- Preparing Frames for Printing
- Determining the Print Area
- Creating Print Buttons
- How It Works
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Determining the Print Area
Whereas Poster One and Poster Three both have a fairly obvious outline and print area, Poster Two consists of a few graphics clustered toward the middle. By default, Flash would stretch these graphics to fill the entire page, using the overall dimensions of the Poster Two timeline as the print area. In this section, you force Flash to use a full-page print area of the same dimensions as the other two posters, making them print out with the same proportions.
Double-click Poster Two from the Library once again to edit it.
Select the first key frame of the Poster layer, and open the Actions panel. Add a stop() action to prevent the symbol from looping upon playback (another frame will be added in Step 3 that should not be visible).
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Insert a blank key frame at position 2 on the Poster Timeline. Select it, open the Frame panel, and type #b in the Label field (see Figure 4).
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From the Library, drag an instance of Printable Area onto the stage. Use the Align panel to center it vertically and horizontally relative to the "page" (see Figure 5).
Return to the main timeline.
stop();
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Figure 4 Give the blank key frame at position 2 the label #b.
NOTE
Only one key frame per timeline can be labeled #b because that specifies the print area for the entire timeline, not just one frame. The #b label stands for "bounding," as in "bounding box" or "bounding area," and it is one of a series of available options for controlling the printable area. Whereas #b is a hands-on way of manipulating the bounding box of printable content, the other methods are options of the print action, to be explored later.
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Figure 5 Add an instance of the Printable Area graphic symbol to the second frame of the Poster Two movie clip.
Now the graphics from frame 1 will be printed in the correct proportions, without the need for a border.