TextDelay

A native plugin that delays your text animation by character, word or line. Unlike the default text animator, it inherits your animation’s easing so you can be creative with curves or easing expressions.

Learn about license types
  • Trial
  • EULA
Description

TextDelay is a native After Effects plugin that delays your text transformations by character, word or line. Unlike the default text animator, it inherits your animation’s easing so you can be creative with curves or easing expressions.

Core Features

  • 5 order modifiers
  • Delay position, anchor, scale, opacity, hue & blur
  • Compatible with motion blur
  • Range selector to control which characters/words/lines receive delay and which don't
  • Compatible with parented transforms (CC2018 and newer)
  • Compatible with paragraph text

Classic order modifiers: reverse, random & increment

Make your text animations shine by adding delay

Pair with creative easing expressions & keyframe curves

New Features Out Now

Create faux depth of field effects using blur delay. Play with order modifiers to create interesting results.

New delay modes: inside out & outside in.

Delay hue to create stylish rainbow effects. This example combines TextDelay, Cartoon Moblur & Deep Glow.

Recommended Pairings

TextDelay pairs particularly well with expressions and easing tools. We recommend pairing TextDelay with any of the following:

See it in Action


What’s supported?

  • Transformations: X&Y Position, anchor, scale
  • Parented transforms
  • Text with stroke outline
  • Bold and italic text
  • Motion blur

What’s not supported?

  • Transformations: Z position, rotation
  • Multicoloured text
  • Faux bold, faux italics

Limitations

To take advantage of AE’s latest features, TextDelay v1.5 and up are only compatible with CC 2018 and newer. If you’re using an older version of After Effects you can download v1.3 from the bottom of this page which is compatible back to AE CS6.

Per-character colors are only compatible in TextDelay v1.3 since v1.5 and up renders it’s own font and has no way to access this per-character information from After Effects :(


Video Tutorials

Discussions

Want to talk about it?

Head over to r/aescripts to chat with fellow users about this product.

Need Support?

Please open a support ticket to be connected directly with the author of this product

Version History

1.8.0 -

Dec 5, 2025

- Fix compatibility with self-intersecting and variable fonts
- Update license framework

1.7.6 -

Jun 25, 2023

- Performs layer color scan on applying effect, removing need for auto-detect colour functionality (now deprecated)

- Fix framerate bug

1.7.5 -

Jun 12, 2022

- Updated licensing framework

1.7.4 -

Feb 21, 2022

- OSX only MFR bug fix

1.7.3 -

Feb 15, 2022

- Universal binary for apple silicon (M1+)

- Updated licensing framework

1.7.2 -

Nov 5, 2021

- MFR support for AE 2022

1.7.1 -

Aug 25, 2021

- Increased stroke render quality

- Bug fixes

- MFR support

1.7 -

Jul 12, 2021

- Added stroke features

1.6.1 -

Aug 28, 2020

- Reintroduced tracking for difficult to separate characters (Japanese)



1.6 -

Aug 4, 2020

- Two new order modifiers

- Delay blur

- Delay hue shift



1.5.3 -

Nov 11, 2019

- Catalina compatibility



1.5.2 -

May 9, 2019

v1.5.2 (CC2018 only update)



More Bug fixes



1.5.1 -

Jun 28, 2018

v1.5.1 (CC2018 only update)



Bug fixes



1.5 -

Jun 19, 2018

v1.5 (CC2018 update)



Compatible with parented animation

Fix problem with text being out of bounds

Fix compatibility with certain fonts

Better motion blur implementation



v1.3 (CS6 - CC2017 update)

Fix compatibility with certain fonts



1.2 -

Mar 6, 2018

Fixed watermark issue and memory leak

1.1 -

Feb 23, 2018

Added opacity slider and updated licensing framework.

1.0 -

Oct 8, 2017

Initial release

Compatibility

After Effects

2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, CC 2019, CC 2018