Every motion designer hits this wall eventually. A client asks to swap a font across a whole After Effects project, or you catch a typo that appears in twelve different comps, and suddenly you are opening compositions one by one, double clicking text layers, and retyping the same fix over and over. After Effects gives you no project wide way to manage text, and no spell check at all. TextPilot is the panel that fixes both.
TextPilot is a Filmit plugin for After Effects that scans your entire project, lists every text layer in one place, and lets you edit, find and replace, translate, restyle fonts, and spell check from a single panel. This guide walks through every tab, using the same example project from the video: a multi chapter story with text scattered across dozens of comps.
This video may reference an older version of TextPilot. Features and UI may have changed since recording.
What is TextPilot?
TextPilot is a text manager for After Effects. Instead of hunting through comps for the line you need to change, you scan the project once and work with every text layer from one list. It handles the repetitive parts of text work: bulk edits, find and replace, font changes, translation, and spell check, all without leaving After Effects.
It installs through Filmit Studio, the free companion app for Windows and macOS, and runs as a panel under the Window menu. Most of what it does costs you nothing extra and needs no API key, which matters for the translate and spell check features below.
How to open TextPilot and scan your project
Once TextPilot is installed, open it from Window, then Extensions, then TextPilot. Click Scan Project and it reads your entire After Effects project for every line of text across every comp.
The first thing you see is List view, a single scrollable list of every text layer in the project. Find the line you want, click Jump, and TextPilot takes you straight to that layer in that comp. Type a change, click Apply, and it writes back into your project. That is the core loop: see everything, jump anywhere, edit in place.
Pro Tip: Run Scan Project again any time you add or change text. TextPilot rereads the whole project in a second, so the list always reflects what is actually in your comps.
Edit one line or a whole comp at once
List view is great for surgical edits, but the real time saver is Bulk view. Pick a composition, switch to Bulk, and you get every line in that comp laid out together so you can edit them all at once instead of going layer by layer. Make your changes, click Apply Bulk Changes, and they all land at the same time.
You can also export the comp as a txt file, edit it anywhere, and import it back. TextPilot has a streamlined mode for quick edits and an advanced mode that preserves the structure it needs to map your changes back to the right layers. A future version adds CSV export so you can edit text in a spreadsheet too.
Pro Tip: The export and import flow is perfect for handing text off. Send the txt file to a writer or a client, let them edit the copy, and import it straight back into your comps without retyping a word.
Find and replace across every layer
The Search tab is exactly what it sounds like, and exactly what After Effects is missing. Type what you are looking for and TextPilot shows every match across every layer. Type a replacement, and it swaps the text on all of them at once. Renaming a product, fixing a recurring phrase, or updating a tagline across a whole project becomes a few seconds of work instead of a scavenger hunt.
Translate your whole project for free
The Translate tab is where TextPilot really earns its place. Auto detect your source language, pick a target like Spanish, and click Translate All. TextPilot runs through every text layer and translates the entire project for you. There is no API cost and no API key required. We built it so translation is genuinely free to the user.
Machine translation is never perfect, so TextPilot lets you export the translations to a txt file, hand them to a real translator to fix, and import the corrected version back. When you are happy, accept the translations and apply all changes, and your project updates everywhere at once.
Pro Tip: Use export and import on translations whenever the copy matters. Let the machine do the first pass across the whole project, then have a human polish the txt file. You get the speed of automation and the accuracy of a real translator.
Hot-swap between languages
Translation is not one and done. TextPilot remembers every language version you create, so you can hot swap between them with a click. Keep your original English, add Spanish, Japanese, German, and more, and switch the whole project between them instantly.
This came straight out of client work. Producing the same kinetic typography piece in three or four languages used to mean copying and pasting copy for every country by hand. TextPilot saves each version and lets you flip between them, so localized cuts stop being a chore.
Change fonts across the project
The Fonts tab lists every text layer, or you can switch to the grouped view that shows each unique font used in the project. From there, changing a font is a click. Swap one typeface for another, click Apply, and every layer using the old font updates. Scan again and TextPilot confirms the change took across the project.
A real spell check for After Effects
After Effects has no native spell check, which is wild when you think about how much text lives in motion graphics. When you are animating fast, an extra letter or a split word slips through, and a client is the one who finds it. The Spell tab fixes that.
Select your language so it has the right dictionary, then run the check. TextPilot reads every layer and flags spelling mistakes and suggestions. Sometimes it is a clear misspelling, sometimes it is a gentle are you sure about this. Click a suggestion, apply all changes, and the fixes land across the project.
Pro Tip: Run spell check as the last step before you render. It takes seconds and catches the small typos that are easy to miss when you are focused on timing and animation.
AI mode, and a free way to get the same result
TextPilot has an experimental AI mode that can suggest new lines using your own Anthropic or OpenAI key. It is optional, and it does use tokens, so it has a cost. Most Filmit tools are built to be truly automated without an API key, and TextPilot works completely without one. The translate and spell check features, even though they use services behind the scenes, are free to you.
If you want AI help without the token cost, there is a simple workflow: open Bulk view, export the txt file, and ask an assistant to rewrite the lines while leaving the structure alone. Paste the result back in, apply bulk changes, and you have AI assisted copy for free.
Key takeaways
TextPilot turns text work in After Effects from a layer by layer grind into a few clicks from one panel.
Scan the project and work from one list instead of hunting through comps.
Change a whole comp at once, or swap text across every layer in seconds.
Translate the whole project into another language with no API key and no cost.
Save English, Spanish, Japanese, German, and more, and flip between them.
Change fonts across the project and catch typos After Effects cannot.
Why I built TextPilot
TextPilot is the plugin I reach for on almost every project. The work that inspired it was never creative: fixing the same typo in comp after comp, rebuilding a piece in four languages for four countries, scanning for a font I needed to change everywhere. None of that is design. It is the busywork that sits between you and the actual edit.
Pulling all of it into one panel changes how text feels in After Effects. You stop dreading the localization pass, you stop shipping typos, and you spend your time on the animation instead of the admin. That is the whole point of every tool we make, to get the repetitive parts out of the way so the creative part is what is left.
Get started with Filmit
TextPilot installs through Filmit Studio, the free app that manages every Filmit plugin for After Effects and Premiere Pro. One install puts TextPilot in your editor, and the same app keeps it updated.
If you work across a lot of comps, pair TextPilot with the rest of the Filmit for Editors suite. GridMaker builds layouts in one click, and the whole toolkit runs under one subscription, always updated.
