How to Animate Text Using a Glowing Stroke Effect in After Effects
Sometimes plain text on screen just isn’t enough. A glowing stroke around each letter gives your typography more presence and makes it feel like part of the scene instead of just sitting on top. In this guide, we’ll show you how to animate your text outlines with a clean, neon-style glow. It’s quick to build, easy to customize, and doesn’t need any plugins.
Step 1: Convert your text into shapes
Start by creating your text directly in After Effects. Once you’re happy with the layout and font, convert the text to shapes so you can animate each letter’s outline using stroke controls. This unlocks path-level tools like Trim Paths and lets you animate the reveal like a drawing effect.
Do this:
- Type your text using the Text Tool
- Right-click the text layer → Create → Create Shapes from Text
- Hide or delete the original text layer (optional)
Step 2: Remove the fill and enable stroke
To get a clean stroke-based look, you’ll need to disable the fill and turn on stroke in your shape layer. Make sure the stroke is set to solid color—this gives you a crisp outline you can animate later.
Do this:
- Select the new Shape Layer
- In the toolbar at the top, disable Fill
- Enable Stroke and set it to Solid Color
- Choose your preferred stroke color and width
Step 3: Animate the stroke using Trim Paths
Now that your text is made of strokes, it’s time to animate them. Add a Trim Paths property to your shape group and keyframe it from 0 to 100%. This gives you that “draw-on” effect where the stroke traces out each letter.
Do this:
- Open the Shape Layer dropdown
- Click Add → Trim Paths
- Animate the End property from 0% to 100% over time
- Adjust timing to fit your scene
Step 4: Duplicate the layer for glow buildup
A single stroke looks clean, but to make it glow, you’ll need to layer it. Duplicate your text layer three times, then set each one to Add mode and apply blur effects to soften the edges. Stacking these blurred layers creates the signature glowing aura.
Do this:
- Duplicate the stroke layer three times
- Set each to Add blending mode
- Apply Fast Box Blur to all three
- Set blur radius to 8, 16, and 32 on each layer respectively
Now you’ve got your glowing strokes animated text
This effect is a great way to add energy and polish to titles, intros, or any moment that needs visual emphasis. You can change stroke color, layer in flicker, or combine it with background movement to give it more life. Once you’ve set it up once, you can reuse and adjust it across projects in just a few clicks.
Make animated text without starting from scratch
If you’d rather skip the setup, Videobolt has ready-made templates featuring glowing stroke text, animated titles, neon effects, and more. With 17,800+ customizable motion graphics templates optimized for fast rendering and easy editing, you can simply drop in your message and export in minutes. It’s a quick way to stay on brand and keep your videos moving. Happy creating!