How to Use Expressions to Access & Edit Text Properties in After Effects

[@lordihante408]

Dear Ukramedia, I am working with AE for 10 years now and your work comes up on a regular basis when I am looking for specific solutions. Thank you very much, Greetings from Paris

[@alecmueller2297]

This is a great video. It is now several years old and these expressions initially did not work for me and I got errors where it did not recognize the functions. If this happens, make sure that in your Project Settings, you have the expressions tab set to Java Script. By Default AE 2023 had this setting at Legacy Extended Script. When I set AE to Java Script, everything in this video works great.

[@wonderfulnewssv]

yeah, it kinda sucks tutorial makers don't mention which expressions engine is used for their expressions to work.

[@smartsegment4685]

One of the best bundle I bought ever, its for smart work.

[@ukramedia]

That's AWESOME! Thank you for your support, SmartSegment!

[@elsonfernand]

Duuuuuude! Did you just teach us what your product does? Is this serious? God bless you! Stay safe and thank you very much! Greetings from Brazil. 🇧🇷

[@ukramedia]

I did! But... my tool gets you there faster. 😉

[@elsonfernand]

@@ukramedia, for sure but... just the fact that you teach us something 100% free and that is something your product does surprises me with the greatness of your generosity. Many would not do what you did in this video, that's what I meant. 🙈

[@ok-alarm]

Sergei is a gift for our community.

[@anatoliykulakov1895]

Стисло, доступно, пізнавально! Завдяки цьому прекрасному уроку, я це освоїв!!! Дякую!

[@tonybp]

There are many AE channels, yours is the one where I learn the most. And it's practical stuff you actually end up using. Thanks.

[@ukramedia]

Thank you for your very kind words, Tony BP! I appreciate it a lot!

[@IllusionSector]

​@@ukramedia Hi, Sergey. Thanks for the tute. Do you happen to know if it's possible to selectively format parts of the text using a sourceText expression (i.e. without relying on ranged text animators)? Suppose you want the word _'brown'_ in _'A quick _*_brown_*_ fox..._ to have a different font weight, size, or color than the rest of the text. Do these style setting methods support that? Thanks!

[@gugumach]

Fantastic video Sergei. The way you present and explain to us it is very simple and practical. Really enjoy watching your videos.

[@ukramedia]

Thank you for your kind words, Gustavo! I'm glad you found this tutorial useful.

[@1234561ram]

"WOW" I really enjoyed the way that explained about text style properties

[@ukramedia]

I'm glad you found this useful.

[@fliptopjim]

THANK YOU!! Although I was here for the scripting code (in the second half) I so appreciated your thoroughness I will be buying the script when I get the funds as it is a joy. Thank you so much for both the script and the tutorial/knowledge.

[@Centuriez]

This just saved me a TON of time The Alt+Right Click thing. Thank you!!

[@LightspeedTutorials]

1:24 Plugin method Manual method 4:05 | .style. 4:42 | HELPER 4:47 | setText(value) 5:00 |

[@diegobis2048]

thank you so much

[@ManeNersesyan]

Very Helpful video, Thank you a lot. I'm suffering with one task, is there any way to animate between font styles like a slider that will change from Light to Bold in the same font?

[@CatalinGulan]

Long time no see Sergei..🙈! You remained, and so your channel, probably one of the best one related to Ae Expressions. Thank you very mych for sharing!❤ Hopefully you and your family, are all safely and well!

[@ukramedia]

I'm happy to be back. Thank you for your kind words!

[@sergedruz7261]

Sergei, thank you very much for explaining things. This text expressions was very confusing for me, especially that after /style/ you can write as many properties as you need divided by period. It could save me some time if I knew this before))

[@ukramedia]

I'm glad you found this useful, Serge! Thanks for your comment!

[@EnglishWithEnes]

This is some real masterclass here!

[@josephb1884]

Thank you for helping me understand another aspect of writing expressions that I did not know before.

