Use the Character panel to format characters. If text is selected, changes you make in the Character panel affect only the selected text. If no text is selected, changes you make in the Character panel affect the selected text layers and the text layer’s selected Source Text keyframes, if any exist. If no text is selected and no text layers are selected, the changes you make in the Character panel become the new defaults for the next text entry.
To display the Character panel, choose Window > Character; or, with a type tool selected, click the panel button
in
the Tools panel.
To open the Character and
Paragraph panels automatically when a type tool is active, select
Auto-Open Panels in the Tools panel.To reset Character panel values to the default values, choose Reset Character from the Character panel menu.
Note: You open the panel menu by clicking the panel menu button
in the upper-right
tab of the panel.
After Effects doesn't provide a character style
for underlining text, but you can underline text with a variety
of other graphical elements. Possibilities include using a shape
layer containing a path with a stroke, applying a stroke to an open
mask, using the Write-on Effect, and using an animated series of
tightly spaced (kerned) underscore or dash characters. For a discussion
of why underlining is considered bad typographic form and how you
can create underlines in After Effects, see this post on the Creative COW After
Effects forum.Fonts
A font is a complete set of characters—letters, numbers, and symbols—that share a common weight, width, and style. In addition to the fonts installed on your system in the standard location for your operating system, After Effects uses font files in this local folder:
- Windows
- Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts
- Mac OS
- Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts
If you install a Type 1, TrueType, OpenType, or CID font into the local Fonts folder, the font appears in Adobe applications only.
If the formatting for a character specifies a font that is unavailable on your computer system, another font will be substituted, and the missing font name will appear in brackets. Font substitution sometimes occurs when you open a project on Mac OS that was created on Windows, because the set of default fonts differs between the two operating systems.
When you select a font, you can select the font family and its font style independently. The font family (or typeface) is a collection of fonts sharing an overall design; for example, Times. A font style is a variant version of an individual font in the font family; for example, regular, bold, or italic. The range of available font styles varies with each font. If a font doesn’t include the style you want, you can apply faux styles—simulated versions of bold, italic, superscript, subscript, all caps, and small caps styles. If more than one copy of a font is installed on your computer, an abbreviation follows the font name: (T1) for Type 1 fonts, (TT) for TrueType fonts, or (OT) for OpenType fonts.
For information about what fonts are installed with After Effects CS5, see these pages on the Adobe website:
You can use the Adobe Font Finder on the Adobe website to browse and search fonts by various characteristics.
Choose a font family
- Click in the Font Family menu box, and begin typing the name. Continue typing until the desired font family name appears.
- To choose the previous or next font family in the menu, place the pointer over the Font Family menu box and use your mouse scroll wheel; or click in the Font Family menu box, and press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow.
- Click the arrow to the right of the Font Family menu box, and press the key for the first letter of the font family name. Press the key again to advance through the font families with names that begin with that letter.
or
the Faux Italic button 
in
the Character panel to apply a simulated style.
in
the Character panel.Spacing between characters and lines: non-breaking spaces, kerning, tracking, and leading
Create a non-breaking space
If a set of characters is set to be non-breaking, the characters animate together as if they were a single word.
- Choose No Break from the Character panel menu. Note: You open the panel menu by clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the panel.
Specify leading
In the Character panel, do one of the
following:Choose the desired leading from the Leading menu
.Select the existing leading value, and enter a new value.
Drag the underlined leading value.
Specify kerning
You can automatically kern type using metrics kerning or optical kerning. Metrics kerning uses kern pairs, which are included with most fonts. Kern pairs contain information about the spacing of specific pairs of letters such as LA, To, Tr, Ta, Tu, Te, Ty, Wa, WA, We, Wo, Ya, and Yo. After Effects uses metrics kerning by default so that specific pairs are automatically kerned when you import or type text. Some fonts include robust kern-pair specifications.
For fonts for which metrics kerning provides inadequate results, or for two different typefaces or sizes in a line, you may want to use the optical kerning option. Optical kerning adjusts the spacing between adjacent characters based on their shapes.
You can also use manual kerning to adjust the space between two letters.
Alan Shisko provides an article and video tutorial about kerning on his Motion Graphics 'n Such blog.
- To use the built-in kerning information
for a font, choose Metrics from the Kerning menu
in
the Character panel. - To adjust kerning manually, click between two characters
with a type tool, and set a numeric value for Kerning in
the Character panel. Note: If a range of text is selected, you can’t manually kern the characters. Instead, use tracking.
in
the Character panel.Text fills and strokes
For text, a fill is applied to the area inside the shape of an individual character; a stroke is applied to the outline of the character. After Effects applies a stroke to a character by centering the stroke on the character’s path; half of the stroke appears on one side of the path, and the other half of the stroke appears on the other side of the path.
