printAsBitmap function

printAsBitmap(target:Object, boundingBox:String) : Void

Prints the target movie clip as a bitmap according to the boundaries specified in the parameter (bmovie, bmax, or bframe). Use printAsBitmap() to print movie clips that contain frames with objects that use transparency or color effects. The printAsBitmap() action prints at the highest available resolution of the printer in order to maintain as much definition and quality as possible.

If your movie clip does not contain alpha transparencies or color effects, Macromedia recommends that you use print() for better quality results.

If you use bmovie for the boundingBox parameter but do not assign a #b label to a frame, the print area is determined by the Stage size of the loaded movie clip. (The loaded movie clip does not inherit the main movie clip's Stage size.)

All the printable elements in a movie clip must be fully loaded before printing can begin.

The Flash Player printing feature supports PostScript and non-PostScript printers. Non-PostScript printers convert vectors to bitmaps.

Availability: ActionScript 1.0; Flash Player 4 - (4.0.20.0) If you are authoring for Flash Player 7 or later, you can create a PrintJob object, which gives you (and the user) more control over the printing process. For more information, see the PrintJob class entry.

Parameters

target:Object - The instance name of the movie clip to print. By default, all of the frames in the movie clip are printed. If you want to print specific frames in the movie clip, attach a #p frame label to those frames.

boundingBox:String - A modifier that sets the print area of the movie clip. Enclose this parameter in quotation marks (" or '), and specify one of the following values:

bmovie Designates the bounding box of a specific frame in a movie clip as the print area for all printable frames in the movie clip. Assign a #b frame label to the frame whose bounding box you want to use as the print area.
bmax Designates a composite of all the bounding boxes of all the printable frames as the print area. Specify the bmax parameter if the printable frames in your movie clip vary in size.
bframe Indicates that the bounding box of each printable frame should be used as the print area for that frame. This changes the print area for each frame and scales the objects to fit the print area. Use bframe if you have objects of different sizes in each frame and want each object to fill the printed page.

Example

The following example prints all of the printable frames in holder_mc with a print area defined by the bounding box of the frame:

this.createEmptyMovieClip("holder_mc", 999);
holder_mc.loadMovie("http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/images/image1.jpg");

this.myBtn_btn.onRelease = function() {
 printAsBitmap(this._parent.holder_mc, "bframe");
};

printAsBitmap function

Parameters

Example

See also