[@colorless3560]

i was looking for this tutorial to use on essential graphics last year and i cant find any. thank you!!! also I was waiting for the font style part but you didn't discuss it. anyway this is a good start for me. thank you 👌

[@ukramedia]

I'm glad you found it useful, Dale! Thanks for giving it a go.

[@901D]

OMG This is exactly what i want to know! I do lot of subtitle animation it helps a lot, thank you

[@ukramedia]

Always happy to help! Thanks for watching the video!

[@MxTheArtOfMx]

Thank you for posting these videos on type within After Effects. Your movies have great detail along with really great descriptions.

[@REX90WO]

Thanks for your tutorials. I have a question. How to do everything the same, just not for the whole text, but for specific letters, words, sentences, etc.

[@Ryoogah1]

Huge help man, I was wanting to keyframe the distance between letters

[@DonTerrell]

Been loving the quick tip tutorials you've been sharing!!

[@DavidBichoHasBeard]

Great! And then - next level. Change paragraph alignment.

[@CaptainSnackbar]

i think you need to change your expression engine from Leacy ExtendedScript to JavaScript for that to work

[@seanjenkinson8887]

Great to know. Sometimes I might want to set individual characters to different settings like, for example, "£50' where the "£' is set to a smaller font size than the number... or a person's name where the first name is set to bold or black and the surname is in a thin or light weight. Can this be done in expressions? I've been trying to figure it out but not having much luck.

[@christiaannel5504]

I would also like to know how to do this. Sergei please help

[@bondodesign]

Another great tip video from Ukramedia :-)

[@ukramedia]

Glad it was helpful, Claes!

[@ahmadluayeleiwy3411]

What if I want a dropdown menu to change the case and the font every time? I can't make it do both. It's alwas either font or case.

[@ok-alarm]

Hey Sergei! As always, thanks for this! I have a question tho, Can i access the paragraph box of a text layer through expression, so i can resize it based on a shape layer?? i hope my question is clear.

[@ukramedia]

That's a good question, Rigel. You can do it with a script... however, I don't think you can do that with expressions.

[@JL-vq4se]

does it work also across composition?

[@theadongo]

My use of expressions in AE is improving every day

[@ukramedia]

That's great to hear! Expressions are very powerful.

[@dendei123]

Is there any way to differentiate the two lines with different colours? or for example in the setText ("This Text") is RED and then another setText ("This Text 2") is Green? If this makes any sense?

[@sicfxmusic]

Epic!! Thanks a lot 🙏👌✔

[@ukramedia]

Glad you liked it!

[@kroneck.design]

Super helpful, thanks a lot! :) Greetings

[@mbeltowska]

Thanks for the tutorial, I've been finding your videos super helpful! I'm stuck on one thing - I want to give the editor control to downsize the font size if the source text is too long, but the text keeps scaling from the top left corner. How can I change this so it scales from the bottom left corner? Thanks again!

[@tanakachiriga5291]

This is great but how do you get just one style property?

[@AndrewCortesi]

This doesn't work unless you have Javascript enabled in your Project Settings. Is there any way to accomplish this with Legacy ExtendScript?

[@tenniset]

Once I tried to use style script and it seemed I need to change project settings from legacy extendscript to javascript. But I found some expressions I wrote under legacy extendscript became useless. I guess there are some compatibility issues between these two. Maybe some expressions or wording. I don't know. Hope I will know someday.

[@lenonfernandes8584]

I have 2 texts layers, I apply the smart Text on the first one, but where should I go to link the second text to the first one where I applied the smart text? In the second one, I want to get everything but the color fill from the first one

[@bondodesign]

Question: I have your plugin, but can I share my project-file without plugin, and still have the scripting on the layers? Or do they also need the plugin?

[@ukramedia]

That's the beautiful thing about scripts... once you run the script and apply it to a layer, you don't have to have it to edit it or to use that effect. It uses native After Effects tools that are always installed in After Effects. Does that makes sense?

