Technical Note: Text Members and PrintOMatic

Updated: 4/19/04
Products: PrintOMatic Lite Xtra 1.6.5, PrintOMatic Lite MX Xtra, PrintOMatic Xtra 1.6.5, PrintOMatic MX Xtra
Platforms: all

Macromedia Director 5 and later have two types of cast members: text "field" cast members and rich text cast members. PrintOMatic is capable of printing both types of text members, however, this printing is handled in different ways.

While Director 5 and 6 allow you to edit Rich Text cast members as word-processing text, the ultimate format that this information is saved in is a BITMAP. While this has changed in Director 7, PrintOMatic still only assumes that it can retrieve bitmap information from RTF cast members.

In Director 5 and 6, when you protect a Director movie and bundle it into a projector, all the text information is removed from Rich Text cast members, and only the bitmap image of the text remains.

It is this bitmap image that PrintOMatic and PrintOMatic Lite are able to print. The Xtras handle an RTF member as a large bitmap, and therefore, these cast members are subject to bitmap image scaling rules:

Solutions

The best quality printing with PrintOMatic always comes from using text FIELD members. Consider placing your printable text into these members for best results.

Your other option is to split your RTF into multiple one-page members and print them sequentially, e.g.:

    print member 1, member 2, member 3

To view this and other technical notes on-line, visit http://www.printomatic.com/tech.cfm.