You make a graphic follow a changing text layer by applying the Templater Settings effect to the graphic and attaching it to the text layer. Pick an edge or a corner of the text, and Templater moves the graphic every time the words change.
The problem is easy to picture. You have a lower third with a small logo that sits to the right of a name. One row of your data holds “Lee” and the next holds “Alexandria Montgomery-Okafor.” If the logo is parked at a fixed spot in After Effects, it floats in empty space for the short name and gets run over by the long one. Nobody wants to fix that by hand on version two hundred. This article covers how the attachment feature works, how to chain and group layers when one graphic is not enough, how to align a layer to its composition instead, and where the feature stops being the right tool.
How attaching works, and why the logo does not need data
Templater is built around layers that receive data. A text layer maps to a column in your spreadsheet or a key in your JSON, and when a new row arrives the words change. Changed words mean a changed size. Templater updates the dynamic layer’s position and scale, and the result is a new bounding box.
A logo has no column. It is the same file in every version, so it is not dynamic. But it still has to respond to the text, because the text decides where the empty space is. Our documentation describes this case directly. You can assign the Templater Settings effect to an audio-visual layer when you want Templater to adjust only its transform properties and not its containing data. The layer keeps its own contents. Templater only moves and scales it relative to the dynamic layers around it.
That distinction is the whole feature in one sentence. The effect does not make the logo dynamic. It makes the logo aware of its neighbor.
The documented steps are short. Apply the Templater Settings effect to the graphic layer that should move when a sibling changes. Attach that graphic to the dynamic text layer. Then say which edge or corner of the text layer the graphic attaches to. The choices are None, Left Edge, Top Edge, Right Edge, Bottom Edge, Top Left Corner, Top Right Corner, Bottom Left Corner and Bottom Right Corner.
For the logo that sits to the right of a name, you attach to the right edge of the text layer. When “Lee” arrives, the right edge of the text is close to the left, and the logo sits just beyond it. When the long name arrives, the right edge moves out, and the logo goes with it.
Our documentation compares attaching to parenting one layer to another, and then marks the difference. Attaching tracks the extents of a dynamic layer, meaning its bounding box, so the other layer can align to those extents. For text that changes width, the size of the layer is the piece of information you need.
The controls, one at a time
When you work from the attachment controls inside the Templater Settings effect, the sequence is this. Apply the effect to more than one layer in the composition, because attaching needs at least two. Select the layer that should move. Under Attachment, choose the sibling in the Attach to Layer drop down. The layer repositions itself to the sibling you chose. Then use the Attach On drop down to choose the edge or corner.
There are two optional controls, and they solve the two most common complaints about a first attempt.
The first is the Center on edges box. Say you attach a small badge to the top edge of a headline and you want the badge centered on that edge, instead of lined up with one end of it. Check the box. Our documentation words it as centering the layer on the edge of the sibling when you are attaching to an edge. The placement list shows both versions of each edge, for example a on left edge of b, and a centered on left edge of b.
The second is the Attach padding slider. If you want a cushion of pixels along an attached edge or corner, you set it there. Without padding, the graphic touches the text. With a little padding, it reads as a deliberate pairing. Only you know how much air the design wants.
One warning from the documentation deserves its own line. A layer cannot be attached to itself. Doing that gives unexpected results. It sounds obvious, but when a comp has several similar layers and the drop down lists them all, picking the wrong name is an easy slip. If a graphic jumps somewhere strange, check the Attach to Layer field first.
A worked scenario: a name, a title, and a badge
Here is a build that uses only the steps above and the chaining steps in the next section. It is the kind of lower third this feature suits.
The composition has three layers. A name text layer is mapped to a column called name. A title text layer is mapped to a column called title. A small round badge, a static graphic, shows an icon. The name is long on some rows and short on others. The title is different on every row too, and it should sit under the name.
Start with the badge, since it is the simplest. Apply Templater Settings to the badge, attach it to the name layer, and choose Right Edge. Add some padding so it does not crowd the last letter. Preview the first row, then a row with a very short name, then the longest name you can find in your data. The badge should follow the right edge in all three. If you want to see how Templater reads the layout, use the tools the docs point to: the Magic Wand tool in the Transport area of the main Templater panel for chains and groups, or the current state choice in the Preview uses dropdown for alignment.
Test with the extremes first, not the average row. Layout problems show up at the edges of your data, and a spreadsheet of three hundred ordinary names will not hide a single outlier that breaks the design. We cover that habit in more depth in our write-up on managing text expansion in a fixed layout, where the same long-string problem shows up in translated text.