[@DissertazioniVideolu]

What about Kerning, I linked multiple texts in different comps with the same text, I noticed that pick whipping the text source works but it doesn't transfer the kerning in between two letters I had to separate manually. How would you transfer the kerning? I noticed is not in the text properties

[@UNVIart11]

Hi. How set the "Text alignment"?

[@hirenprabtani8796]

Great

[@HimanshuSharma-sg4ql]

thanks alot

[@jacobusolivier6863]

Thank You for the tutorial! However, when I use the expression, it gives me an error saying "property or method named 'style' in Class 'Text Property' is missing or does not exist."

[@TorgeirHolm]

Too me a while as well, but you have to set expressions to use Javascript instead of legacy. Go to Project settings > expressions > Javascript

[@massaxpowa]

Hi Sergei, it seems that the leading option doesn't work with AE2023 while working fine in 2021 ;o)

[@massaxpowa]

Same issue in 2022

[@polystormstudio]

I have another error (I commented in your latest video as well). I'm using "text.sourceText.style.setText("Ukramedia.com")". I followed your steps exactly. The error is: Error at line 1 in property 'text' of layer 1 ('text') in comp 'Comp 2'. property or method named 'style' in Class 'TextProperty' is missing or does not exist. It may have been renamed, moved, deleted, or the name may have been mistype, property or method named 'style' in Class 'TextProperty' is missing or does not exist. It may have been renamed ... etc

[@Audiopuncture_]

had the same problem, under "project settings" you have to change the expressions engine from legacy extendscript to javascript

[@polystormstudio]

@@Audiopuncture_ OMG thanks!

[@themolx]

@@Audiopuncture_ you just saved me man!! thanks!!!

[@jouriverhoeven]

@@Audiopuncture_ Thanks for that!

[@AndrewMarston]

I've wondered why Adobe doesn't allow the font size and other text properties to be key framed natively. Smart Text wins.

[@ukramedia]

Same here! Thanks, Andrew!

[@romerlaidsaar2994]

Really useful tutorial. Thanks! I have been looking for a solution to change text properties of selected words. Let's say I control value with slider and add unit of measurement at the end and I need this to be in different style - effect("Slider Control")("Slider").value.toFixed(1)+("m") - how to get this?

[@jameswoollacott3108]

This is great, but does anyone know how to change the style midway through? So if I were to write an expression like: "text one" + (different colour) "Text two" I'm looking at creating a MoGrt with two bits of changeable information in one text layer, but they are supposed to be two different colours. I know how to write the whole thing but cannot find a function to change the text colour at a certain point onwards.

[@Lyn3z]

Do you have a solution for that?

[@jameswoollacott2801]

@@Lyn3z I did find one, I can't quite remember how I did it, but I believe I put an expression on the range selector start value to be however long the first text input was, then set the end of the range selector to something very high

[@aaalllfff]

I am trying to change the text from another layer with "thisComp.layer(3).text.sourceText.style.setText("hello");" but nothing happens! Can anyone explain why? Thanks!

[@andrewabuya9315]

❤

[@ashishcchauhan]

how to access the Superscript?

[@olivia-pp3mi]

whenever i open up my graphs it shows “no selected properties have expressions” and it’s really annoying. how can i get rid of it?

[@vjhighlander]

Unfortunately, there is no "Text" in Expression language menu... (((

[@gianlucafabbricino8281]

When I try to control "FontSize" through if statement, the slider doesn't work :(

[@trscheit]

change the expression language to javascript in project settings.

[@michaelohare390]

@@trscheit , good question. and thank you Sergi for the reply. it would have been nice to have at the start of the tutorial, nevertheless, lesson learned. Cheers

[@devmotions6651]

I love 💕 it but help me

[@ukramedia]

How can I help you?

[@devmotions6651]

@@ukramedia sir I need after effect basics tutorial

[@devmotions6651]

@@ukramedia thank you

[@ukramedia]

@@devmotions6651 I'll see what I can do.