How to wrap text around a shape in After Effects

If you are stuck with Illustrator, does this give you any ideas?

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There is no way to get genuine text flow around objects. All the expressions and scripts in the world can't overcome the shortcomings of AE's text engine implementation. If at all, trhose solutions require your to type out individual lines or even converts every letter to an individual shape and then they can be manipulated in limited fashion using convoluted expressions involving sampleImage() to detect the shapes and then some... If you need this for static designs, it would be best to simpyl stick with AI or ID and save a PDF/ AI file from there, then import that into AE, possibly after converting text to outlines and all that. Otherwise you realyl have to grind through this the hard way, though some plug-ins can of course help as already suggested.

Mylenium

The best way to approach this may depend on the way you're intending it to animate - can you clarify that?

If the text needs to be persistent, but reactive to the cutout shape in the middle, Trapcode Form seems like a good answer. I mocked this up in about 2 minutes:

If the characters themselves need to be more dynamic or reactive, Workbench has done a lot of interesting stuff with techniques like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdoTaj01MQ