A text layer is a block of words you style, place and animate right in the Video Editor: titles, lower thirds, captions, kinetic type, a typewriter line with a blinking caret, or a sentence that runs along a curve. This page walks through the text sections of the inspector, the animation presets and the text-only tools.
Add a text layer
In the timeline toolbar, open Layer ▸ Text. The new layer reads “Type your text”, runs for 5 seconds and starts at the playhead. It goes onto the active channel when that channel already holds text layers, and onto a new channel above it otherwise.
To change the words, type in TEXT LAYER ▸ Content, or double-click the layer in the preview and type in place (see The Editor Workspace). Text laid out along a path is edited in the panel only.
Layer ▸ Counter adds a text layer that already holds a counting number — see Text Placeholders and Counters.
Where the text controls are
Select a text layer and the inspector groups its controls by tab:
| Tab | Sections |
|---|---|
| Layer | TEXT LAYER (words and typography), TEXT COLORS (fill, outline, caption bar), TEXT SHADOW, TEXT RANDOMIZER |
| Animate | PLACEHOLDERS (only when the text holds one), TEXT ANIMATION, KEYFRAMES |
| Position | TRANSFORM, MOTION PATH (including Text on path) |
| Design | BLENDING, FILTERS (Blur and colour filters), BORDER, SHADOWS |
Typography
The TEXT LAYER section holds the words and how they are set.
| Control | What it does | Range / default |
|---|---|---|
| Content | The words. Press Enter for a line break. The fx button next to the label inserts a placeholder (a counter, timer, word cycle…). | — |
| Font | The font family, with search. + Upload own font adds a .ttf, .otf, .woff or .woff2 file. | Helvetica Neue |
| Size | The font size. Units switches between % (of the frame height, so the text keeps its proportions at any resolution) and px (frame pixels). | 0.5–100 % or 8–1000 px; 8.9 % |
| Line Height | Space between lines, as a multiple of the font size. | 0.7–3; 1.15 |
| Width | The text box the lines wrap to, which left and right alignment also anchor to. In % of the frame width or px. | 5–100 %; 86 % |
| Wrap | Wrap breaks lines to fit the box. None keeps each paragraph on one line (only your own line breaks start a new one), and a long line draws past the frame edge, ready for a camera move across it. | Wrap |
| Weight | Font weight. | 100–900; 400 |
| Spacing | Letter spacing. It keeps the font’s kerning, and it also applies between letters in split and typewriter animations. | −20 to 80 px; 0 |
| Align | Left, Center or Right. | Center |
| Decoration | None, Underline, Strikethrough or Overline. | None |
| Style | Normal or Italic for the whole layer. Fonts without an italic style are slanted automatically. | Normal |
| Letter Case | As typed, lowercase, Capitalize Words or UPPERCASE. It changes how the words are drawn, not the words you typed. | As typed |
Letter spacing can also be animated: add a letterSpacing track in KEYFRAMES (−80 to 200 px).
Clipping mask turns the text into a window: Use as clipping mask for layers below shows the layers underneath only inside the letters, and Invert mask knocks the letters out of them instead. The text itself is not drawn while it masks, and its shadow and caption bar are ignored. Soften the edge with FILTERS ▸ Blur.
Colour, gradient and outline
In TEXT COLORS:
- Fill Style — Fill (solid letters), Outline (hollow letters) or Both. Outline modes add Outline Width (0.5–60 px) and Outline Color, which follows the text colour until you set one. Hollow letters are the right base for a glow that runs around the letters (see Layer Effects).
- Text Color — a solid colour or a gradient. Your project’s Design Tokens are the first row of every colour picker.
The stopwatch beside Text Color, Outline Color, Background and Highlight Color turns the paint into a keyframe track, gradients included (see Keyframe Builder).
TEXT SHADOW adds a shadow in any colour, with X and Y offset (−200 to 200 px), Bl blur (0–200 px) and Sp spread (0–50 px), which thickens the shadow into a contour before it is blurred. A spread shadow keeps white text readable even over white footage.
