# Shockwave Flash question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 28, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042 "2004-11-28T22:39:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042/1 "2004-11-28T22:39:41Z")
I was on a manufacturer’s webpage and wanted to copy the list of dealers to send to someone without internet access. But the page was created in Shockwave Flash, so there was no way I could see to copy the text to paste into a letter. Does anyone know how this can be done?
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2004, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042/2 "2004-11-28T23:05:16Z")
Can you fit the entire list into one browser window?
If so, and you’re on a Windows machine, hit the “PRINT SCREEN” (or ‘prt scr’) button when you have that page open, or CTRL+Print Screen and then paste it into Word and print it.
(Note my directions may be sucky, so please someone correct me if I got it wrong)
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042/3 "2004-11-28T23:07:16Z")
Unfortunately, the list scrolls, so I can’t get it all into one page. I did do the print screen thing on part of the page, but I got a lot of extraneous crap along with the actual text I wanted.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042/4 "2004-11-29T02:37:58Z")
I think you might be out of luck.
When the person constructing a Flash movie or website is inserting the text, the program has specific setting that determines whether or not the text can be copied. If the programmer uses the “no copy” setting, then that’s exctly what you get.
Of course, it’s possible that someone has discovered a work-around that allows you to get at the text, but i’ve never heard of one.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042/5 "2004-11-29T02:52:33Z")
Well that’s annoying. I could see needing to protect proprietary content from being copied and reused illegally, but this was simply a list of dealers.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shockwave-flash-question/277042/6 "2004-11-29T03:41:26Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#):
>
> Well that’s annoying. I could see needing to protect proprietary content from being copied and reused illegally, but this was simply a list of dealers.
Actually, such a list is a very valuable asset to someone in this business. (And pretty valueable to their competition, too.)
Just try to get a list of their customers from IBM or any other large business – they don’t give that information out.
I’ve worked on developing websites, and seen this fight in operation: the security people say this list is propretitary info and must NOT be online; the sales people say that potential customers have to be able to contact their distributors, so the info MUST be online.
This situation is probably a compromise between them (and extra work for the web developers) – info online, but difficult to copy.