Add Text Outline in After Effects to Boost Your Video Designs

Have you ever noticed how promotional posts or digital ads with outlined text tend to catch your eye more? That's because the outline adds a striking effect, which highlights the text against any background. In After Effects, creating this effect is simple and highly customizable and helps you highlight key elements in your videos. Thus, in this article, we'll show you how to do a text outline in After Effects and effective tips to enhance design.

Overview of adding text to outlines in After Effects

Adobe After Effects is a premier software for motion graphics and visual effects that empowers creators to animate and enhance video content smoothly. Outlining text within this platform significantly enhances typography, which ensures it stands out and captivates viewers. Whether you're creating dynamic animated titles or refining simple text, outlines contribute a polished, professional finish to your designs.

5 essential tools for text outlines in After Effects

Text outline in After Effects requires a set of essential tools to give your designs a professional touch. These tools help you create visually appealing text with bold outlines, smooth animations, and customizable features that make your projects stand out. Below are five crucial tools you can use to achieve precise text outlines in After Effects.

• Outline effects
• These effects let you quickly add a sharp outline around your text, which gives it a defined and polished look. You can customize the outline's thickness and color to match the style of your project.
• Layer styles
• Layer styles let you apply a variety of effects like shadows, glows, and gradients to your text. This feature helps you add depth and dimension to your outlined text, which makes it more dynamic.
• Stroke settings
• With stroke settings, you can adjust the width and style of the outline around your text. This tool is essential for controlling the thickness and overall appearance of your text borders.
• Character panel
• The character panel lets you fine-tune your text's font, size, and spacing. It's a useful tool for ensuring your outlined text fits perfectly into your composition with precise alignment and readability.
• Animation presets
• Animation presets provide a variety of pre-made animations that can be applied to your outlined text. These presets add motion to your text to help you make it more engaging and attention-grabbing.

How to add strokes to text in Adobe After Effects

In After Effects, you can enhance your text by outlining it with a colored stroke, which makes it more visually striking in your video projects. This quick method lets you easily apply and customize stroke settings for a polished effect. Here's how to outline text in After Effects using stroke:

Step
1. Setup the text layer
2. Create a new text layer by selecting the area where you'd like the text to appear. Adjust the font, size, and color according to your project.
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Step
4. Open the character panel
5. Go to "Window" > "Character" to open the "Character" panel. This panel lets you adjust the text properties, including the stroke.
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Step
7. Apply stroke color to text
8. Within the "Character" panel, locate the stroke color box. Select a stroke color by clicking on the box and choosing from the color palette.
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Step
10. Customize stroke size & position
11. Adjust the stroke size by modifying the stroke weight in the "Character" panel. You can also fine-tune the stroke/s position for the desired effect.
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How to outline text animations in After Effects

Outlining text animations in After Effects enhances the visual appeal of your projects and makes your text stand out with dynamic effects. This technique helps create smooth transitions that highlight specific parts of your text or blend them smoothly into your composition.

Here's how you can outline and animate text:

Step
1. Add text
2. Start by selecting the "Text" tool from the toolbar or pressing the "T" key. Click anywhere on the composition panel to type the text you want to outline.
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Step
4. Remove fill and add a stroke
5. With the shape layer selected, disable the "Fill" by clicking the fill color swatch and choosing the "None" option. Then, enable the "Stroke" option, select a stroke color, and adjust its width.
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Step
7. Create a shape from the text
8. Now, right-click the text layer in the timeline and select "Create" > "Create Shapes from Text." This action converts the text into a vector-shaped layer.
Step
9. Apply animation
10. To animate the outline, select the shape layer in the timeline, press Add, and choose "Trim Paths." This will let you control the start and end points of your stroke animation. Set keyframes to adjust the timing of the animation, which outlines appear, disappear, or transition dynamically across your text.
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Tips to use After Effects for outlining texts

Here are some key tips to help you get the best results when outlining text in After Effects:

