Common text controls: Spacing group
Tracking sets the space between all characters in a line or paragraph. Fully animatable. Exponential Tracking takes and multiples the Tracking value, beginning at the Position Point specified. ET has built-in animated properties, since its value increases over time.
What are common controls? Many of the Text plug-ins share parameters that behave the same. To avoid having to repeat these definitions, we cover them once here. If a parameter has special attributes in a plug-in, it will be further explained on that plug-in's manual page.
Tracking
Lets you adjust the spacing between letters in a line of text. This is different than the Kerning group, which adjusts spacing between individual letters.
Exponential Tracking
ET Position Point
Acts as a multiplier to regular Tracking. By adjusting this parameter, characters towards the end of a sentence will have more space in between them than characters at the beginning of the sentence.
You’ll notice how things are much more spaced out towards the right side of the image. Also notice that the first 3 characters seem to be spaced normally. This is due to the Exponential Tracking Position Point, which sets the character that the effect will start at. All characters after this point will have a multiplied tracking, all characters before it will be unaffected by the Exponential Tracking multiplier. This can create some interesting animations, especially if you go from positive to negative.
Leading
Leading sets the distance between lines in a paragraph. This is only important if you have multiple lines of text.
Alignment pop-up
Determines the alignment a text block will have.
Length Of Lines pop-up
Length of Lines slider
These parameters set the length of lines in your paragraph. This is very similar to setting the margins in a word processor. In fact, this behaves much like a word processor. If a word doesn’t fit onto a line, it will be wrapped to the next line.
The Length of Lines pop-up determines what unit of measurement you’re going to use. You have the option of Pixels or Characters. If you select Characters, then once a line has reached the specified limit, the word that goes over the limit will be wrapped to the next line. If you select Pixels then the filter will calculate how many characters will fit into the given number of pixels and wrap any word that goes over to the next line.
The big difference here is that if you specify Characters, then the lines won’t change if you change the Font Size, Tracking, or any other parameter that affects the amount of real estate a given line will take up. If Pixels is selected then changing any of those parameters will result in different words getting wrapped and your paragraphs will have more or less lines than it did before any changes.
Pixels are useful if you’re trying to stay within a specified area, such as the Title Safe area for television broadcast.
Baseline Shift
Baseline Shift Randomness
The Baseline is the invisible line that the characters sit on and descenders, like the tail of a ‘y’ hanging below the line. Baseline Shift adjusts the text up or down off the baseline.
Since the layer that the filter is applied to can also be repositioned, Baseline Shift has limited value. When animated, especially with text on paths, it can produce some interesting effects. Try using Baseline Shift with Text Spiral.
BS (Baseline Shift) Rate of Change
BS ROC Randomness
Sets a value change for the Baseline Shift control.