To Position Text Along A Mask’s Path; To Change Or Animate Text Path Properties - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

To position text along a mask's path
1 Create a text layer and type the desired text.
With the text layer selected, use the Pen tool to draw a mask in the Composition panel.
2
In the Timeline panel, expand the Path Options property for the text layer and select the mask from the Path
3
menu. The text automatically uses the alignment specified in the Paragraph panel.
Note: If the mask is closed (for example, if the mask is a circle), set the mask mode to None.
4 To reposition the text on the path, do one of the following in the Composition panel:
•
Drag the left margin control
•
Drag the center margin control
•
Drag the right margin control
•
Drag either the right or left margin control to move force-aligned text away from the edges of the path.
•
Shift-drag any margin control to snap the control to the mask vertices.
Note: You can also change the text margins using the Right Margin and Left Margin properties in the Timeline panel.
Changing the Last Margin of path text in the Composition panel
See also
"Creating masks with the Pen tool" on page 245
"About mask modes" on page 264

To change or animate text path properties

Use the Path Options property to specify a path and alter the way that individual characters appear on the path—
perpendicular to the path, aligned to the left or right, reversed, and so on. Animating Path Options is an easy way to
create text that travels along a path. You can also animate the First Margin property so that the margin moves from
one end of the path to the other.
1 In the Timeline panel, expand the text layer you want to animate, expand the Text property, and then expand the
Path Options property.
Change any of the Path Options properties that you want.
2
3 To animate a property, click the property's stopwatch icon to set the initial keyframe and then set the option as
desired.
Path Options include the following additional properties:
Reverses the path. This option is useful for closed paths; however, to see the results, make sure the
Reverse Path
mask mode is set to None.
Rotates each character so that it is perpendicular to the path.
Perpendicular To Path
to move left-aligned text away from the left edge of the path.
to move center-aligned text away from the center of the path.
to move right-aligned text away from the right edge of the path.
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