Flash CS3 Documentation

Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Adobe Flash > Working with Text and Strings > Formatting text with Cascading Style Sheet styles > Using styles to define new tags

Using styles to define new tags

If you define a new style in a style sheet, that style can be used as a tag, in the same way as you would use a built-in HTML tag. For example, if a style sheet defines a CSS style named sectionHeading, you can use <sectionHeading> as an element in any text field associated with the style sheet. This feature lets you assign arbitrary XML-formatted text directly to a text field, so that the text is automatically formatted using the rules in the style sheet.

For example, the following style sheet creates the new styles sectionHeading, mainBody, and emphasized:

sectionHeading {
    font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    font-size: 18px; 
    display: block
}
mainBody {
    color: #000099;    
    text-decoration: underline;
    font-size: 12px; 
    display: block
}
emphasized {
    font-weight: bold; 
    display: inline
}

You could then populate a text field associated with that style sheet with the following XML-formatted text:

<sectionHeading>This is a section</sectionHeading>
<mainBody>This is some main body text, 
with one <emphasized>emphatic</emphasized> word.
</mainBody>

Flash CS3