change, but the basic positioning of the text within the text box stays the same, the vertical alignment stays the same, and the alignment options work on both platforms.

The text is just being positioned incorrectly on my (and other people's?) mac. This makes the "Align vertical centers" alignment option useless, as it doesn't actually align text and other objects properly on mac. This doesn't happen in any other program that I've seen, other than Flash. This happens in CS3 and CS4 (I downloaded a trial to test this).

This cannot be the intended alignment functionality on a mac, because, as i mentioned, it makes the alignment options completely fail.

So the question is: How does everyone experiencing this issue fix this problem? If it cannot be fixed, are develpers aware of this issue? Are they working on a solution? Is flash just unusable on macs, for some reason (if you want to align text, at least)?

I don't think actionscript is the answer, as this is a problem at authortime, not runtime, and so AS would not affect it.

Again, the way it works is the way it works. I work on both Mac and PC versions. (and have since pretty much Flash MX days.) And when it comes to lining up text fields I guess I've never counted on them lining up by using the align buttons.

I'm still not really seeing what the "problem" is or how it requires any "solution" or "fix" other than just visually line them up -- a pretty low tech and easy solution. Additionally I like to get my textfields on whole integers so I've always placed them by hand and adjusted them to where they need to be.

Likewise with other programs (like InDesign or Quark before that) where there where object aligning tools. I've never found them to provide actual correct visual reference for "centering" and have ever only used them to get in the ballpark and then adjusted by hand for what I needed.

I would hardly say that because of this little thing that Flash on a Mac is unusable. It just is what it is.

I can understand wondering if this is how it is working for everyone -- and the answer seems to be yes to that, but you seem to have so much energy and drama around it. Let it go.

And as far as the cross-platform thing goes it does mean that you can't just take the same file and publish it from a Mac, edit and then publish file output from a PC, and vice versa. Annoying yes, but the end of the world, not so much.

S

Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

Does anyone have any ideas about this? Was my second image helpful at all?

S

Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

The root problem isn't that the alignment changes when bringing it back and forth (although as you can see it definitely is an issue), but rather that it isn't correct on the mac in the first place.

I have made a new image to help illustrate what the issue is more clearly. I hope this helps.

A

Anonymous

Hey Smef. Your description and screenshots are perfectly clear, I can see that without a doubt I'm facing exactly the same problem as you are. So far you're the only person I've found complaining about the problem, which seems odd... I would guess there are lots of developers out there who port FLA files back and forth between Windows and Mac. Perhaps there is something about your machine and mine that make us more vulnerable? Perhaps most people just suck it up and correct all their stuff manually? Perhaps I just have to do more searches to find people talking about it...

Anyway, if you've learned anything about solutions to this problem, please please let me know, I've got a lot of work to get caught up on after I get this shit sorted out...

Best wishes, and thanks in advance

Dave

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Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

So far I haven't found any way to correct it, which is dissapointing. Hopefully adobe will release some sort of a fix for this in the near future.

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NinaBos

Participant

Yes, I have the same problem (you are not alone!). Seems like the fonts have a really huge vertical baseline shift. When I set a hyphen as Superscript (it's to do with a chemical structure project I'm working on), it aligns itself to the middle of the text... quite annoying. I haven't found a solution as of yet. Flash doesn't seem to allow much in terms of preference settings for this.

It seems to be with all fonts too.

'~'

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Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

Am I asking this question in the wrong place? It's been over a month with zero replies.

I KNOW somebody here has used text in flash. If you have, how does your text align in your field? Take a look at the image I posted earlier. Does it align like my "windows" example or the "mac" example?

Is it just not possible to bring flash files from mac to PC or vice versa?

S

Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

Is there anyone that uses a mac for flash at all?

If you use windows, how does your text align?

S

Smef9444022Author

Participating Frequently

Does anybody else on here use a mac? Is this a problem on anyone else's mac? Does it work fine for everyone else's mac computers?