How to Move Text in Adobe Premiere Pro: The Ultimate Guide

Text is a crucial tool for video editors to convey information, evoke emotion, and guide the viewer‘s attention. While simply placing text on screen can get the job done, animating your text adds a level of polish and professionalism to your videos. Moving text helps reinforce your message, set the tone and pace, and make your videos more engaging overall.

Adobe Premiere Pro offers several methods for moving text, from basic keyframe animation to built-in presets in the Essential Graphics panel. In this in-depth guide, we‘ll break down the different ways to make your text move in Premiere Pro, so you can apply these techniques to your own video projects.

Whether you‘re a beginner looking to add some simple movement to your titles or an experienced editor wanting to create complex kinetic typography, by the end of this article you‘ll have the knowledge and practical steps to start animating text like a pro. Let‘s dive in!

Understanding Keyframes and Interpolation

Before we jump into step-by-step instructions, it‘s important to understand the fundamental concepts that make text movement possible in Premiere Pro: keyframes and interpolation.

Keyframes are markers placed at specific points in time that store the value of a property, such as position or opacity. Premiere Pro automatically transitions or "tweens" the property values between keyframes, creating animation over time.

There are several different ways Premiere Pro can transition between keyframes, known as interpolation methods:

• Linear: Creates a constant rate of change between keyframes
• Bezier: Allows you to adjust the rate of change by creating smooth curves, good for organic movement
• Auto Bezier: Automatically creates a smooth ease in and out between keyframes
• Continuous Bezier: Creates sharp corners and sudden changes, good for mechanical motion
• Hold: Maintains the value of the first keyframe until the next keyframe with no interpolation between

Using the right interpolation method can make the difference between smooth, professional-looking text animation and stiff, unnatural movement. We‘ll cover how to adjust interpolation in practice in the next section.

Animating Text with Keyframes

The most manual but precise way to move text in Premiere Pro is by using keyframes to animate individual text properties like position, scale, rotation and opacity over time. Here‘s a step-by-step process for adding keyframes to create a basic text animation:

1. Create a text layer with the Type tool or Essential Graphics panel

2. In the Effect Controls panel, twirl down the text properties until you see the options for Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity

3. Move the playhead to the time where you want the animation to start

4. Click the stopwatch icon next to the property you want to animate to set the first keyframe

5. Move the playhead to the time where you want the animation to end

6. Change the value of the property to what you want it to be at the end of the animation – Premiere will automatically add a keyframe

7. Scroll down in the Effect Controls to the Time Remapping section and you‘ll see the keyframes you just added

8. Click on a keyframe to select it, then right-click and choose a different interpolation method to change how Premiere tweens the animation between keyframes

9. Preview your animation and adjust the keyframe timing and values as needed

You can create more complex animations by combining keyframes for multiple properties. For example, you could have text fly in from off screen (Position), while growing larger (Scale) and fading in (Opacity) at the same time. Experiment with different properties and keyframe combinations to find the right movement for your video.

Here are a few more tips and keyboard shortcuts to speed up working with keyframes:

• Holding down the Ctrl/Cmd key while dragging a keyframe will snap it to other keyframes or the playhead
• Pressing the left and right arrow keys moves the playhead between keyframes
• Alt + clicking on a property adds a keyframe without needing the stopwatch active
• Copying and pasting keyframes maintains their relative position to each other

Using the Essential Graphics Panel

If you‘re not comfortable manually setting your own keyframes, the Essential Graphics panel provides a variety of pre-made text animations that you can drag and drop onto your text layers. Here‘s an overview of where to find and how to use the Essential Graphics presets:

1. Switch to the Graphics workspace or go to Window > Essential Graphics to open the Essential Graphics panel

2. Click the Browse tab to view all the pre-made text animation presets

3. Use the search bar or browse folders like Titles, Lower Thirds, and Captions to preview animations

4. Drag and drop a preset onto a text layer in your sequence to apply it

5. Click on the Edit tab to change the text content and styling

6. Twirl down the text layer in the timeline to adjust properties like the animation duration, starting and ending position, and more

The Essential Graphics panel is a great option if you need to quickly add professional text animations to your videos without building them from scratch. Keep in mind that you may need to adjust the preset animations to fit your specific text content and timing.

