How to Create a Rolling Text Reveal in Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2018)

Text is essential to most videos. Whether it is introducing a story, giving a location, or highlighting a key point, well-animated text adds polish to your production. One of the cleanest text animations is the rolling reveal, where each word rolls up into view individually with a slight stagger between them. It creates a fluid, cascading effect that looks professional without being flashy.

Today we are going to go over how to create a rolling text reveal in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

How to Create a Rolling Text Reveal

Setting Up the Guide Layer

1. Start with a sequence that has your footage on the timeline.
2. Select the Type Tool (T) and type out your full text on the Program Monitor. This will serve as a guide layer so you know where each word needs to end up.
3. Hold Alt and drag the text graphics layer up to duplicate it.
4. Select the bottom copy and lower its Opacity in Effect Controls to about 30%. This is your reference guide. You can see where the words go without it interfering with the animation.

Creating the First Word

5. Go to the top graphics layer. Edit the text and delete everything except the first word.
6. Go to the Effects panel and search for Crop (under Video Effects > Transform). Drag it onto this graphics layer.
7. In Effect Controls, increase the Bottom crop value until it creates a clean line just below the word. This is the reveal boundary. Anything below this line is hidden.
8. Now find the text layer’s Position property inside the graphics layer (not the main layer’s Motion controls). Drag the Y position downward so the word sits below the crop line and is completely hidden.

Animating the Reveal

9. Click the stopwatch next to the text layer’s Position to create a keyframe at the hidden position.
10. Move forward about 20 frames.
11. Drag the Y position back up so the word sits at its final position, aligned with the guide layer.
12. Right click the first keyframe and select Temporal Interpolation > Ease Out. Right click the second keyframe and select Temporal Interpolation > Ease In. This gives the animation a smooth, organic feel.

Adding More Words

13. Hold Alt and drag the graphics layer up to duplicate it. Offset it about 5 frames to the right on the timeline so it starts slightly later.
14. Edit the text to show the second word and line it up with the guide layer.
15. Repeat for each word in your text. Each one should be offset by about 5 frames from the previous one, creating the cascading roll-up effect.
16. When all words are in place, delete the guide layer.

Tips

• Keep the timing consistent. Equal spacing between each word’s start time keeps the cascade feeling rhythmic and professional.
• Adjust the reveal speed by changing the distance between your two keyframes. 15 frames for a faster reveal, 25 for a slower, more dramatic one.
• For a simpler text animation, check out the quick professional text reveal tutorial, which animates the entire text as one piece instead of word by word.
• Add motion blur using the Transform effect for an even smoother look.

That is how you create a rolling text reveal in Premiere Pro. It takes a bit more setup than a simple fade-in, but the result is a much more polished and dynamic text animation.