Indicates the alignment of the paragraph. Valid values are TextFormatAlign constants.

The default value is TextFormatAlign.LEFT.

See also

Indicates the block indentation in pixels. Block indentation is applied to an entire block of text; that is, to all lines of the text. In contrast, normal indentation (TextFormat.indent) affects only the first line of each paragraph. If this property is null, the TextFormat object does not specify block indentation (block indentation is 0).

Specifies whether the text is boldface. The default value is null, which means no boldface is used. If the value is true, then the text is boldface.

Indicates that the text is part of a bulleted list. In a bulleted list, each paragraph of text is indented. To the left of the first line of each paragraph, a bullet symbol is displayed. The default value is null, which means no bulleted list is used.

Indicates the color of the text. A number containing three 8-bit RGB components; for example, 0xFF0000 is red, and 0x00FF00 is green. The default value is null, which means that Flash Player uses the color black (0x000000).

The name of the font for text in this text format, as a string. The default value is null, which means that Flash Player uses Times New Roman font for the text.

Indicates the indentation from the left margin to the first character in the paragraph. The default value is null, which indicates that no indentation is used.

See also

Indicates whether text in this text format is italicized. The default value is null, which means no italics are used.

A Boolean value that indicates whether kerning is enabled (true) or disabled (false). Kerning adjusts the pixels between certain character pairs to improve readability, and should be used only when necessary, such as with headings in large fonts. Kerning is supported for embedded fonts only.

Certain fonts such as Verdana and monospaced fonts, such as Courier New, do not support kerning.

The default value is null, which means that kerning is not enabled.

An integer representing the amount of vertical space (called leading) between lines. The default value is null, which indicates that the amount of leading used is 0.

The left margin of the paragraph, in pixels. The default value is null, which indicates that the left margin is 0 pixels.

A number representing the amount of space that is uniformly distributed between all characters. The value specifies the number of pixels that are added to the advance after each character. The default value is null, which means that 0 pixels of letter spacing is used. You can use decimal values such as 1.75.

The right margin of the paragraph, in pixels. The default value is null, which indicates that the right margin is 0 pixels.

The size in pixels of text in this text format. The default value is null, which means that a size of 12 is used.

Specifies custom tab stops as an array of non-negative integers. Each tab stop is specified in pixels. If custom tab stops are not specified (null), the default tab stop is 4 (average character width).

Indicates the target window where the hyperlink is displayed. If the target window is an empty string, the text is displayed in the default target window _self. You can choose a custom name or one of the following four names: _self specifies the current frame in the current window, _blank specifies a new window, _parent specifies the parent of the current frame, and _top specifies the top-level frame in the current window. If the TextFormat.url property is an empty string or null, you can get or set this property, but the property will have no effect.

See also

Indicates whether the text that uses this text format is underlined (true) or not (false). This underlining is similar to that produced by the <U> tag, but the latter is not true underlining, because it does not skip descenders correctly. The default value is null, which indicates that underlining is not used.

Indicates the target URL for the text in this text format. If the url property is an empty string, the text does not have a hyperlink. The default value is null, which indicates that the text does not have a hyperlink.

Note: The text with the assigned text format must be set with the htmlText property for the hyperlink to work.

See also

Creates a TextFormat object with the specified properties. You can then change the properties of the TextFormat object to change the formatting of text fields.

Any parameter may be set to null to indicate that it is not defined. All of the parameters are optional; any omitted parameters are treated as null.

The formatTextField text field lists all the TextField class property options (with the exception of kerning) in a separate line. When a user clicks a line in the formatTextField text field, the formatTextFieldClickHandler() method is triggered.

The formatTextFieldClickHandler() method calls the TextField.getLineIndexAtPoint() method to get the index of the line that was clicked, and then calls the TextField.getLineText() method to get the content of the line. The switch statement checks the content of the line and sets a property of the newformat TextFormat object accordingly. The setTextFormat() method then sets the text format of the contentTextField text field to the new format. By clicking different formatTextField lines, a user can apply a different formatting to the contentTextField text field. (The tab setting is an array that defines a separate tab stop for each tab in the line.) If the url or target line is selected, the user must click the contentTextField text field to activate the link and display the content of the target URL (Flex home page). The default value of the target property is "_self", which means that the content is displayed in the current window if the user selects the url line. For the target property to work, a URL must be set already in the url property.

