AE expression – split text in 2 seperate equal text lines

[Dan Ebberts]

That looks pretty good. I might change the algorithm a little so that when looking for a space, it looks one character to the left of the middle, then one character to the right, then two to the left, two to the right, etc. Otherwise it can look unbalanced if there’s a long word that ends near the center.

I think I would also set the center to Math.round((txt.length-1)/2).

Dan

[Roy St]

Thanks for the swift reply Dan!

Your idea sounds great, but I have no idea how to do that – any suggestions?

Plus – any idea how to set it up if there’s only 1 word in the input text? so only the first layer would show the word and the second layer would be empty?

Thanks,
/R

[Dan Ebberts]

Give this a try for the first layer:


txt = thisComp.layer("TextBox").text.sourceText;
i = Math.floor((txt.length-1)/2);
j = (txt.length%2) ? i : i+1;
n = -1;
while (i >= 0 && j < txt.length){
if (txt[i] == " "){
n = i;
break;
}else if (txt[j] == " "){
n = j;
break;
}
i--;
j++;
}
if (n < 0) txt else txt.substr(0,n)


For the second layer, replace the last line with this:


if (n < 0) "" else txt.substr(n+1)


Dan

[Roy St]

Thanks a bunch Dan, will go experiment with it right away!

/R

[Jarle Leirpoll]

Dan, thank you for this code. I tried to use your code and expand it with a slider. The goal is to make the text auto-split like in your expression when the slider is set at 0. But if the slider is set at something else, the line break should come at that point, overriding the original behavior. Slider set to 2 should break the text after word 2, etc.

But my code doesn’t work properly.

txt = thisComp.layer("Source").text.sourceText;
k = Math.round(thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("Text Split After (words)")("Slider"));
i = Math.floor((txt.length-1)/2);
j = (txt.length%2) ? i : i+1;
n = -1;

while (i >= 0 && j < txt.length){
if (txt[k] == " ") {
n = k;
break;
}else if (txt[i] == " "){
n = i;
break;
}else if (txt[j] == " "){
n = j;
break;
}
i--;
j++;
}
if (n < 0) txt else txt.substr(0,n)

Jarle Leirpoll
PremierePro.net

[Dan Ebberts]

I’d set it up as two separate loops, with a new loop (if your slider is non-zero) that starts at the first character and loops through the text until it finds the number of spaces that matches the slider (or reaches the end of the text). If the slider is zero, it does the other loop.

Dan

[Jarle Leirpoll]

Thanks Dan, that sounds like a good approach. But I’m not familiar enough with loops to understand what your loop does, and certainly not how to build a different one. ☺
I guess I could make two different text layers, and make Opacity expressions turn them on/off depending on the slider value – but I think that would make the comp a bit slower. There will be more layers doing the same thing, so it adds up.

Jarle Leirpoll
PremierePro.net

[Dan Ebberts]

Something like this:


txt = thisComp.layer("Source").text.sourceText;
nWords = Math.round(thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("Text Split After (words)")("Slider"));
if (nWords > 0){
count = 0;
for (i = 0; i < txt.length; i++){
if (txt[i] == " "){
count++;
if (count == nWords) break;
}
}
if (count < nWords) txt else txt.substr(0,i)
}else{
i = Math.floor((txt.length-1)/2);
j = (txt.length%2) ? i : i+1;
n = -1;
while (i >= 0 && j < txt.length){
if (txt[i] == " "){
n = i;
break;
}else if (txt[j] == " "){
n = j;
break;
}
i--;
j++;
}
if (n < 0) txt else txt.substr(0,n);
}

Dan


[Jarle Leirpoll]

Thanks Dan – getting really close! Now the first layer does its thing correctly. Great!
The lower layer showed the same output as the first layer after I changed only the last line of code. So I guessed that this line also need to be changed.

if (count < nWords) txt else txt.substr(0,i)

So I changed it to the following, and the split now kinda works.

if (count < nWords) txt else txt.substr(i,txt.length)

The result has two problems, though:

1. The second line always starts with a space
2. When the slider value is higher than the number of words, the lower layer shows the same as the upper layer

/jarle

txt = thisComp.layer("Source").text.sourceText;
nWords = Math.round(thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("Text Split After (words)")("Slider"));
if (nWords > 0){
count = 0;
for (i = 0; i < txt.length; i++){
if (txt[i] == " "){
count++;
if (count == nWords) break;
}
}
if (count < nWords) txt else txt.substr(i,txt.length)
}else{
i = Math.floor((txt.length-1)/2);
j = (txt.length%2) ? i : i+1;
n = -1;
while (i >= 0 && j < txt.length){
if (txt[i] == " "){
n = i;
break;
}else if (txt[j] == " "){
n = j;
break;
}
i--;
j++;
}
if (n < 0) "" else txt.substr(n+1)
}

Jarle Leirpoll
PremierePro.net

[Jonathan Moxness]

Is there any way to split the text in half at a line break instead of at a space or character? I have a list of names that I’d like to split up into two text boxes just like this but I need to keep first and last names grouped together. Thanks in advance!