How to Create a Typewriter Effect in Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2018)

The typewriter effect is a text animation where letters appear one at a time, as if someone is typing them in real time. It is a classic effect that works for everything from movie title cards to tutorial overlays to creative intros. The viewer’s attention is naturally drawn to each character as it appears, which makes it a great way to emphasize specific text.

This effect can be done in both After Effects and Premiere Pro. After Effects has a dedicated text animator that makes it faster, but if Premiere Pro is your only software, you can absolutely pull it off. It just takes a bit more manual work. Today I am going to show you how to create a typewriter effect in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

How to Create a Typewriter Effect in Premiere Pro

Setting Up the Text

1. Create a new sequence and drag in your footage.
2. Select the Type Tool (T) and click on the Program Monitor to create a text box.
3. Type out the full text you want to animate. For example: “This is text.”
4. Style and position the text where you want it to appear when the animation is finished.

Keyframing the Source Text

5. Click on the graphics layer in the timeline, then go to Effect Controls.
6. Find the text element and expand it. Look for the Source Text property.
7. Move the playhead to the point where you want the typing animation to end (where all the text is visible). Click the stopwatch next to Source Text to create a keyframe with the full text.
8. Now move backward a few frames. Delete the last character from the text in the Source Text field. This creates another keyframe with one fewer character.
9. Move backward a few more frames and delete the next character. Keep going, removing one character at a time and creating a keyframe at each step, until no characters remain.

Calculating the Timing

The key to a smooth typewriter effect is even spacing between each character. Here is the math:

• Count the total number of characters in your text (including spaces).
• Decide how long you want the full animation to take (in frames).
• Divide: Total Frames / Total Characters = Frames Per Character

For example, if your text is “This is text” (12 characters including spaces) and you want the animation to take 3 seconds at 30fps (90 frames), that is 90 / 12 = 7.5 frames per character. Round to 7 or 8 frames between each keyframe.

Adding a Cursor (Optional)

For extra realism, add a blinking cursor after the text:

1. Create a second text element with just a pipe character ( | ).
2. Position it right after the last character of your animated text.
3. Keyframe its Opacity to alternate between 100% and 0% every 15-20 frames. This creates the blinking cursor effect.

Tips

• This method is tedious for long text. If you have more than a sentence to animate, After Effects is significantly faster with its built-in text animators. Check the video tutorial and jump to 3:55 to see the After Effects method.
• Use a monospace font. Fonts like Courier or Source Code Pro have equal character widths, so the text doesn’t shift around as characters appear. With variable-width fonts, the text can jump left and right as wider or narrower characters are added.
• Add a typing sound effect. Pair each character appearance with a subtle keypress sound for full immersion.
• For other text animation techniques, check out the rolling text reveal or the quick text reveal.

That is how you create a typewriter effect in Premiere Pro. It takes patience for longer text, but the result is a clean, engaging animation that draws attention to every word.