• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Change font size or scale of lines based on number of characters in each line

  Posted by TIneke Van Schalkwyk on February 10, 2023 at 4:19 am

  Change font size or scale of lines based on number of characters in the line. I have text over multiple keyframes (markers) to be used as captions and want to create some randomness to the font size.

  I would be using 3 sizes:
  >7, 120
  between 7 and 12, 100
  <12, 80

  For example in the following text the two lines would end up with different font sizes (or scale):

  My own
  experience

  I tried creating this code with just 2 varibles to keep it simple to start with but

  lines = thisLayer.text.sourceText.split(“/\r\n|\r|\n/”);
  
  for (i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
  
  if (lines[i].length < 9) {
  
  [120, 120];
  
  } else {
  
  [100, 100];
  
  }

  TIneke Van Schalkwyk replied 3 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Filip Vandueren

  February 10, 2023 at 9:20 am

  Hoi Tineke,

  since we can’t change the font size per line, we’d have to do it with a text animator.

  The example you chose works well since a 120% scale applies at amount -100 will give 80% scale.

  here’s the recipe:

  – Add a text animator for Scale

  – set the scale value to 120

  – give it an expression selector based on lines

  – give it this expression:

  lines = thisLayer.text.sourceText.value.split(/\r\n|\r|\n|\x03/);
  l = lines[textIndex-1].length;
  if (l<7) {
  	100;
  } else if (l<12) {
  	0
  } else {
  	-100;
  }

  Don’t forget to set the text’s Anchor Point grouping to Line also (Text -> More options) otherwise only the individual characters will become smaller in place.

  Depending on your paragraph alignment, you might also need to adjust the Grouping Alignment ([0,0] for centered text, [-100,0] for left aligned, [100,0] for right aligned)

  NB: I’ve also added \x03 to the linesplitter, that’s the character After Effects uses for a soft linebreak (shift-enter)
• 

  TIneke Van Schalkwyk

  February 10, 2023 at 8:58 pm

  Thank you Flip!

  Those extra notes were what I was missing.
  Works perfectly!

  “Don’t forget to set the text’s Anchor Point grouping to Line also (Text -> More options) otherwise only the individual characters will become smaller in place.

  Depending on your paragraph alignment, you might also need to adjust the Grouping Alignment ([0,0] for centered text, [-100,0] for left aligned, [100,0] for right aligned)”

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