Adobe After Effects CS3 - Manual (Page 284)

AFTER EFFECTS CS3
User Guide
279
Choose a font family
• Click in the Font Family menu text 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 text box and
use your mouse scroll wheel; or click in the Font Family menu text box, and press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow.
• Click the arrow to the right of the Font Family menu text 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.
Choose a font style
• Choose from the Font Style menu in the Character panel.
• If the font family you chose does not include a bold or italic style, you can click the Faux Bold button or the
Faux Italic button in the Character panel to apply a simulated style.
Choose a font size
• Enter or select a new value for Size in the Character panel.
Use smart quotes
Smart quotes, or printer’s quotation marks, use a curved left or right quotation mark instead of straight quotation
marks.
❖ Choose Use Smart Quotes from the Character panel menu.
Specify leading to control spacing between lines
❖ 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.
Work with 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.
You can also control the compositing order of a text layer’s fill and stroke using the All Fills Over All Strokes or All
Strokes Over All Fills options, which override the Fill Over Stroke or Stroke Over Fill properties of individual
characters.
Note: For text that has per-character 3D properties, you cannot control the order of stroke and fill operations between
characters; the Fill & Stroke menu in the More Options property group in the Timeline panel is unavailable, and the All
Fills Over All Strokes and All Strokes Over All Fills options in the Character panel do nothing.