What It Does
TextBox generates a background shape directly on your text layer that updates automatically when you adjust tracking, change font size, or reanimate. No need for parenting, mattes, or expressions. The shape lives on the text layer itself, handling all the adjustments you’d otherwise do manually.
Key Features
Shape modes. Choose from auto-fit, square, circle, or polygon backgrounds. Auto mode follows your text bounds exactly. Polygon mode lets you create multi-sided backgrounds for more geometric looks.
Customizable expansion. Control how far the box extends beyond your text, globally or per edge (top, bottom, left, right). Set negative values to crop inward. Useful when you want breathing room around titles or tight backgrounds on subtitles.
Border and matting options. Add solid or gradient fills (linear or radial), adjust opacity per gradient stop. Borders support dashes and line caps (butt or rounded). Create double-stroke effects or outlined text boxes without extra layers.
Transform controls. Animate the box independently from the text. Move, rotate, or scale the background while your text stays put. Helpful for reveal animations where the box enters before the text.
Corner rounding. Round all corners uniformly or set individual corner percentages. Locks ascenders and descenders so your box height stays consistent when animating text in and out, preventing jumpy backgrounds mid-animation.
Trim Paths. Animate the box outline on or off using trim paths, similar to shape layers.
Works with vertical, horizontal, and paragraph text. Supports motion blur and 8/16/32bpc color depth. Compatible with 3D text (X/Y position only, ignores Z-axis).
Who It’s For
Useful for title animators who need consistent backgrounds on lower thirds, editors adding subtitles or closed captions, and motion designers creating kinetic typography where text tracking changes frame-by-frame. If you’ve ever parented a shape layer to text and watched it fail to account for animated tracking, this solves that.
Pricing
TextBox uses a pay-what-you-want model. The suggested price is $29.95 for a one-time license. If you bought version 1 after August 21, 2018, you can upgrade to version 2 for free. Otherwise, the upgrade is $15. No subscription. Trial version available on the product page.
Compatibility note: Parented rotations don’t work in CS6 through CC 2017. This is fixed in CC 2018 and later. Supports After Effects CS6 through 2026.