Duplicating a source text horizontally a (number) of times

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Ramondo,

if I understood correctly – try applying the following to the Source Text of the text layer.

Then, either adjust the type through the character panel or apply Text Animator with preferred transformations.

phrase = text.sourceText;
num = 5;

phrase.repeat(num)

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Ramondo Robinson]

Thanks so much, but it seems phrase.repeat is not being seen as a function…Also it replaces the source text with the number 5…. I assume it is becuase of line 2: num=5; I changed the variable just to check and it updated to that number as well.

[Ramondo Robinson]

So maybe I am not clear enough about the objective. I have a text duplicate horizontally…a set amount of times. I need the update the word from time to time so I assume this code would go in the source text area….

[Ramondo Robinson]

Typos*
So maybe I am not clear enough about the objective. I need to have a text duplicate horizontally…a set amount of times. I also need to update the word from time to time, so I assume this code would go in the source text area….

[Tomas Bumbulevičius]

Its either you are using legacy expression engine, or old CC version.

Anyways, try longer expression as below.

1. Apply expression to text’s source.
2. Add any text you want into text layer.
3. Change ‘num’ variable to adjust how many copies to make.

phrase = text.sourceText;
num = 5;

repeatString(phrase, num)

function repeatString(string, repeats) {
newString = "";
while (repeats > 0) {
newString += string;
repeats--;
}
return newString;
}

Find out more:
After Effects Tutorials: motion design, expressions, scripting.

[Ramondo Robinson]

That worked!! yeah I have cc 2018….Thanks for the help!