Rotated, Skewed, and Transparent Text Requires Embedded Fonts By default, Flash Player does not render rotated or skewed text fields to the screen. For example, if we were to add the following text field to the display list, the text "Hello world" would not appear on screen because the text field is rotated: var t:TextField = new TextField( ); t.text = "Hello world"; t.rotation = 30; // Rotate text Likewise, if we were to add the following text field to the display list, the text "Hello world" would not appear on screen because the text field is skewed: var t:TextField = new TextField( ); t.text = "Hello world"; t.transform.matrix = new Matrix(1, 1, 0, 1); // Skew text Also by default, Flash Player renders all text fields at full opacity, even when they are set to transparent via the TextField class's instance variable alpha . For example, if we were to add the following text field to the display list, the text "Hello world" would appear fully opaque, even though the text field's alpha percentage is set to 20%: var t:TextField = new TextField( ); t.text = "Hello world"; t.alpha = .2; Flash Player renders accurate rotation, skew, and transparency for text fields that use embedded fonts only. For information on rendering text using embedded fonts, see