Other Text Animation Methods

In addition to keyframes and Essential Graphics presets, there are a couple other ways to animate text in Premiere Pro:

Creating Scrolling Credits

If you need to create a credit roll or other vertically scrolling text, you can use the Roll option in the Essential Graphics panel:

1. Create a text layer and add your credits, separating each line with a paragraph return

2. Open the Essential Graphics panel and click on the Edit tab

3. With the text layer selected, check the box for Roll in the Appearance section

4. Use the Roll Up or Down buttons and Scale slider to adjust the speed and size of the scrolling text

5. Extend the text layer‘s duration in the timeline to fit all your credits

Animating Text with Track Mattes

Track mattes allow you to use one layer to control the transparency of another layer. You can use track mattes to create text animations by revealing or hiding text with animated shapes or footage:

1. Create a text layer and a layer above it with the shape/footage you want to use as a track matte

2. Animate the track matte layer to move across the text using keyframes or drag the layer across the text in the timeline

3. Select the text layer and choose the track matte option you want from the dropdown menu:

   • Alpha Matte: Uses the transparency of the track matte layer to reveal the text
   • Luma Matte: Uses the brightness of the track matte layer to reveal the text

4. Adjust the track matte animation to get the desired text reveal effect

Track mattes open up a lot of creative possibilities for animating your text layers by only revealing certain parts at a time or wiping text on and off the screen in interesting ways. Experiment with diferent shapes and animations to find unique text transitions for your videos.

Best Practices for Moving Text

However you choose to animate your text in Premiere Pro, here are some tips and best practices to keep in mind:

• Keep it simple: A little text animation goes a long way. Stick to 1-2 animation techniques per text layer to avoid overwhelming the viewer.

• Enhance meaning: Use text animation to reinforce your message, not distract from it. Make sure any text movement matches the tone and pacing you want to convey.

• Be consistent: Develop a consistent text animation style for your video. Use similar techniques, speeds, and graphics to create cohesion between different text elements.

• Give it breathing room: Build in time at the beginning and end of your text animations for the viewer to read and process the information. Don‘t animate text on and off too quickly.

• Check legibility: Always preview your text animations and make sure they are smooth and readable. Use strong contrast between text and background so it remains legible in motion.

• Integrate with other elements: Think about how your animated text fits with the other graphics, footage, and audio in your video. Time text animations to key moments and transitions.

Research has shown that well-executed text animations can increase viewer engagement and information retention. A study by Wistia¹ found that adding animated text callouts to explainer videos increased overall engagement by 14% compared to videos without animated text.

To find inspiration for your own text animations, study examples from professional motion designers, commercials, and film titles. Pay attention to how they time their animations with voiceover, music, and cuts. With practice, you‘ll develop your own sense of what works for your projects.

Troubleshooting and FAQs

To wrap up, let‘s go over some common issues and questions that come up when moving text in Premiere Pro:

Why is my text moving off screen/getting cut off when I animate it?
This is likely due to your text layer‘s anchor point (the point the layer scales and rotates around) being positioned at an inconvenient spot for the animation. To fix this:

1. In the Effect Controls panel, find the Anchor Point property under Motion

2. Click the icon to the right of the Anchor Point values to display the anchor point control in the Program Monitor

3. Drag the anchor point control to a better position for your animation, like the center of the text layer

How can I see my text animation path more clearly?
Premiere Pro can display a motion path for any layer with keyframes. To view a text layer‘s motion path:

1. Select the text layer in the timeline

2. In the Effect Controls panel, find the Position property

3. Hover your mouse over the Position value and a small down arrow will appear

4. Click the arrow to open the motion path control and you‘ll see the animation path in the Program Monitor

5. Drag the control points on the path to adjust the trajectory of the text animation

Why does my text look pixelated or jumpy when I preview the animation?
This is probably because the resolution and frame rate of your preview isn‘t set to the highest quality to save on processing. To get a smooth, full resolution preview of your text animation:

1. Open the Sequence menu and choose "Sequence Settings…"

2. In the Video Previews section, change the Preview File Format to "Quicktime" and the Codec to "ProRes 422"

3. Click OK to close Sequence Settings

4. Go to the Sequence menu again and under "Render Effects In to Out" choose a preview quality (full, half, etc.)

5. Once Premiere renders the preview files, you can play back the animation smoothly by pressing the Play Preview button in the Program Monitor

Conclusion

There you have it – a comprehensive guide on how to move text in Adobe Premiere Pro! We covered a lot of ground, from the basics of keyframes and interpolation to using Essential Graphics presets and track mattes. With these tools and techniques under your belt, you‘ll be able to add professional, engaging text animation to all your video projects.

My final piece of advice is to not be intimidated and dive in to animating your text. The more you practice, the more natural it will become to time your animations, combine techniques, and develop your own style. Start with the basic position and scale keyframes, then layer in more properties and presets as you get comfortable.

If you have any other specific questions about moving text in Premiere Pro, leave them in the comments. I‘m happy to share more of my experience to help you master text animation!

Sources

1. https://wistia.com/learn/production/animating-text-best-practices