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I have a set of playing cards in FXG format serving as asset for a Flex card game.

However the indices of the cards are in English language: A, K, Q, J and my game is in a different language.

My question is - how can I replace the indices in a clever way, i.e. so that the new indices are aligned symmetrically and I don't have to spend hours rotating and aligning them?

Below is a screenshot of what I have, the indices are on separate layers already and I can select them by clicking the "circles" in the layers menu:

enter image description here

For the screenshot above: I need to replace the both "A"s by my own indices.

enter image description here

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An easy method.. via Symbols.

Type your new character.

Select the new character with the Selection Tool (Black Arrow) and drag it to the Symbols Panel. Your character will now appear to be a box, not live text.

Copy, rotate, and position the symbol so it overlays both areas as you want.

When you need to update the letter, double-click the symbol in the Symbol Panel. Alter the text, and hit the ESC key twice.

All instances of the Symbol will be updated to reflect the change.

enter image description here

Be certain the type is center aligned when you create it. It will make alignment of the later characters easier. If you don't center-align the initial character, subsequent symbol edits will cause the characters to move out of alignment.

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  • Thank you! Is there maybe a way to select both symbols (the old "A" letter and the new one) and then somehow through the Transform dialog swap their coordinates (and maybe also rotation)? I click both "A" and "X" (the new symbol) while holding shift. Then I click "A" again, it's selection grows bolder and then.... ?
    – Alexander Farber
    Apr 11, 2012 at 12:05
  • @Scott: what did you use to create the animation?
    – e100
    Apr 11, 2012 at 13:55
  • Gif animation... so misunderstood... I wish I could upvote this twice, once for the answer and once for the gif-magic :) @e100 you can make them in Fireworks using 'state', smartwebby.com/free_tutorials/adobe_fireworks_CS4_tutorials/… would also be great to hear what Scott used
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Apr 11, 2012 at 17:17
  • @e100 Actually the animation is exceptionally easy with Photoshop extended and some screen cap software. I use SnapzProX to simply capture a movie of what I'm doing (10 frames per second). Open that movie with Photoshop Extended... save for web as gif. It takes a while for the SFW to load. But when it does, just set the repeat to "Forever" and click save. Done. Watch file sizes. Too many frames per second can make the gif exceptionally large. 10 FPS seems to work well here.
    – Scott
    Apr 11, 2012 at 18:01
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    @AlexanderFarber You can select the old A and the new Character, then click A again and the selection highlight gets bolder, as you posted. Then use the Align Panel buttons to center the new character to the old A. The "bolder" selection highlight means object will align to that particular key object.
    – Scott
    Apr 11, 2012 at 18:04

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