Now the title. You want it to sit below the name, wherever the name’s bottom edge ends up. Apply the effect to the title layer, attach it to the name layer, and choose the Bottom Edge. As the name layer changes size and position with each row, the title follows its bottom edge. That is a second attachment, and it does not interfere with the first one, because each layer has its own settings.
This is the point where most people want to add a third dependency. The badge should also follow the title, or a rule line should sit under the whole stack. That is where chaining comes in.
Chaining, grouping, and aligning to the composition
A single attachment is one layer following one other layer. A chain is a series of them. Our documentation says that a chain ensures changes to a single dynamic layer cascade to all of the chained layers.
The documented example uses four layers named a, b, c and d. Layer b attaches to layer a on the bottom edge. Layer c attaches to layer b along the bottom edge. Layer d attaches to layer c along the bottom edge. Everything else in the stack is chained to a, so it conforms to a’s layout rules. Change a, and b, c and d all shift.
You can see why a chain is worth building. In a normal After Effects project, a stack of text layers with different amounts of content means someone nudges each layer after every change. In a chain, you move one thing, which is the data. The comp does the rest.
Grouping chained layers as one object
Sometimes you want Templater to treat a chain as one object and lay it out as a whole instead of as separate pieces. As of Templater 3.3, you can group dynamic comp layers either horizontally or vertically.
The steps are documented. For each layer in the group, go to Effects, then Templater Settings, then Layout. Choose a value from the Group Position drop-down. The first layer is the Cap. The layers in between are each a Middle. The final layer is the Base. Then choose a value from the Group Direction drop-down. The default is Vertical. You repeat these steps for each layer in the group.
The direction determines how the picture reads. Horizontal groupings are built from left to right. Vertical groupings are built from top to bottom. In the four-layer example, if the grouping is horizontal, layer a is the Cap on the left, b and c are the Middle layers in that order, and d is the Base on the right.
There is one hard limit, and the documentation is direct about it. You can only have one group or chain per composition. If your layout is more complicated, you pre-compose a group and then use that precomp in another group in the parent composition. That is a design constraint, not a bug, and it tells you how to plan. A page with a headline block, a stats block and a footer block is three groups. Put each in its own precomp, and then arrange the precomps in the parent. Layout Rules also work inside nested compositions, which our general layout page lists as a way to get more flexibility in how dynamic layers scale, align and reposition.
When the anchor is the frame, not another layer
Not every graphic should follow text. A watermark belongs in the corner of the frame no matter what the words say. For that, the right tool is alignment, not attachment.
The steps are different. Make a layer, apply the Templater Settings effect, and go to the Alignment parameters. In the Align to menu, choose a side or corner of the layer’s composition. The options are Left, Left centered, Top, Top centered, Right, Right centered, Bottom, Bottom Centered, Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left, Bottom Right, and None Centered. The Padding field adds a cushion of pixels on the side or corner you selected.
Two checkboxes matter. Initialize to Center makes the layer start at the center before it repositions to the alignment setting. Consider anchor point measures the alignment against the layer’s anchor point instead of its bounding box. If a layer’s anchor point is not where you think of its edge, that second box is the one to know about.
Scale works alongside alignment. Our Layout Rules page says the Scale Factor parameter rescales a layer to a percentage of its parent composition’s dimensions, so 100 percent fills the composition. It gives an example of a text layer forced to 90 percent of its composition’s width and height and aligned to the bottom left corner, while a footage layer in the same comp aligns to the bottom right. Each layer has its own rules, and they apply per render job.
Choosing between attach, align and group
You can sort the choice by one question. What is the graphic’s reference point?
If it is another layer whose size changes, attach it. If it is the edge of the frame, align it. If several layers stack in a line and the whole stack has to behave together, chain them and group them. Mixing is fine. A badge can attach to a name while a watermark aligns to a corner of the same composition.
What can go wrong, and when to choose something else
A few traps are worth knowing before you build.
The first is Separate Dimensions. The Layout Rules page carries a warning that layout rules will not function correctly for any layer properties that have Separate Dimensions enabled. If you split a position property into separate X and Y values in After Effects, the layout rules are not reliable on that property. If a layer that should follow its sibling stays stubbornly still, look at its position property before anything else.
The second is that a layer needs a sibling to follow. Our documentation describes attaching as a relationship between sibling layers, each with the Templater Settings effect, so plan which layers share a comp from the start.
The third is that you will want to preview your work in more than one state. Our documentation points to the Magic Wand tool and to the Preview uses dropdown as ways to see how the layout engine interprets your choices. The result is what Templater produces for each row, so check rows and not only the template.
