About the Anitype Settings
The Settings panel gives you full control over both the appearance and the motion of your text.
Located on the left side of the main page, it includes options for formatting — such as font, style, size, and alignment — as well as a wide range of animation-focused controls.
Button: RESET
The RESET button at the top of the Settings panel restores everything on the page to its default state — including all settings, options, and the text you’ve typed in the Text Field. This action can’t be undone, so use it with care if you’ve made changes you want to keep.
Buttons: LOAD and SAVE
Description
The LOAD button and the SAVE button are parts of a feature that allows you to store your current Settings, Options and Text Field content as Saved Presets text file (e.g. my-saved-preset.txt) on your computer.
You can archive them, share them, or reload them at any time.
Button: LOAD
LOAD lets you reopen a Saved Presets file you’ve created earlier.
Clicking it brings up your system’s Open dialog, where you can navigate to the folder containing your preset files and select the one you want.
Once loaded, Anitype restores all the settings, options, and text contained in that file.
Button: SAVE
SAVE creates a new Saved Presets file, and downloads it directly to your computer as a .txt file.
When you click the button, a pop-up asks you to name the preset.
If you previously loaded one of the installed presets, its name will already appear in the field, and you can keep it, edit it, or enter a new one.
After clicking OK to confirm, your browser opens a standard save dialog where you choose where to download and store the .txt file.
Buttons: Set to 0
In the Settings panel, most settings includes a Set to 0 button.
These buttons do not reset a setting to its default value — they simply set the value to zero, which effectively disables that setting.
Means the setting value is currently at 0.
Means the setting value is anything other than 0 (including negative values).
Clicking the button when it is in its green state brings the setting value to 0.
This provides a quick way to turn a setting off, and also gives you an at‑a‑glance view of which settings are currently in use.
Text Styling & Layout
Description
This section contains all the controls that shape how your text looks on screen. Here you can adjust the font, size, style, alignment, colors, spacing, and visual effects like outlines and drop shadows.
These settings define the overall appearance of your text before any animation is applied, giving you full control over readability, emphasis, and visual style. Each option can be used on its own or combined with others to create the exact look you want.
Font
This is where you select the font used in your animation. Choose one in the dropdown list or select the Custom option that allows you to import one of many available Google Fonts or to use any font installed on your computer. More details in the About Fonts section of these instructions.
The font you select is applied to all the text.
Font Size
Adjust the size of font used in your text animation.
This is applied to all the text.
Font Styles
Use the Font Styles buttons to apply Bold and/or Italic styles to your text.
This is applied to all the text.
Text Align
Use one of the three alignment buttons to align all the text on the left side, the center, or the right side of the page.
The alignment is applied to all the text.
Outline
This setting allows you to add an outline to the characters of your text.
You can adjust the thickness of the outline and its color.
The outline is applied to all the text.
Notes about Outline behavior
On some fonts, the Outline effect may behave differently than expected:
-
Bold + Outline can produce a thicker‑than‑normal outline.
When the Bold button is enabled, certain fonts increase their stroke width internally, which causes the outline to become unexpectedly heavy. -
Some fonts draw outlines on individual strokes instead of the full character shape.
This is common with geometric or multi‑stroke fonts such as Roboto or Montserrat.
For example, the letter T may show an outline on both the horizontal bar and the vertical stem instead of around the entire silhouette.
These behaviors depend on how each font is constructed and are not specific to Anitype. If you encounter unexpected results, try disabling Bold or switching to a different font with simpler outlines.
Drop Shadow
This setting allows you to add a Drop Shadow effect to all characters of the text.
You can adjust the X (horizontal) offset, the Y (vertical) offset, the blur amount, and its color.
The drop shadow is applied to all the text.
Adjust Line Spacing
In the Text Field, to start a new line of text, simply press Enter or Return once. The default line spacing is set to create a natural look to multiple lines of text, with a slight vertical distance applied between each line.
However, with the Line Spacing setting you can adjust this distance (using either positive or negative values) to spread the text vertically as you wish. In typography terms, this is known as "leading".
Adjust Paragraph Spacing
To start a new paragraph, simply press Enter or Return twice. The default paragraph spacing is twice the line spacing distance.
However, you can adjust this distance (using either positive or negative values) to reduce or increase the distance to separate each paragraph.
Margins
Three margin guides (left, right and top) can be shown on the preview pages.
They define the screen area in which the text will be confined.
By default, the Left Margin is set to 50px, the Right Margin to 0px and the Top Margin to 80px.
The Margins settings allow users to increase or decrease the margins as required.
Doing this can be useful — for example, if you have an animation with a large slide movement from left to right, you might want to set the left margin with a high value so that the characters do not initially appear off-screen.
Colors: Text and Background
The Font and Background labels of the Colors setting each include a color box.
Clicking one of these boxes opens the built‑in color picker, where you can choose the exact color you want.
The Font box controls the text color, and the Background box sets the color behind your animation.
