Understanding languages and scripts
This page is for anyone who works with text in different languages or scripts, whether you build templates or produce adaptations from them. Text in a non-Latin script, text that mixes scripts, and text with special characters can render in ways you did not intend. Understanding why helps you choose the right fonts, set up text correctly, and know which problems you can fix and which are limitations. This page explains how text direction works, why fonts and their glyphs matter, how special characters and Unicode can catch you out, and what the platform supports today.
Directionality
Scripts are written in a fixed direction. Latin scripts read from left to right, while Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian read from right to left.
Mixing a right-to-left script with a left-to-right one in the same text needs care, because both directions share a single line and their characters can easily end up in the wrong order. Right-to-left scripts also rely on the template-building tool to handle direction correctly, so if it does not, text can appear or render in the wrong order.
Fonts and glyphs
A font renders text by drawing each character as a glyph, the visual shape the character takes. A font contains glyphs only for the scripts it was designed to cover. If your font does not include the glyphs for a script, text in that script will not render correctly, no matter how it is typed.
For this reason, text in a given script needs a font that supports that script, and text that mixes scripts needs a font that covers all of them. Diacritics, the marks added above or below a letter to show pronunciation, are glyphs too, so a font must include them for accented text to render as intended.
Special characters and Unicode
Every character has a Unicode value, a code that identifies it. The platform acts on that value, not on how the character looks. Two characters can therefore look almost identical yet be different underneath.
This matters when a look-alike character carries a special meaning. For example, the Greek question mark looks almost exactly like a Latin semicolon. Because a semicolon marks a line break when you produce an adaptation, typing the semicolon in place of the Greek question mark breaks the text at that point.
The character that behaves correctly is the one with the right Unicode value, not the one that merely looks right.
What the platform supports
Both template-building tools support text in many scripts, including non-Latin ones such as Arabic. However, some combinations are limited, such as mixing two scripts in one text box. Right-to-left editing is also not yet fully supported for some scripts.
Not every text problem originates in the platform. Templates built in the Extension for After Effects handle text in After Effects' own way, with separate settings for right-to-left and complex scripts. Some text issues therefore come from that tool, or from Adobe After Effects itself, rather than from the platform. Recognising where a problem comes from tells you where to address it.