After Effects will let you ship a typo. There is no native spell check anywhere in the application, so a word with an extra letter, a missing period, or a doubled keystroke sits right there in your composition looking perfectly fine until someone else spots it. I am not a great speller myself, and on more than one client project I have caught a mistake in the final render that should have been caught hours earlier. The text was correct in my head, just not on the screen.
That gap is exactly why the Filmit team built spell checking into TextPilot, our text manager for After Effects. Instead of squinting at every layer by hand, you scan the whole project, run a spell check in the language you are actually writing in, and step through the flagged words one at a time. This guide follows the demo above and walks the spell check workflow from installing the plugin to applying your fixes.
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, and it does a lot more than spell check. Once it scans your project it gives you a bulk list of every text layer, so you can find line 43, jump to it in the project, edit it, and apply the change without hunting through the timeline. You can export your text to TXT and CSV, run search and replace across the whole project, translate your project into another language, and update fonts from one panel.
Spell check is one feature inside that toolkit, and it is the one this tutorial is about. Because After Effects has no spell check of its own, the team folded it into the same text manager you already use to wrangle copy.
How to install and open TextPilot
TextPilot installs through Filmit Studio, the free desktop app that manages every Filmit plugin. The Studio suite comes with a 7-day free trial and includes every tool in a growing library that works across After Effects and Premiere, so you do not buy TextPilot on its own. Download Filmit Studio, install TextPilot from the suite, and you are ready.
Once it is installed, open After Effects and go to Window, then Extensions, then TextPilot. The panel opens docked like any other extension. From there, the first thing you do is point it at your project.
Scan your project
At the top of the panel is Scan Project. Click it and TextPilot reads through your composition and pulls in every text layer it finds, building the bulk list that powers the rest of the plugin. This is the same list you would use to find line 43, jump to it, and apply an edit, and it is also what the spell check reads from.
Scanning first matters because the spell check has nothing to check until TextPilot knows what text exists in your project. Run the scan, confirm your layers are listed, and you have everything in place to start proofreading.
Pro Tip: Always Scan Project again after you add or change text layers. The spell check works from the scanned list, so a fresh scan makes sure newly added copy is included rather than skipped.
Why After Effects has no spell check (and what to do)
It surprises people, but After Effects genuinely has no spell check built in. Word processors flag a misspelling the instant you type it, but motion graphics tools were never built around proofreading text. The result is that mistakes ride all the way to the deliverable unless you catch them yourself.
The fix is to bring the safety net to After Effects rather than go without one. TextPilot reads your scanned text layers and runs them through a real spell check, so the words you typed get checked the way they would in any writing app. The proofreading step finally exists.
Running the spell check
Before you run it, set your language. There is a language dropdown above the button, and although Auto-detect is available, I would not use it here. Choose your specific language instead, English in the demo, because telling the checker exactly which language it is reading gives much better results than asking it to guess.
With your language set, click Check Spelling at the bottom of the panel. It runs a scan, and this part is not instant. It takes a little time, and how long depends on how much text you have, so more text layers take longer and fewer take less. When it finishes, TextPilot lists the layers where it found possible spelling mistakes, ready for you to review.
Pro Tip: Pick the exact language you wrote in, not Auto-detect. A checker that knows it is reading English catches more real mistakes and raises fewer false flags than one that has to figure the language out on its own.
Reviewing and applying fixes
This is the part where you stay in control. TextPilot does not silently rewrite anything, it flags possible spelling mistakes and lets you say yes or no to each suggestion. In the demo, line 44 had Export typed with three Ts, flagged as a possible spelling mistake, and clicking it swaps in the correct spelling. On chapter six, line 36, a keyframes entry wanted a space, flagged the same way. You walk the list and decide each one.
Some flags will be real and some will not, which is exactly why the yes or no step exists. Fix the ones you want to fix and leave the rest. When you are happy with your choices, click Apply All Changes and TextPilot writes every accepted fix back into your After Effects project at once. That single pass has saved me on client work more times than I would like to admit, usually because I threw in an extra letter or left off a period.
Pro Tip: Read each flag before accepting it. Names, brands, and technical terms often trip a spell check, so the yes or no per suggestion is there to protect intentional spellings while still fixing the genuine typos.
What is coming next
Spell check is going to get better. The team has updates coming that make it quicker and let you jump straight to the line a flag came from, the same way the bulk list already jumps you to a layer. On top of that, a TextPilot Advanced Mode is on the way, which will widen what the panel can do with your project text.
If you have a request of your own, the Settings page points you to the Filmit Discord, where you can talk to the team directly and ask for features. A lot of what ships starts as someone describing the exact annoyance they hit, so if spell check is missing something you need, that is the place to say so.
Key takeaways
There is no native proofreading, so typos slip into finished deliverables until you add a check yourself.
Scan Project pulls in every text layer, and the spell check reads from that scanned list.
Pick your specific language instead of Auto-detect for much better, more accurate results.
TextPilot flags possible mistakes and you say yes or no to each one before anything changes.
Accept the fixes you want, then write them all back into your After Effects project at once.
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 with a 7-day free trial, and the same app keeps it updated alongside the rest of a growing tool library.
If you also build layouts, pair TextPilot with GridMaker, our recently overhauled grid builder for After Effects that grids your footage in a couple of clicks and animates it. It is part of the same suite, so TextPilot, GridMaker, and every other plugin run under one subscription, always updated.