If a user clicks the contentTextField text field, the contentTextFieldClickHandler() method is triggered, which sets the field's format and the newFormat TextFormat object to the default (original) format of the text field. This clears all the formatting changes that the user made.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.text.TextField;
    import flash.text.TextFormat;
    import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
    import flash.events.MouseEvent;
    import flash.text.TextFormatAlign;
    
    public class TextFormat_constructorExample extends Sprite {
        private var contentTextField:TextField = new TextField();
        private var formatTextField:TextField = new TextField();
        private var newFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
        
        public function TextFormat_constructorExample() {
            contentTextField.x = 10;
            contentTextField.y = 10;
            contentTextField.background = true;
            contentTextField.border = true;
            contentTextField.multiline = true;
            contentTextField.wordWrap = true;
            contentTextField.selectable = false;
            contentTextField.width = 250;
            contentTextField.height = 120; 
  
            contentTextField.htmlText = "<p>The TextFormat class represents character formatting "
                + "information. Use the TextFormat class to create specific text formatting "
                + "for text fields." + 
                " </p><br>" + "\tTab One" + "\tTab Two<br>";
              
            formatTextField.x = 10;
            formatTextField.y = 140;
            formatTextField.background = true;
            formatTextField.border = true;
            formatTextField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
            
            formatTextField.text = "align: right\n" + "blockIndent: 10 pixels\n" + "bold:\n" + "bullet:\n" + "color: red\n"
                                + "font: Arial\n" + "indent: 20 pixels\n" + "italic:\n" + "leading: 5 spaces\n" 
                                + "leftMargin: 20 pixels\n" + "letterSpacing: 4 pixels\n" + "rightMargin: 20 pixels\n" 
                                + "size: 16 point\n" + "target: new window\n" + "tabStops: 50 and 150 pixel\n" 
                                + "underline:\n" + "url: Adobe Flex page\n";

            formatTextField.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, formatTextFieldClickHandler);
            
            contentTextField.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, contentTextFieldClickHandler);
            
            this.addChild(contentTextField);
            this.addChild(formatTextField);
        }

        private function formatTextFieldClickHandler(e:MouseEvent):void {
                var value:String= "";
                var i:uint = 0;
                var index:int = formatTextField.getLineIndexAtPoint(e.localX, e.localY);
                var line:String = formatTextField.getLineText(index);;

                line = line.substr(0, (line.indexOf(":")));

                switch(line) {
                    case "align":
                        newFormat.align = TextFormatAlign.RIGHT;
                        break;
                    case "blockIndent":
                        newFormat.blockIndent = 10;
                        break;
                    case "bold":
                        newFormat.bold = true;
                        break;
                    case "bullet":
                        newFormat.bullet = true;
                        break;
                    case "color":
                        newFormat.color = 0xFF0000;        
                        break;
                    case "font":
                        newFormat.font = "Arial";
                        break;
                    case "indent":
                        newFormat.indent = 20;
                        break;
                    case "italic":
                        newFormat.italic = true;
                        break;
                    case "leading":
                        newFormat.leading = 5;
                        break;
                    case "leftMargin":
                        newFormat.leftMargin = 20;
                        break;
                    case "letterSpacing":
                        newFormat.letterSpacing = 4;
                        break;
                    case "rightMargin":
                        newFormat.rightMargin = 20;
                        break;
                    case "size":
                        newFormat.size = 16;
                        break;
                    case "tabStops":                
                        newFormat.tabStops = [50, 150];
                        break;
                    case "target":
                        newFormat.url = "http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/";    
                        newFormat.target = "_blank";
                        break;    
                    case "underline":
                        newFormat.underline = true;
                        break;
                    case "url":
                        newFormat.url = "http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/";    
                        break;
                }    

                contentTextField.setTextFormat(newFormat);
        }

        private function contentTextFieldClickHandler(e:MouseEvent):void {
            contentTextField.setTextFormat(contentTextField.defaultTextFormat);
            newFormat = contentTextField.defaultTextFormat;
        }
    }
}

1. A property label of type TextField is created.
2. The class constructor calls the function configureLabel()
3. The configureLabel() function first creates a new TextField object and assigns it to label then sets its parameters to
   • Left-justify the text field
   • Enable the background fill
   • Enable the border.
4. Next, configureLabel() creates the local variable, format, and assigns it to a new TextFormat instance with its parameters set to:
   • Font type = Verdana
   • Font Color = solid red
   • Font size = 10
   • Font underline = true.
5. The label's defaultTextFormat property is set to format, and the label instance is added to the display list, which initially displays a text field with no text (as tiny box with a white background) on the stage.
6. Finally (back in the constructor), the label's text is then set to display "Hello World and welcome to the show", at coordinates x = 0, y = 0 by calling setLabel().

 package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.text.TextField;
    import flash.text.TextFieldAutoSize;
    import flash.text.TextFormat;


    public class TextFormatExample extends Sprite {
        private var label:TextField;

        public function TextFormatExample() {
            configureLabel();
            setLabel("Hello World and welcome to the show");
        }

        public function setLabel(str:String):void {
            label.text = str;
        }

        private function configureLabel():void {
            label = new TextField();
            label.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
            label.background = true;
            label.border = true;

            var format:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
            format.font = "Verdana";
            format.color = 0xFF0000;
            format.size = 10;
            format.underline = true;

            label.defaultTextFormat = format;
            addChild(label);
        }
    }
}