Check if font is embedded?

Question

Can I check if I'm using an actual font when I create TextFormat/TextField ? If I specify a not embedded font or use any random string, no text is displayed and I don't know why.

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

public class SimpleSprite extends Sprite
{
    //[Embed(source="C:/Windows/Fonts/Arial.ttf",fontName="default_font",mimeType="application/x-font",fontWeight="normal",fontStyle="normal",advancedAntiAliasing="true",embedAsCFF="false")]
    //private static var defaultFont: String;

    public function SimpleSprite()
    {
        var t: TextField = new TextField;
        t.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
        t.defaultTextFormat = new TextFormat("default_font", 16, 0xff0000);
        t.embedFonts = true;
        t.text = "hello world";
        addChild(t);
    }
}

It doesn't display any text when the embed lines are missing.

Important: My package that creates TextFields does not embed anything and I wish to keep it that way. The embedding must be done by the programmer who uses the package. I want to check if the font is embedded and throw an error if not.

Answer 1

You can use Font.enumerateFonts which will return an array of available embedded fonts. You could use that to create a function like the following:

private function hasEmbeddedFont(fontName:String):Boolean
{
    var fonts:Array = Font.enumerateFonts();
    for each(var font:Font in fonts)
    {
        if (font.fontName == fontName)
        {
            return true;
        }
    }

    return false;
}

And then use it something like this:

t.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
t.defaultTextFormat = new TextFormat("default_font", 16, 0xff0000);
t.embedFonts = hasEmbeddedFont("default_font");
t.text = "hello world";

If you're building a library for others to use, you might consider abstracting it into your own custom subclass of TextField so it's all handled automatically.