For more information about the Font and Background colors, see the Convert Animation to Video section of these instructions.
Typing Settings
Type Delay
Type Delay controls how quickly each character appears in your animation.
Use the input field to set the delay between characters, measured in milliseconds (ms). A lower value makes the text appear faster, while a higher value creates a slower, more deliberate reveal.
Letter Fade In duration
Letter Fade-in Duration controls how long each character takes to fade into view, measured in milliseconds (ms). It works together with Type Delay:
- When Type Delay is 0 ms, the whole text appears at once, and the Fade‑In Duration setting determines how long that full fade-in lasts.
- When Type Delay is greater than 0 ms, each character appears at the chosen interval, and Fade‑in Duration defines how smoothly each one fades as it arrives.
Short Fade-In durations create a sharp, immediate appearance, while longer durations produce a softer, more gradual reveal.
Letter Spacing Settings
Description
The Letter Spacing settings control the spacing between characters and can be used either statically or as an animation.
Negative values tighten the spacing; positive values spread characters apart.
Letter spacing START
In a letter spacing animation, this is the initial spacing applied when the text appears.
Unit: pixels (px).
Letter spacing END
In a letter spacing animation, this is the final spacing the text will reach.
Unit: pixels (px).
Letter spacing Duration
In a letter spacing animation, the Duration sets how long it takes to transition from the START value to the END value.
Unit: milliseconds (ms)
If START and END are the same, the text simply uses that spacing with no animation.
If START and END differ, Anitype animates the spacing over the chosen duration.
For example:
- START: –5 px
- END: 5 px
- Duration: 2000 ms
These values will gradually expand the spacing from tight to wide over two seconds.
Slide Settings
Description
The Slide setting makes your text move into view from a chosen direction.
You can slide horizontally, vertically, or combine both to create diagonal motion.
The distance of the slide is measured in pixels (px), and the duration, in milliseconds (ms), controls how long the movement takes.
This effect is ideal for giving your text a dynamic entrance on screen.
If Type Delay is set to zero, the slide effect is applied to the entire text.
If Type Delay is set to any value above zero, the slide effect is applied in sequence to each character.
Horizontal Slides
You can either choose a Slide Left to Right or a Slide Right to Left horizontal sliding by clicking the down arrow and selecting the desired option in the dropdown list.
Set the Slide value to the amount of pixels you want your text to move horizontally.
Vertical Slides
You can either choose a Slide Down or a Slide Up vertical sliding by clicking the down arrow and selecting the desired option in the dropdown list.
Set the Slide value to the amount of pixels you want your text to move vertically.
Slide Duration
Slide Duration controls how long the sliding movement takes from start to finish. It determines the speed of the effect based on the slide distances you’ve set for the horizontal and/or vertical slide(s).
Zoom Settings
Description
The Zoom settings allow you to apply three different animated zoom effects to the characters of your text.
Use the dropdown menu to select the zoom effect you want to use.
Zoom values are in pixels (px) and Duration values are in milliseconds (ms).
To get a zoom animation, you must enter a value in the Zoom Duration parameter. If it is set to zero, then no Zoom effect will be shown.
Zoom IN + OUT
Makes each character briefly grow larger before returning to its original size.
The text starts at the Font size value you’ve set, scales up by the number of pixels specified, and then shrinks back down to its starting size, creating a quick “bulge‑style" zoom effect.
Zoom IN
Makes each character start smaller than the value you've set in Font Size, then scale up until it reaches that size.
It creates a smooth “growing into place” effect as the text appears.
Zoom OUT
Makes each character start larger than the font size you’ve set, then scale down until it reaches that final size.
It creates a smooth “shrinking into place” effect as the text settles on screen.
Zoom Duration
This is the time it takes for the zoom effect to be applied to the characters.
Zoom Start Delay
This is a delay you can set before the Zoom effect begins to show.
Combined with other effects, it can create very effective and entertaining text animations as the zooming can be delayed to start after the other effects.
Pause Settings
Description
Adding pauses to your animations can produce some highly creative and eye‑catching effects.
Examples:
- In a large block of text, a delay between each paragraph is often desirable to give time for the viewer to catch up reading the text.
- Setting a pause between each word of a short video title can be very effective.
- You may want to consider using both Comma and Sentence delays: setting the Comma delay slightly shorter than a Sentence delay is useful, for example, if your text is a poem or song lyrics.
All Pause values are in milliseconds (ms).
In each Pause setting, a Duration of 0 ms means no pause.
Pause After Words
This setting adjusts the duration of the pauses inserted at each SPACE typed in between words.
Pause After Paragraphs
This setting adjusts the duration of the pauses inserted at the end of each paragraph.
Pause Between Lines
This setting adjusts the duration of the pauses inserted after a single line break.
Pause After Sentences
This setting adjusts the duration of the pauses inserted after each period, question mark, or exclamation mark.
Pause After Commas
This setting adjusts the duration of the pauses inserted after each comma, colon or semicolon.