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matthewm25142564
Participant
September 25, 2026

Creating a text layer with the expression 'thisLayer.name' on sourceText and Changing font size changes the layer name

  • September 25, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 23 views

Steps to recreate:
-Create a Comp
-Create a text layer (point or paragraph doesn’t matter)
-Type in something like test01, or test6, or MyLayer72 (Must have a number at the end)
-On the layers SourceText add the expression: thisLayer.name
-Duplicate the layer at least 2 times (1 time does not appear to recreate the issue)
-Highlight the duplicated layers and change the font size.  The name of the selected layers will start climbing

Works in ‘Legacy ExtendScript’ and ‘Javascript Expression’ engine.

Can recreate it in After Effects 26.0.0 and 25.1.0 Windows 

    1 reply

    Dan Ebberts
    Community Expert
    Dan EbbertsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 26, 2026

    I can’t replicate this behavior, but when you let your layer take on the default name of your text and the text ends in a number like that, the number does get bumped when you duplicate the layer. It doesn’t sound like that’s what’s happening to you, but I can’t get any unexpected behavior when I change the font size of the selected duplicate layers. This is on 26.5.0.

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