Text layers are painfully slow to work with.

[pasiv42547404]

Whenever I try to drag a text layer of type in it, everything happens with a huge delay. 2 secs today. Shouldn't be a problem fixing this in 2019…

Also, rendering simple script-animated text plate with a solid bg color could take up to 20 minutes. I have pretty good Macbook Pro i7.

BUT then, if I construct a cool Sci-Fi space scene in Element 3D (3rd party AE plugin), with several textures and lights and a depth of field camera in it, renderind could take less time! How??! .

[matteociaociao]

thats how it is now with after effects.

get used to it or go back to 2014 2015 after effects. i have the same problems, we all have the same problem in the office and there is nothing we can do....

[Roland Kahlenberg]

I and I' certain many other users do not share your experience when working with Text Layers. If you'd like to share your AEP, someone can take a look to see if the problem can be reproduced on their end. Additionally, it will be helpful if you provided more details of the Text Layer(s) used and if there were any other effects. Lastly, try trashing your AE Prefs.

[Rameez_Khan · Accepted solution]

Hi pasiv and matteociaociao,

This shouldn't be happening. I haven't heard about this in the community that much. I'd recommend that you file a bug on our UserVoice platform so that others can upvote it. It's also the best way to share your feedback with the After Effects team. Here is the link: After Effects: Hot (1659 ideas) – Adobe video & audio apps

Thanks,
Rameez

[berzins]

I have the same problem.
Just one solid background with no effects, 2 shape layers with primitive objects and 3 text layers each containing about 20 letters, not more. The only animation is the character scale. This setup is enough to kill the performance. That's nonsense!
Mostly it slows down when text layers contain the text copied from Illustrator text layer. If I convert text layers to outlines and import them in AFX as an asset - renders and all the performance gets back in a normal state. I can't explain it in no way. Still thinking - is it an AFX or Computer failure and how to fix it.
I would agree to share my project file if somebody would like to test it on another machine.

[berzins]

I just made one simple test.
As I mentioned before in my case it slows down specially when text is copied from Illustrator text layer. I guess it's possible that it pastes much information what After FX doesn't need.
When I rewrite all those texts with the keyboard using After FX text tool and formating them in AFX to get the same look - renders are quick again and everything seems nice.
I don't know ... maybe it is worth to try in your project?

[ulrik302769239vsi]

By deleting text i copied from another comp and make a brand new text layer solved the issue for me :))

[Sterphy]

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[Groog71]

I've been struggling with exactly the same problem for weeks.  I've a load of ongoing projects with tons of animated text.  These are short films for banking products so then need updating constantly.  The problem does seem to lie with where the text was coppied from and what data it brought with it.   There's a script available from here for $39

https://aescripts.com/pt_textedit/ 

Basiaclly it allows you to edit all the text layers in a project simultaneously.  So just by changing the font across the entire project the changing it back again you can solve the issue. 

[videomc74]

You rock!  Thanks so much for the tip.  Been plagued by this problem so many times in the past.  Text Edit worked like a charm!

[Kārlis]

Thank you so much!!!

I was so fustrated with my 30min 100composition 20layers video... now everything fly.. only by changing font to other and back..
wow!

[yam.tal]

My hero.

[SchemeA]

I don't know if this will help anybody, but I've been using Textor to do my by-letter or by-line text animation, and with AE2020 the render turns to crawl with just one text animation even when the text is not animating.

I noticed that by turning off the "Per Character 3D" by clicking the 3D layer option (you should see a pair of cubes in the 3D Layer toggle where you would normally see just one cube if 3D layer is enabled), it helped regain the speed somewhat. Of course that means I won't be able to see any z axis animation, but I rarely use it, so it wasn't an issue for me.

[videomc74]

Check and see if you have the same issue if you change your font to a common font like Arial, Helvetica, etc.  I've had this exact same problem in the past (and am having it today, with Rubik font).  Super slow performance.  Then I change the font to something like Helvetica and everything is fine.  I'm on a MacBook Pro running CC2020.  FYI, I had an issue in the past on a PC machine where I was using some grunge style font.  After Effects slowed down to a crawl.  But, that same font in After Effects on my MacBook Pro had no issues at all.

[user7939112]

I've been having the same issues with text layers in CC2020. Honestly, the best way around it was downsaving a version to cc2019, reinstalling the old AE 2019, and just using that. It literally took 2.5 hours to render a 2-minute long comp of 8 different animated quotes with solids as background. In cc2019, it took 6 minutes. Just download the old AE.

[User00000001]

If anyone else is having this issue it was a font style problem for me.  Switched to Arial and it's super fast again.

[shimicohen]

This happnes a lot when you use project that are created by others and they use different versions of the fonts you're using. although you're both using the same font - sometime the verstions differs and need to be updatesd.
Whenever this happens to me I use this script to replace all the fonts in my project to updated fonts with a single click.
worth checking out.

https://www.vdodna.com/tutorials/fontmate-tutorial/

[bcmaness]

This worked for me perfectly! I was working on a video project that someone else put together. It was painfully slow to work in the text boxes. Exporting the video took around 20 minutes. My other team members had no issues working in the files. Turns out I had the font downloaded from google instead of typekit. I deleted my local set, and redownloaded from TK. Not only does the file run super fast now, but exporting took 10 seconds. You just gave me back some of my life! 🙂

[Maarten Van Bavel]

I was having this problem all the time when working on projects created by others. Frustration all over the place. And now i know what the problem is and what to do. Thank you!

[jCarlosSoto]

This is so stressful !! It's worst than rendering 3D in 1997

[RafaBecerra]

Hi everyone.

I was having the same issue (I think) and I got a way to fix it (at least in my case). Just wanted to share this with you in case it helps somebody.  My problem was that I was importing some PSD files with text layers, then I converted those layers to text using the "Create / Convert to editable text" option. It became insanely slow to animate the text, almost 4 second per frame. It seems that the problem was the font for some reason. For fixing it I just selected another font and then selected back the previous one (don't do CMD+Z, you have to manually select another font and the manually select the one you need), then it was fast as it should be.

I hope it helps some of you.

[Danny5F9B]

Hey RafaBecerra, 

Thanks so much! you saved my life. This problem as occured for me from time to time. Adobe needs to have a look at this, slows down AE so badelt, and I have a 2020 beast macbook pro.

[Concept-Production]

Hello everybody, 

I really have the same issue, any solution so far ? 

I spend three days working on a project that cool takes only one hour, only just because of this font's issue. The only solution I know so far is to replace the missing font one by one in others to have the AFX working smoothly again. 

Let say if you have 2000 Layes with missing font in different comp, this is not going to be solved manually. All the giving solution in this discussion did not solve the issue. I just spend another day out trying those solutions with fails.

[Groog71]

I had the exact same problem.  Too mant tetx layers to individually replace them.  In the end I bought this for $39

https://aescripts.com/pt_textedit/ 

It replaces the font evert text layer in an entire project.  I just switchd fonts and then switched back again and the issue was solved.

[sequence W4]

Same problem here on 2 machines... even worse on my M1 Max Pro! 

It is when I add a Text Animation Preset work has ground to a halt.

AE 22.2.1 Intel 64GB

AE latest Beta M1 Max Pro 64GB