About text layers

You can add text to a composition using text layers. You can animate the properties of entire text layers or the properties of individual characters, such as color, size, and position.

Text layers are in many ways like other layers in After Effects. You can apply effects and expressions to text layers, animate them, designate them as 3D layers, and edit 3D text while viewing it in multiple views. Text layers are synthetic layers, meaning that a text layer does not use a footage item as its source—though you can convert text information from some footage items into text layers. Text layers are also vector layers. As with shape layers and other vector layers, text layers are always continuously rasterized, so when you scale the layer or resize the text, it retains crisp, resolution-independent edges. You cannot open a text layer in its own Layer panel, but you can work with text layers in the Composition panel.

After Effects uses two kinds of text: point text and paragraph text. Point text is useful for entering a single word or a line of characters; paragraph text is useful for entering and formatting the text as one or more paragraphs.

Vertical and horizontal point text (left), and paragraph text in a bounding box (right)

To see a video tutorial on animating text, visit the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/go/vid0226.

You animate text using text animator properties and selectors. 3D text layers can optionally contain 3D sublayers, one for each character. (See Animate text with text animators and Per-character 3D text properties.)

You can copy text from other applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, or any text editor, and paste it into a text layer in After Effects. Because After Effects also supports Unicode characters, you can copy and paste these characters between After Effects and any other application that also supports Unicode (which includes all Adobe applications).

Text formatting is included in the Source Text property. Use the Source Text property to animate formatting and to change the characters themselves (for example, change the letter b to the letter c). Because you can mix and match formatting within a text layer, you can easily create animations that transform every detail of a word or phrase.

Sequential frames in which Source Text has been animated

When working with text, you may find it useful to hide the layer controls, such as highlights and vertices, while showing grids, guides, and safe zones. (See Show or hide layer controls in the Composition panel and Safe zones, grids, guides, and rulers.)

Paul Tuersley provides a script for importing Substation Alpha (SSA) karaoke files and automatically creating animated text layers from them: www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_paulssakaraoke.

Aharon Rabinowitz provides a video tutorial that shows a few ways to make 3D extruded text in After Effects, using duplicate layers or the Shatter effect: www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_aharonextrusionhacks.