Making a Marquee

1. Open a new window in Flash and select Modify+Document. Set the width to 200 and the height to 50.

Your stage will now look quite small, as shown below. You can also change the background color of the movie as we have done for the final product (below).

2. Insert your message by selecting the Text tool. Your stage should look something like this. You may have to adjust the size of the text box and the font size.

3. After you make the message, select the Arrow tool and your message and Insert+Convert to make it into a movie clip. We do this so it can be animated, that is tweened..

4. You will now make the first animation. Set a KeyFrame on your time line and Insert the tweening. At the end of the time line put the message where it should be. Test your movie. It should look something like this:

5. Now select Inset+Layer to creat a new layer. Put a key frame at about Frame 25.

6. Look at your Library (Press F11). Drag an instance of your text movie onto the stage in the new layer.

7. Place a Keyframe at about Frame 55 and create the Tween motion in Layer 2. Your stage should now look something like this:

Your timeline should look something like this:

8. The final animation step is to adjust the position of the message at Frame 55 so that the message marquee looks smooth. this can take some time. The final result will look something like this:

9. Last but not least is to select File+Publish Settings. Press "Publish." This will create the Flash movie file and a simple HTML file with the Flash movie embedded. It is best to test the movie with the HTML file so that the bounding box of the movie is clearly expressed.