• Explore outline presets
• After Effects offers built-in text presets that can help you quickly outline your text. Start by exploring the "Effects & Presets" panel, where you can find pre-configured stroke effects to apply in just a few clicks.
• Adjust stroke width
• Controlling the stroke width is crucial for clarity and aesthetics. Use the "Stroke" option to adjust the thickness of your outlines, which ensures that the text remains legible while fitting the design's style.
• Experiment with colors
• Outline colors can completely change the mood of your text. Use vibrant, contrasting colors for a bold look, or choose subtle shades for a minimalist effect. Don’t hesitate to test different color combinations to see what fits best.
• Use shape layers
• Convert your text into shape layers for greater flexibility. This enables you to customize each letter individually, giving you more control over the outline's look and enabling advanced design techniques.
• Animate outlines creatively
• Animate the outlines for dynamic effects, like having the stroke draw itself over time. Use keyframes to create fluid animations that enhance the text’s motion and bring your design to life.

Bonus tip: Create smooth text outlines with the CapCut desktop

In addition to After Effects, the CapCut desktop video editor is another tool that is rapidly gaining popularity due to its powerful and advanced features. Known for its user-friendly interface, one standout feature is its text editor, which lets you outline text, add shadows, apply glow effects, and more. This makes it an excellent choice for creating visually striking, professional-quality video content with ease.



How to precisely make a text outline in CapCut

Before moving to the steps, ensure you have the latest version of CapCut. However, if you have not downloaded it on your device, click the "Download" button below and install it.

Step
1. Upload the video
2. Open CapCut and click "Create project." Select "Import" to upload media from your device.
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Step
4. Make the text outline
5. Drop the video in the timeline and navigate to "Text" > "Default text" > write or paste your text. Then, go to the right editing panel, apply a stroke to the text, and adjust its thickness. To highlight the outline of the text, make it sharp by adjusting blurriness, distance, opacity, etc. After this, you can adjust the background and add a glow effect to the text.
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Step
7. Export and share
8. After finalizing the video, go to the "Export" section and adjust parameters such as quality, frame rate, codec, bit rate, etc., according to your requirements. Save it on your device and share it on your TikTok and YouTube (optional).
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Key features

• Powerful AI font generator
• CapCut’s powerful AI font generator helps you quickly create visually appealing fonts that perfectly match your design's tone and ensures high-quality text styling.
• Adjustable text outline
• With the adjustable text outline feature, you can modify the thickness, color, and style of text borders, which gives your designs a more polished and customized look.
• Easy text layer management
• The text editor lets you organize, arrange, and edit multiple text layers effortlessly. This makes complex text compositions simpler to handle.
• Apply glow effect to text outlines
• The glow effect feature enables you to add a vibrant, eye-catching glow around text outlines, which enhances the overall visual impact of your design.

Conclusion

We hope you are now well up on how to make outline text in After Effects using various essential tools, from adding stroke effects to adjusting text styles and animations. Whether you're enhancing video titles, banners, or captions, these techniques help create customized and professional-looking text outlines that capture attention.

However, tools like the CapCut desktop video editor provide a simpler way to create and manage text outlines. It features an AI-powered tool that lets you generate unique font styles and easily add outlines to them to make your designs eye-catching.

FAQs

1. What is the best way to outline text in After Effects?
2. The best way to outline text in After Effects is by using the Stroke effect. You can apply it directly to the text layer, adjust the stroke's thickness, and customize the color to make your text stand out. However, if you are looking for a more user-friendly tool to outline text, then try the CapCut desktop video editor.
3. Can I add a border to a text in Adobe After Effects?
4. Yes, you can add a border to text in After Effects by using the "Stroke" effect. Simply apply the effect to the text layer, then adjust the stroke's size and color to create the desired border effect. Additionally, another great tool for customizing text borders is the CapCut desktop video editor, which provides easy adjustments and flexible settings for text outlines.
5. How to outline font in After Effects?
6. To outline a font in After Effects, first, add text using the Text tool. Then, right-click the text layer and choose "Create" > "Create Shapes from Text" to convert it into a shape layer. Finally, remove the fill, enable the stroke, and adjust the stroke settings to create the outline. For a more effective approach to outline text, use the CapCut desktop video editor.