The Character panel lets you apply both color fill and color stroke to text, control the stroke width, and control the stacking position of the fill and stroke. You can change these properties for individual, selected characters; selected Source Text keyframes; all text in a layer; or all text across multiple selected layers.
Add a stroke (outline) to text
- Set a stroke size with the Stroke Width
property
in the Character panel.
Change text fill or stroke color
The text you enter gets its color from the Fill Color and Stroke Color controls in the upper-right corner of the Character panel. Select text to change its color after the text has already been entered.
- To set fill or stroke color using the
color picker, click the Fill Color or Stroke Color control. To set
fill or stroke color using the eyedropper, click the eyedropper
button
and
then click anywhere on the screen to sample the color. - To swap colors for fill and stroke, click the Swap Fill
And Stroke button
. - To remove fill or stroke, click the No Fill Color button or No Stroke Button. Only one of these buttons is available, depending on whether the Fill Color or Stroke Color box is forward.
- To set the fill or stroke to black or white, click the
Set To Black
or Set
To White 
button. - To bring the Fill Color or Stroke Color box forward, click it.
Change text stroke line join
The line join type for a stroke determines
the shape of the stroke when two segments of the stroke intersect.
You set the line join type for a text stroke with the Line Join
setting in the panel menu of the Character panel, which you open by
clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the Character panel.
Choose Miter, Round, or Bevel from the Line Join
menu.Blend overlapping characters in a text layer
- In the Timeline panel, expand the text layer and the More Options group.
- Choose a blending mode from the Inter-Character Blending menu.
Inter-character blending is not available for text layers with per-character 3D properties.
Text scale and baseline shift
Horizontal scale and vertical scale specify the proportion between the height and width of the text. Unscaled characters have a value of 100%. You can adjust scale to compress or expand selected characters in both width and height.
Baseline shift controls the distance that text appears from its baseline, either raising or lowering the selected text to create superscripts or subscripts.
- To adjust scale, enter a new percentage
for Horizontal Scale
or
Vertical Scale 
in
the Character panel, or drag the underlined value. - To specify baseline shift, set a value for Baseline Shift
in
the Character panel. A positive value moves horizontal text above
and vertical text to the right of the baseline; a negative value
moves text below or to the left of the baseline.
Change the case of text
You can enter or format text as uppercase characters, either all caps or small caps. When you format text as small caps, After Effects uses the small caps designed as part of the font, if they are available. If the font does not include small caps, After Effects generates faux small caps.
- Click the All Caps button
or
the Small Caps button 
in
the Character panel. - Choose All Caps or Small Caps from the Character panel
menu. Note: You open the panel menu by clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the panel.
Format text as superscript or subscript
Superscript characters are reduced in size and shifted above the text baseline; subscript characters are reduced in size and shifted below the text baseline. If the font does not include superscript or subscript characters, After Effects generates faux superscript or subscript characters.
- Click the Superscript button
or
the Subscript button 
in
the Character panel. - Choose Superscript or Subscript from the Character panel
menu. Note: You open the panel menu by clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the panel.
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text
After Effects provides several options for working with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) text. Characters in CJK fonts are often referred to as double-byte characters because they require more than one byte of information to express each character.
To display CJK font names in English, choose Show
Font Names In English from the Character panel menu. You open the
panel menu by clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the panel.Adjust tsume
Tsume reduces the space around a character by a specified percentage value. The character itself is not stretched or squeezed as a result. When tsume is added to a character, spacing around both sides of the character is reduced by an equal percentage.
- Select the characters you want to adjust.
- In the Character panel, enter or select a percentage
for Tsume
. The
greater the percentage, the tighter the compression between characters.
At 100% (the maximum value), no space exists between the character’s
bounding box and its em box.
Specify how leading is measured
- Choose Top-To-Top Leading or Bottom-To-Bottom Leading
from the Paragraph panel menu. A check mark indicates which option
is selected. Note: You open the panel menu by clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the panel.
Use tate-chuu-yoko
Tate-chuu-yoko (also called kumimoji and renmoji) is a block of horizontal text laid out within a vertical text line.
- Choose Tate-Chuu-Yoko from the Character panel menu.
(A check mark indicates that the option is turned on. To turn off
the option, choose Tate-Chuu-Yoko again.) Note: You open the panel menu by clicking the panel menu button in the
upper-right tab of the panel.
Using tate-chuu-yoko does not prevent you from editing and formatting text; you can edit and apply formatting options to rotated characters as you do to other characters.
Smart quotes
Smart quotes, or printer’s quotation marks, use a curved left or right quotation mark instead of straight quotation marks.
To use smart quotes, choose Use Smart Quotes from
the Character panel menu. in the
upper-right tab of the panel.