How do I underline text in After Effects?

[robi567]

How do I underline text in After Effects?​

[Andrew Yoole]

The simple answer is that you can't.  The After Effects text engine does not have an underline feature.

But, as with most things in After Effects, there are a million ways to do things. 

You can simply add a solid layer, draw a path under the text, and apply the stroke effect.

You can draw a shape layer as a line under your text.

You can overlay a second text layer and use underscores to underline your text.   ________________________

While perhaps inconvenient, all of these solutions offer you the advantage of being able to independently animate the underline, because it is not built into the text itself.

Discussions of this topic have happened for years on this forum, and generally devolve into a partisan "Why can't I underline text?" vs "Why would you want to, it's bad typography!" argument. 

[jonathan8_8]

It may be bad typography, but when you need to re-create the way hyperlinks are shown in text messages, a quick underline feature would be useful…

[Dave_LaRonde]

jonathan8_8  wrote

It may be bad typography, but when you need to re-create the way hyperlinks are shown in text messages, a quick underline feature would be useful…

Well, considering people have been asking for this since at least AE Version 3, I wouldn't hold my breath......

[Pat Finnegan]

And...

Some of us work for clients. When the client insists that something be underlined, I underline. With the underline feature, which by the way is available in the simple text editor this site uses, it just takes more time.

[Gio Ferox]

Know this was posted ages ago, however, a workaround I use is to make a line mask on the text layer where I want the underline to be and then apply a stroke effect.

So:

1. Use the pen tool to make line below text as a mask

2. Effect > Generate > Stroke or type stroke in the effects and presets search bar and apply it to the same text layer

3. Set path as Mask and adjust other settings as desired in the Effect Controls panel.

[Camille_F]

Very simple but elegant solution. Thank you

[Gio Ferox]

Glad I could help someone 🙂

[monikas42172328]

Amazing!!!! Thanks for your help!

[Simply Mobilizing Int'l]

I've b een using stroke just for reveal text and I never thought that stroke will be also my friend for easy underlining text. I am making video now. And this project contains 7 videos. I'm on a half of it and every videos has so many words with underline. I regret I didn't search how to make it easy in video/session 1. Thank you for this new knowledge.

[chrish44352852]

Thank you for the help!

Is it just me, or does this not work for more than one underline?
I needed to underline two separate words in a sentence and the effect > generate > stroke version only let me add one visible stroke to the line of text. 

Why would adobe just not include it if it's in all of their other software gahh... I spent too much time with this today. what a waste. But thank you again for those answers! I ended up using methods 1 and 2 listed here. I don't like that I have to Frankenstein it all together. At least now I can move on to other tasks.

Thank you again!