Caption bar
TEXT COLORS ▸ Background draws a bar behind each line of text, like a subtitle plate. Pick a colour to turn it on; the clear button turns it off (a switched-off bar shows a crossed “none” swatch). Border is a separate switch below it, so a bar can be a fill, an outline, or both. Once either is on, these options appear:
| Option | What it does | Range / default |
|---|---|---|
| Spacing H / Spacing V | Space between the text and the bar’s left/right and top/bottom edges. | 0–120 px |
| Border Style | Solid, Dashed or Dotted. | Solid |
| Border Width | Drawn inside the bar, so a thicker border never grows the bar. | 0.5–40 px; 2 |
| Border Radius | Corner radius of the fill and the border. Auto follows the spacing and font size; the dot puts it back to auto. | 0–200 px; auto |
| Animate In / Animate Out | How the bar arrives and leaves: None, Fade, Mask Right, Mask Left, Mask Down, Mask Up, Center Horizontal, Center Vertical. Mask names give the direction of travel, so the same choice In and Out reads as one continuous sweep. | None |
| Style | For masks and center reveals: Wipe — flat edge, Slide — fill slides in (masks only) or Grow Shape — rounded edge, where the bar’s own rounded shape grows from the anchored edge, so a pill stays a pill through the whole move. | Wipe |
| Start Width | Grow Shape: the size the shape starts from. 0 starts from nothing; on a rounded bar that is a dot. | 0–600 px; 0 |
| Shape Appear | Grow Shape: how the starting shape itself shows up — None, Fade, Scale In (it zooms up from a dot first, then grows) or Scale Down (it settles from 150 % while fading in), with its own Appear Duration and Appear Easing. | None; 0.4 s |
| Delay | Animate In only: keeps the bar hidden this long before it animates in, so the words can lead. | 0–4 s; 0 |
| Duration / Easing | Length and curve of each reveal. | 0.05–4 s; 0.5 s In, 0.4 s Out |
The bar’s colour can be keyframed (the Text Background track). The Caption Bar presets below set up a complete bar with its reveal in one click.
Text animation
TEXT ANIMATION (Animate tab) animates the text piece by piece — word by word, line by line or letter by letter. Click + in its header to switch it on, or Presets to start from a ready-made animation.
| Control | What it does | Range / default |
|---|---|---|
| Split By | The unit that animates: Words, Lines or Chars. | Words |
| Timing | What starts each unit: Stagger (one after another), Keyframes (a typewriter you keyframe, below) or Voice (transcript) (each word as it is spoken — only on captions made from a transcript). | Stagger |
| Mask | Clips each unit to its own band (Lines, Words or Chars), for words that rise from behind an edge. | None |
| Stagger | Delay between units. | 0–1 s |
| In Animation | What each unit animates from: Duration, Easing, Opacity, Scale, Pan X, Pan Y, Rotate Z, Rotate X, Rotate Y and Blur. | Duration 0.05–4 s; Pan ±200 px; Rotate ±180°; Blur 0–20 px |
| Leading Highlight | A colour or glow accent that runs through the units (below). | Off |
| Out Animation | What each unit animates to as the layer ends — the same controls as In. | Off |
| Caret | A text cursor after the last revealed letter (below). | Off |
Leading Highlight has an Activation: Synced to reveal (the accent lands with each unit as it appears, so the In animation must be on), Own timing (its own Highlight By unit, Stagger, Hold and Fade In, and Loop sweep to keep it running), or Voice (transcript) for karaoke captions. Style is Text color, Background color, Text color + Glow or Only Glow, with Highlight Color (solid or gradient), Glow Strength or BG Spacing, Delay, Fade Out and Keep highlight on last item.