The fourth is the limit on how many things one text layer can express. A single text layer takes one font, one size, one weight and one style. If you need part of a line to look different from the rest, such as a bold first name followed by a light last name, one layer cannot do it. Our FAQ describes a partial workaround that happens to rely on exactly this feature. Position the text layers adjacent to each other and give each layer its own attributes. Attachment keeps them side by side as the text changes. It is a workaround and not a perfect substitute, and we say so in our FAQ.
The last trap is expecting the layout engine to read your mind about taste. Templater moves and scales layers according to the rules you set. If your design needs a minimum gap, set the padding. If your design cannot tolerate a name longer than a certain length, tell whoever owns the data, because the best layout rule in the world will not make a forty-word title fit in a lower third. For text that really does change length a lot, plan the template for the longest realistic string, as we describe in our guide to automating design with layout rules.
Who should look elsewhere
If your graphic only ever sits in one place, skip all of this. A fixed position is a fixed position, and adding rules to it adds work and a way to break.
If your layout depends on animated layers, the details need care. Our Layout Rules page lists a related topic called Layout Rules plus Animated Layers. Read it before you build a template where the moving parts have keyframes, since we have not covered that topic here.
If the thing that changes is not the text but the data source behind it, start earlier. Layout rules respond to data. They cannot fix a spreadsheet with the wrong column. Our guide to using Templater with Google Sheets covers the mapping side, and the Templater page gives the wider picture of how rigging, data and rendering fit together. For help with the actual panel, the Templater help pages cover layout topics in detail at support.dataclay.com.
If you are rendering a very large number of versions, the layout work stays the same but the rest of the pipeline matters more. We explain that side in our piece on batch rendering, and you can find more how-to material in our learn section.
The bottom line
Attach the graphic to the text, choose the edge it should sit against, add padding, and test with your longest and shortest rows. Chain layers when one change should move several things. Group them when the stack should behave as one object, and remember the one group per composition limit. Align to the composition when the anchor is the frame and not another layer. The feature is small and the controls are few, which is the point. You set the relationships once, and every row of data respects them.
That is how a logo stays next to a name that changes, for four rows or for four thousand.
Before the questions below, one last note. Everything here comes from our own documentation, and the feature names and menu choices are copied from it. If your version of Templater looks different, check the help pages for your release.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the questions that come up most when people first try to pin a graphic to changing text.
Does the logo need to be dynamic for Templater to move it?
No. You apply the Templater Settings effect to the graphic layer so Templater adjusts only its transform properties and not its contents. The logo stays the same file in every version. Templater repositions it relative to the dynamic text layer, whose position and scale update with each row of incoming data. Think of the effect as giving the logo awareness of its neighbor, not as turning it into a data field.
Which edge or corner can a graphic attach to?
The choices in the Attach On drop down are None, Left Edge, Top Edge, Right Edge, Bottom Edge, Top Left Corner, Top Right Corner, Bottom Left Corner and Bottom Right Corner. You can also check Center on edges when you attach to an edge and want the layer centered on it. Use the Attach padding slider if you want a cushion of pixels between the two layers.
How is attaching different from parenting a layer in After Effects?
Attaching is conceptually similar to parenting, but it tracks the extents of a dynamic layer, meaning its bounding box, so another layer can align to those extents. When the text gets wider or taller with new data, Templater updates the dynamic layer’s position and scale, and then it adjusts the position of every attached sibling to match. The point of attaching is that it follows the size of the text, not only its position.
How do I make a whole stack of layers follow one changing layer?
Chain them. Attach each layer to the one above it, for example b to a on the bottom edge, c to b on the bottom edge, and d to c on the bottom edge. A change to the first dynamic layer then cascades through the whole chain. If you want Templater to lay the stack out as one object, group it with the Group Position settings Cap, Middle and Base, and choose a Group Direction of Horizontal or Vertical.
Can I have more than one group in a composition?
No. You can only have one group or chain per composition. For a more complex layout, pre-compose a group and use that precomp inside another group in the parent composition. Plan the structure early, because it decides which layers live in which comp. Grouping is available as of Templater 3.3.
Why is my layer not following the text?
Check three things in order. First, make sure the layer is not attached to itself, which gives unexpected results. Second, check whether the property has Separate Dimensions enabled, because Templater’s layout rules do not function correctly on those properties. Third, confirm that both layers are siblings in the same composition and both have the Templater Settings effect. Then use the Magic Wand tool or the Preview uses dropdown to see how the layout engine reads your choices.
What if I want a graphic pinned to the corner of the frame instead?
Use alignment instead of attachment. In the Templater Settings effect, open the Alignment parameters and pick a side or corner from the Align to menu, such as Bottom Right. Add padding if you want a margin. Check Initialize to Center if the layer should start in the middle before moving, and check Consider anchor point if you want alignment measured against the anchor point instead of the bounding box.
