- Setting Selection Preferences
- Making Selections
- Resizing Graphic Elements
- Positioning Graphic Elements
- Flipping, Rotating, and Skewing
- Distorting Graphic Elements
- Modifying Fills and Strokes
- Modifying Shapes: Natural Drawing Tools
- Modifying Shapes: Bzier Tools
- Modifying Primitive-Shape Paths
- Converting Shape Types
- Practice Session
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Converting Shape Types
Flash offers a variety of shape types: fills, strokes, merge-shapes, drawing-objects, primitives, and text. It’s possible to convert some types of shapes into others. For example, you can convert strokes to fills; you can convert merge-shapes to drawing-objects and vice versa; you can convert primitive-shapes to merge-shapes and drawing-objects; and you can convert text, a special type of fill, to a regular drawing-object fill (for TLF text) or merge-shape fill (for Classic text). You cannot, however, convert merge-shapes or drawing-objects to primitive-shapes.
To convert a stroke to a fill:
- Select a stroke on the Stage.
- Choose Modify > Shape > Convert Lines to Fills
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Flash converts the stroke to a fill shape that looks exactly like the stroke. You can now edit the path of the “stroke’s” outline as though you were working with a fill created with the brush tool
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To convert a merge-shape or a primitive to a drawing-object:
- Select a single merge-shape or primitive-shape on the Stage.
- Choose Modify > Combine Objects > Union.
Flash converts the selected shape to a drawing-object; it remains selected
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To convert a drawing-object or a primitive to a merge-shape:
- Select a drawing-object or primitive-shape on the Stage.
- Choose Modify > Break Apart, or press Command-B (Mac) or Ctrl-B (Windows)
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Flash converts the selected drawing-object or primitive-shape to a merge-shape; it remains selected.
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To convert a block of TLF text into individual drawing-objects:
- Select a TLF text field on the Stage.
If the selected field links to other TLF text fields with threaded text, Flash selects all of the linked fields.
- Choose Modify > Break Apart.
Flash transforms each letter in the selection into a drawing-object and selects it
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Breaking Down Classic Text
The conversion process for Classic text works a bit differently than the process for TLF text. It takes two steps to transform Classic Text to simple graphic shapes. Classic-text characters convert to merge-shapes, while TLF-text characters convert to drawing-objects.
First, select the Classic text field on the Stage. Choose Modify > Break Apart. Flash places each letter in its own Classic
text field and selects them all. Each Classic text field is just wide enough to hold one letter. Each letter is fully editable
on its own, although the set of letters is no longer linked. Now, to transform those single-letter text fields into merge-shapes,
with the text fields selected, choose Modify > Break Apart again. This second Break Apart command transforms the editable
letters into raw shapes on the Stage 
. You can edit them as you would any other fill, but you can no longer change their text attributes with the text tool or
Text (Tool) Property inspector.
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