Animation presets
Click Presets in the TEXT ANIMATION header. The Text Animation Preset window lists every preset as a live preview tile, with search, category chips and an IN / OUT badge that shows whether the preset also animates the text away. Use ↑ and ↓ to move through the list.
Before you add one, the band below the tiles tunes it:
- Split and Mask, Stagger and Duration, and two shortcuts: Snappy and Cinematic. Reset to preset undoes your changes.
- Exit — untick Text out — animate the text away to keep the entrance and let the text simply cut out.
- Size — Set text size picks XS, Small, Medium, Large or XL, set as a share of the frame height (3.5 %, 5 %, 7 %, 9 % and 12 %); each chip shows its size in pixels for your project.
- Shadow — Enable text shadows with five styles built for legibility: Soft Drop, Contour, Halo, Hard Offset and Max Contrast.
Click Add Animation, press Enter, or double-click a tile. A preset switches the animation on and sets the highlight and the caret on or off. It leaves the Text Randomizer and the caption bar as they are, unless it brings its own. Left untouched, Duration keeps each preset’s own entrance and exit lengths; change it and it sets both.
| Category | Presets |
|---|---|
| Reveal | Fade Up, Fade Down, Rise (Mask), Blur In, Slide In, Side Mask, Tilt Drop |
| Character | Flip Up, Typewriter, Wave Rise, Bounce Letters, Materialize |
| Highlight | Neon Runner, Ink Highlight, Flash Type, Karaoke Sweep, Chase Loop, Sung Words, Marker Lines |
| Caption Bar | Pill Grow, Lower Third, Drop Bar, Outline Tag, Prompt Field |
| Randomizer | Random Pop, Chaos Letters, Random Rise, Ransom Note, Editorial Typer |
A few worth knowing:
- Typewriter types letter by letter behind a blinking caret. Editorial Typer types word by word behind a caret in a wave of weights, sizes and italics.
- Chase Loop keeps an accent running through the words for the whole clip; Sung Words turns each word gold on its beat and keeps it gold; Marker Lines lands a marker stroke under each line.
- The Caption Bar presets bring their own bar, colour included: Pill Grow (the words rise, then a dot pops and stretches into a pill behind them), Lower Third (the bar and each word slide out from behind masks), Drop Bar (bar and words drop in from above), Outline Tag (an outline with no fill draws itself open) and Prompt Field (the text types behind a caret inside an outlined pill, like a search box). Recolour the bar afterwards in TEXT COLORS ▸ Background or Border.
Typewriter with keyframes
Set Timing to Keyframes and a Reveal track (0–100 % of the text) appears in KEYFRAMES, already keyed so the animation looks exactly as before. Each letter (or word or line, following Split By) plays its In animation as the reveal passes it, so you can:
- hold a value to pause the typing,
- ease the keys (or shape them in the graph editor) to type faster or slower,
- key the value back down to delete text, then up again to retype.
The In animation is switched on for you. Stagger then times only the Out animation, and the layer’s other keyframes, such as a fade or a move, apply to the whole line. Switch back to Stagger to remove the Reveal track.
Text caret
Turn on Caret under Out Animation for a text cursor right after the last revealed letter. It is solid while text is typing and blinks the rest of the time; with no In animation it simply blinks at the end of the text.
| Option | What it does | Range / default |
|---|---|---|
| Style | Bar, Underscore or Block. | Bar |
| Caret Color | The dot resets it to the text colour. | Text colour |
| Width | 0 is automatic and follows the font size. | 0–80 px; 0 |
| Blink | Blinks per second while idle; 0 keeps it solid. | 0–10; 1.1 |
| On End | Keep blinking, or Hide it Hide Delay seconds after the last letter lands. | Keep blinking; 1 s |
The caret glides along the text instead of hopping. When words come in together as a wave (an In animation longer than the stagger), it makes one eased move over the whole reveal: it starts slowly, reaches full speed and slows as the last word lands. When the text types (a short In animation), it stays at the front of the typing at a constant speed. It follows Reveal keys and voice timing too, and moves to the start of the next line at a wrap. The caret disappears when the Out animation starts, and it is not drawn on text that follows a path or acts as a clipping mask.
