How can you make text converge (like it's being pressed) into the center of the word?

[Jack24443636o995]

I typed out the "crowded." I want the "cro" and the "ded" to push inwards towards the "w." Going into animate -> and then tracking amount gives a similar effect to what I'm looking for, but the word compresses to the "C" rather than the "w". I can't figure out how to make the same effect but the outwards of the texts push in towards the center. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[thepixelsmith · Accepted solution]

The tracking animation that you created is based on the paragraph alignment. Change the alignment to center and it should work the way you want.

[Rick Gerard]

1. Add a Position, Scale, and Tracking animator to the text layer
2. Set the Animator/Advanced options to Percentage, Characters, Add, and Triangle
3. Adjust the Tracking amount to a negative number to squeeze the text and make sure the option is set to Before and After
4. Adjust the scale and if needed, the Position in y to squeeze the letters in the middle
5. Animate the Animator/Advanced/Amount from zero to 100% to squeeze the text

You will get something like this:

[Jack24443636o995]

Both viable answers to my problem. Thank you!