Can't copy paste text from other apps into After Effects

[Napstudio]

I can't copy paste text from other apps into After Effects tekst layer. Not from InDesign or Pages or any other app. 

[jeffsarge]

I've had the same problem.  Really kills workflow.

FYI, this seems to be a Mac issue.  It works fine on the PC.

[hesam0D4C]

Not Only a Mac issue.

I have this issue on Windows.

[swaite-2]

Agree. On a Mac (m1 ) and cant copy. Insanely frustrating. 

[JohnColombo]

Hi @Napstudio, @jeffsarge, and @swaite-2,

Thank you all for reporting this issue. We have not been able to reproduce this issue on macOS 11.4 with either the latest release version ( v18.2.1 ) or the latest Beta version. It would be very helpful if you could make and share a screen recording of an attempt to copy & paste text from any of the listed apps. Some additional answers that may help us track this down:

• What After Effects version are you experiencing this issue in?
• Is pasting disabled only when trying to paste into Text layers or is it also not pasting into other AE text fields like the Project panel's search or when renaming project items or layers?
• Is the keyboard shortcut for Paste also not working or only the menu item?
• Does copying text within After Effects itself show any different behavior?
• Does the text contain special characters?
• What language is macOS set to and what language is AE set to?

Thank you all very much for any further info you can offer, I hope we can get to the root cause of this issue.

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

[Daniel_87]

I am also having the same issue.

2015 Intel Mac (11.4).

AE 18.4.0.

Copying the text "Health Goals" from a PDF. Paste into text doc fine. Does not paste into after effects text frame (nothing appears). Copy different text inside AE "QWERTY" and this text pastes ok. Go back to text doc and copy "Health Goals" again. Paste in AE and "QWERTY" shows instead. Created adjustment layer, renamed with paste and it shows "Health Goals" as expected.

Really killing productitivty. 

[Leng-videopro]

I have a list of graphics in a word document and can't copy paste them into AE. I was able to last week.

1. Just updated to AE 18.4.0 this morning and am experiencing this issue.

2. I can copy/paste word to photoshop and within AE from one text box to another and also from comp name to folder name. Can't go PS to AE either.

3. Keyboard shortcut is working.

4. No, it seems to be the same within AE. It is as if AE does not copy command outside of it. If I copy/paste "ABC" between two text boxes within AE, it works. Then I go to word and copy/paste "DEF" from Word to PS, it works. Then I go back to AE and open new text box and hit paste, "ABC" is what I get.

5. No special characters and I have tried to switch to a general font like Arial.

6. Windows 10 Pro, everything set to English.

Thanks for any help.

[defaultqep7876va4m6]

I am having the exact same issue.  Just upgraded, I'm on a Macbook Pro with the M1.

[loko2525]

I am having the same issue on a PC. After Effects Version 18.4.

I am copying and pasting Japanese and about 2 months ago this was working just fine. I can make a new folder and paste the Japanese there (as the folder name). But then when I try to paste it on the text layer in a composition, it does not work. I know that the font I have the text layer set to supports Japanese so I that shouldn't be the issue. Premiere Pro is handling this just fine for me. I do have 3rd party extensions installed but have had them for a long time and have not added any new ones that should be disrupting anything like this. Any help is much appreciated, thanks! 

[designp86256320]

I definitly can repoduce it, was looking up the problem and land it here. (I'm a Mac user) Big Sur

[davidb28758509]

I'm having the exact same problem ever since I upgraded to AE version 18.4.0

[Daniel_87]

I was wondering if the recent update caused this issue. But this thread was started ages ago. If I experiece this again on my next project I will wind it back a version to see if that fixes the issue.

[duanel87903666]

Yes, same issue here on AE beta v22 on my m1 MacBook pro. I can copy and paste within the app itself but not from outside the app into AE.  I can't spell so please help Adobe. 🙂 

[kiedrowski]

Same here. MBP 16in Intel i9. Can copy into the search bar at the top right of toolbar, but can't go into a text later and update text in that layer. Such a weird issue, but defintiely slowing things down.

[kiedrowski]

I can copy from an existing text layer to the same or another text layer and that works fine, but taking from anywhere but AE, still doesn't work.

[Paul Uu]

To follow up on the questions John asked:

1. Are any of your experiencing this running any startup scripts or other AE extensions?
2. What 3rd Party AE plugins are installed?
3. What are you AE "Type" Preferences set to?

4. Are you having the same issue pasting text into Premiere Pro?

[Daniel_87]

Mine is a fairly clean/fresh install;

1.

Dojo_Shifter_v2.0.jsxbin

2.

FXConsole.plugin

depth_of_field.plugin

Animation Composer 3

Motion-3

3.

Text Engine: Latin
Font menu: Small / 14

Resolve Fonts: no checkmark

4.

Premiere not installed / used

[Leng-videopro]

1-none

2-explode shape layers

joysticks and sliders

labels

limber

newton 3

prism

wayfinder

gridder

rift

3-Latin

small

14

resolve fonts: no checkmark

4- I can copy/paste into Premiere

Doing some other testing. I can copy an expresion from a word doc and paste it into AE. I can copy out of word doc and paste as a folder or comp name.

[kiedrowski]

1. Nope

2. Motion 2/3, GifGun, Butt Capper. Flow, EaseCopy

3. Text Engine: Latin, Font menu: Small / 14, Resolve Fonts: no checkmark

4. I don't really use Pr for text things, just Ae

[Roland Kahlenberg]

Paul, someone mentioned this issue doesn't occur with a fresh AEP created with 18.4 but the problem is there for AEPs created prior to 18.4. Also, possibly related from a similar issue, pre-18.4, is starting AE in Admin Mode.

[Paul Uu]

Hmm, still no repro for us here at Adobe. Something is at play that we have yet to identify. We'll keep at it though. 

But any further details or isolation anyone can provide would be most helpful.

[pjb37456642]

I cant seem to paste text into after effects. When I try copying(right clicking) and pasting from any other program it wont paste into the text box Ive created in after effects. Ive tried deleting preferences and right clicking to copy but to no avail.

[David Arbor]

Is this something you were able to do before? I paste text into AE all the time with no issues. Are you making sure the text box is active with a blinking cursor first? Another thing I'll see sometimes is that a leading space or carriage return will be copied and pasted which pushes the text out of view of the text box. So it's possible your text is there but just hidden outside the bounds of the box. To get around this sometimes I'll just quickly paste the text into the Windows search bar (or Spotlight on macOS) just to get a plain text with no formatting version of the text and then I'll cut and paste it back into AE. 

If none of these things work, can you post a screen recording of your whole screen showing the process?

[pjb37456642]

Hi David. Ive been able to do it before no problem. I can only copy existing text from within After Effects comps. Cant copy and paste from external programs. When I copy and paste into the search bar it looks fine - but wont paste into AE.

[David Arbor]

Which exact version (not just the marketing name like AE 2021) are you using? You can find this in Help > About Adobe After Effects. Also, what OS are you on? Do you have another version of After Effects installed to try?