Text on Path
A text layer can lay its letters along a curve, rotating each one to follow it.
- Select the text layer and open Position ▸ MOTION PATH.
- Click Draw path and drop at least two points (or apply a preset shape), then finish drawing. See Motion Paths.
- Under Text on path, click Align text with path. The button now reads Text follows the path.
| Option | What it does | Range / default |
|---|---|---|
| Distribute | Place Letters or whole Words along the curve. | Letters |
| Distribution | Natural spacing keeps the font’s own spacing and kerning; Evenly spread spaces the units evenly. | Natural spacing |
| Start | Centred keeps the text in the middle of the curve (it follows the text alignment); Forward (start → end) starts it on the first point; Backward (end → start) is the reverse. | Centred |
| Ends | Forward and Backward only: where Path progress at 100 % leaves the text — Last letter at end keeps the whole text on the curve, First letter at end runs it off the end. | Last letter at end |
| Spread | Stretches or squeezes the run along the curve. | 10–400 %; 100 % |
| Spacing | Extra space between units. | −200 to 500 px; 0 |
| Trim start / Trim end | Shows only part of the run. Keyed trims write the text on along the curve. | 0–100 % |
| Offset | Moves the text off the curve, at right angles to it. | −500 to 500 px; 0 |
| Rotate with path | Turns each letter to follow the curve. | On |
| Path progress | Slides the text along the curve, letter by letter. On a closed loop it wraps round like a marquee; on an open path the text slides on and off the ends. | 0–100 % |
Path progress, Spread, Spacing, both trims and Offset each have a stopwatch, so all of them can be keyframed. While the text follows the path, the layer itself no longer travels along it. Text animations, the leading highlight, the randomizer and voice-synced captions all work letter by letter on the curve.
Text Randomizer
TEXT RANDOMIZER gives each word, line or letter its own size, colour, weight and slant — a ransom-note or editorial look. It works on static text and combines with text animation: the units are styled first, then animated.
| Control | What it does | Range / default |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Randomizer | Switches it on. | Off |
| Apply Per | Words, Lines or Chars. | Words |
| Distribution | Uniform random, Gaussian (centered), Every Nth (with an Every Nth value) or Wave. | Uniform random |
| Seed | The same seed always gives the same look; the dice button reshuffles. | 0–99999 |
| Size | Min and Max as a share of the font size. | 20–300 %; 80–145 % |
| Colors | Accent colours (Add color for more) and Coverage, the share of units that get one. | Coverage 0–100 %; 35 % |
| Font Weight | The weights the units draw from. | 100–900 |
| Italic | Mix slants a Share of the units; All slants every one. | Share 0–100 %; 30 % |
Blur and sharpness
Design ▸ FILTERS ▸ Blur softens a text layer with a true Gaussian blur; the value means the same as a CSS blur on a web page, so a big blur stays smooth with no ghost copies. It has a stopwatch, so the blur can be keyframed.
Text stays sharp in close camera moves because text layers are redrawn at the size they take up on screen. This is PROJECT · QUALITY ▸ Text & shapes (High, the default); Fast and Low draws text once at the project resolution and is cheaper.
Reuse a text look
Select a text layer and click Copy in the timeline toolbar, then select another and click Paste to open the Paste settings checklist. Paste Text Style carries the font, size, colours, alignment, outline, highlight, shadow and text-on-path settings; Paste Text Animation carries the split entrance and exit, the caption bar’s reveal and the randomizer. See Timeline Workflow.
Where to go next
- Text Placeholders and Counters — counters, timers, word cycles and variables inside any text
- Captions — timed subtitle lines from a voice take, with the same presets
- Motion Paths — drawing the curve that Text on Path follows
- Keyframe Builder — the Reveal track, paint tracks and easing
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