Text animators
A text animator animates parts of a text layer rather than the layer as a whole: characters, words or lines, chosen by a selector, offset by a transform.
This is the AE model, implemented properly — a real selector stack, not a handful of canned effects.
Typography first
Before animating, set the type in the Style inspector tab:
| Control | Notes |
|---|---|
| Family | From the FontPicker |
| Size, weight, style | — |
| Letter-spacing (tracking) | Animatable |
| Line-height (leading) | — |
| Paragraph spacing, alignment | — |
| Colour | Animatable |
The FontPicker enumerates the fonts actually installed on your machine, lazily on first open — it may ask for permission the first time. Every option renders in its own family as a live preview; arrow keys plus Enter select. If enumeration is unavailable it falls back to a curated list plus system fonts.
Anatomy of an animator
Add an animator group
In Style → Text, add an animator. It starts with no effect.
Add transform offsets
Pick what the animator changes. Available offsets:
- Position
- Scale
- Rotation
- Opacity
- Tracking
- Colour
Every numeric parameter has a stopwatch — they are ordinary keyframeable properties, and the keyframes go through the reversible command path like anything else.
Add a selector
The selector decides which glyphs the offset applies to, and how strongly.
Range selector — a start, an end, and a falloff shape, working in units of:
| Unit | Selects |
|---|---|
| Characters | Individual glyphs |
| Words | Whole words |
| Lines | Whole lines |
Wiggly selector — randomised selection, for organic per-glyph motion.
Animate the selector, not the offset
This is the key move. Leave the offset static — say, opacity 0 and position +40 px — and keyframe the range selector’s offset from 0 to 100.
The result is a wave of glyphs travelling through the text, each one transitioning from the offset state to the resting state as the selector passes over it.
Animating the selector rather than the transform is what separates a real per-glyph animation from a layer-level fade. If your text is animating all at once, you have keyframed the offset instead of the selector.
The four ready-made rigs
In the top-bar Animate menu:
| Rig | Built from |
|---|---|
| Typewriter | A character range selector with a hard falloff |
| Bounce In Words | A word selector with a scale-and-position offset |
| Spin & Fade Characters | A character selector with rotation and opacity |
| Tracking Reveal | An animated tracking offset |
Apply one and then open it up — they are built from the same parts described above, so they double as worked examples.
Text on a path
Attach a text layer to a path and the glyphs flow along it. Combine with an animated offset for text that travels around a shape.
3D text
Text layers can be made 3D, and per-character 3D is available — each glyph gets its own position in space rather than the block being a single plane. With extrusion this gives real depth. See 3D layers.
Related
- Animation presets
- Keyframes
- The assistant’s
text_animatortool: Tool reference