Setting Preferences (tt)

Click the Editing tab, and select the Show Pen Preview option. Make sure that the rest of the Pen Tool and Vertical Text options are deselected, and that all of the Drawing Settings are set to Normal.
Since you haven't started working with the drawing tools yet, some of the settings under the Editing tab may not look familiar. After you start working with the drawing tools, you might find it useful to return to the Preferences window to modify these settings.
The options in the Pen Tool category modify the way the pen tool, one of the drawing tools found in the toolbox, works. When the Show Pen Preview option is checked, Flash shows the line segment before it's drawn with the pen tool. The Show Solid Points option, which is not checked by default, specifies the way the points of lines are displayed when using the pen or subselection tool. If this option is checked, selected points will appear hollow, while unselected points will appear solid. The opposite is true if this option is not checked. When the Show Precise Cursors option is selected, the pen tool appears as a crosshair instead of as the default pen tool icon.
All of the Vertical Text options are deselected by default, which is just fine for the project we're creating. You might want to use them in the future, so it's good to know what they do. Selecting the Default Text Orientation option will make vertical text the default orientation for any text added to the movie. This is particularly useful if you're working with Asian-language fonts. The Right to Left Text Flow option, when checked, will force text to flow from right to left, instead of the default left to right. Again, you might want this option if you're working with some Asian-language fonts. Finally, selecting the No Kerning option will turn off kerning for all vertical text in the movie. This option might be useful for improving the spacing for some fonts.