After Effects has a built in feature to easily convert any text layer to a shape layer. Simply right click on the text layer then select Create > Create Shapes from Text. This works great…unless your text has animation. Luckily that’s where the latest feature of Type comes in.
With the Convert text to shape layers button, Type will automatically scan your text for animation and create a unique shape for each necessary frame. This includes any keyframes or expression to your source text and all text animators except blur and per character 3d.
Since this might leave you with a ton of shape layers, you can keep things tidy by holding shift while pressing the button to automatically precompose the shape layers.
Either way, your text animation will remain perfectly in-tact, but now in shape layer form. The original text layer will remain in your comp, hidden.
This feature is perfect for exporting animations to Lottie using the free LottieFiles plugin.
Convert text to shape layers is just one of many functions that make Type the best After Effects plugin for working with text. With Type, you can highlight text, underline text, add blinking cursors, split text layers by word/line/character, format numbers, add monospacing, animate text being typed out, and more.
