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[Paul Roper]

Create and edit your text in a simple application like TextEdit or NotePad. Do not use any carriage returns/enters. Select all, copy.

In After Effects, create a new composition at the appropriate size & frame rate, with a duration of 1 minute.

Using the text tool, click in your composition. Paste. Your text should appear. It should hopefully disappear off the edge(s) of the screen.

Align it left (using the Paragraph panel) and set your font/colour etc. in the Character panel.

Position it where you’d like the text to first appear.

In the ‘Position’ of the text layer, option-click (alt-click on a PC) on the keyframe stopwatch. “transform.position” should appear. Delete it and then paste this:

[value[0]-time*200,value[1]]

over transform.position.

Do a RAM preview to check the speed. Change the “200” in that expression to alter the speed; 400 is twice as fast, 100 is half as fast. You can still move the text around just by dragging it to set the start point without “breaking” the animation.

– Paul

[Paul Roper]

….My European bias has assumed that you want the text to read from left to right; if you want the text to travel the other way, right-align it and change the minus to a plus:

[value[0]+time*200,value[1]]

[Ziyaad Eydatoula]

Thanks Paul! You’re a lifesaver. 🙂