text.selectionStart

#### Availability

Flash MX 2004.

#### Usage

text.selectionStart

#### Description

Property; a zero-based integer that specifies the beginning of a text subselection. You can use this property with text.selectionEnd to select a range of characters. Characters up to, but not including, text.selectionEnd are selected. See text.selectionEnd (../Text_object/text20.md).

- If there is an insertion point or no selection, text.selectionEnd is equal to text.selectionStart.

- If text.selectionStart is set to a value greater than text.selectionEnd, text.selectionEnd is set to text.selectionStart, and no text is selected.

#### Example

The following example sets the start of the text subselection to the sixth character:

javascript

fl.getDocumentDOM().selection[0].selectionStart = 5;

The following example selects the characters Barbara from a text field that contains the text My name is Barbara
and formats them as bold and green:

javascript

fl.getDocumentDOM().selection[0].selectionStart = 11;

fl.getDocumentDOM().selection[0].selectionEnd = 18;

var s = fl.getDocumentDOM().selection[0].selectionStart;

var e = fl.getDocumentDOM().selection[0].selectionEnd;

fl.getDocumentDOM().setElementTextAttr('bold', true, s, e);

fl.getDocumentDOM().setElementTextAttr("fillColor", "#00ff00", s, e);