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Text can move a letter, a word or a line at a time, type itself out, or count up to a number. It all plays in Animate, in present mode and in video exports.

Animate text letter by letter · 0:05

Description

A launch post in Animate with its headline selected. In the Design panel, the Text animation section’s Animate menu has Letter by letter: a text animator cascades each letter in from the playhead. Space plays the headline arriving a letter at a time.

How to

Bring a headline in letter by letter

Select the text layer. In the Design panel, find Text animation (or use + Property on its timeline row).
Click Animate in that section, then Letter by letter. (Word by word, Line by line and Typewriter are beside it.) The cascade is keyed at the playhead.
Press Home, then Space.

The cascade is a text animator with ordinary keys, so you can open its card to change the stagger, the order or what each letter does.

Sweep a highlight across a line

Animate → Per word adds a blank animator. It does nothing yet (its amount starts at 0).
Under Moves each word by, give it a Tint and a Scale of 110 %.
Set End to 20 %, then key Offset from 0 % at the start to 100 % two seconds later. A band of words tints and grows as it sweeps across.

Count up to a number

Select a text such as 250 or $1,200 and choose Count up to its figure. It counts from 0 to the figure over a second and a half from the playhead, easing out, and the timeline grows to fit if it needs to. Its card sets From, To, the Value at the playhead (keyable), a Prefix and Suffix, decimals (.0, up to 6) and the thousands separator (1,000 · 1.000 · 1 000 · 1000). Stop counting keeps what the text shows.

Reference

Item	What it does
Letter by letter, Word by word, Line by line	A cascade in, keyed at the playhead (the Letters in, Words in and Lines in presets)
Typewriter	Types the text out a character at a time
Per letter, Per word, Per line	A blank animator, keyed by you
Count up to its figure	A counter (only one per text)

The exit versions (Letters out and so on) are presets on the Text tab.

An animator's card

Field	What it sets
Name	Its name (Letters 1)
Letter / Word / Line	The unit it moves. A letter is every visible character; a word is a run without spaces; a line is a laid-out line
Start, End, Offset	Which units it selects, as percentages of them in order. Keyable: key Offset and the selection sweeps
Amount	How much of the move the selected units get, 0 to 100 %. Keyable
Stagger	Milliseconds between one unit playing the animator's keys and the next: one set of keys becomes a cascade
Order	First to last, Last to first, From the centre, or Random (with a Seed)
Edge curve	How a unit goes from untouched to fully moved at the edge of the selection (Hold: all at once)
Moves each unit by	Move X, Move Y, Scale, Turn, Opacity, Blur and a Tint colour, each with its own ◆