Creating and animating text on a path

You can use open or closed masks to create paths for text. After you create the mask or path, you can modify it at any time. When using a closed mask as a text path, make sure to set the mask mode to None.

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.

To position text along a mask's path:

1. Create a text layer and type the desired text.
2. With the text layer selected, use the pen tool to draw a mask in the Composition window.
3. In the Timeline window, expand the Path Options property for the text layer and select the mask from the Path pop-up menu. The text automatically uses the alignment specified in the Paragraph palette.

Note: If the mask is closed (for example, if the mask is a circle), set the mask mode to None. For more information on masks, see Using mask modes.

4. In the Composition window, do one of the following, if desired, to reposition the text on the path:
• Drag the left margin control  to move left-aligned text away from the left edge of the path.
• Drag the center margin control  to move center-aligned text away from the center of the path.
• Drag the right margin control  to move right-aligned text away from the right edge of the path.
• Drag either the right or left margin control to move force-aligned text away from the edges of the path.
• Hold down Shift and 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 property in the Timeline window.


Changing the Last Margin of path text in the Composition window

To change or animate text path properties:

1. In the Timeline window, expand the text layer you want to animate, expand the Text property, and then expand the Path Options property.
2. Change any of the Path Options properties that you want.
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:

Reverse Path

Reverses the path. This option is useful for closed paths; however, to see the results, make sure the mask mode is set to None.

Perpendicular to Path

Rotates each character so that it is perpendicular to the path.

Force Alignment

Positions the first character at the beginning of the path (or at the specified First Margin location), positions the last character at the end of the path (or at the specified Last Margin location), and evenly spaces the remaining characters between the first and last characters.

First Margin

Specifies the position of the first character in pixels, relative to the start of the path. The First Margin is not active when text is right-aligned and force alignment is not enabled.

Last Margin

Specifies the position of the last character in pixels, relative to the end of the path. Last Margin is not active when text is left-aligned and force alignment is not enabled.