A Fast Path to the Text Generator

Here’s a quick and easy, but very useful shortcut. Do you use the basic Text Generator frequently and get tired of accessing it from that pop-up menu in the Viewer? Just hit CTRL X:

Brings it right up.  If you want fancy stuff like the scrolling text, you’re still mousing it.  By the way, CTRL OPT X brings up the Boris text generator. The one thing I like the Boris generator for is the more sophisticated way you can create credit rolls with a centered “gutter.”

The stock FCP text generator, in spite of the asterisk trick for making centered gutters, is extremely limited (no mixed fonts, no mixed colors, etc.). The Boris generator gives you a much more versatile tool–especially if you’re not really an After Effects or Motion person.  Some folks (myself included) will also use Photoshop to create high quality end credits components, but since Motion came out and is so easily integrated into FCP, I have not really gone back to PS much.

A quick hat-tip to Ripple Training (which is where the link on the asterisk treatment above leads). Ripple’s web site is a good FCP resource and you should check out their free tutorials and quick tips. Ripple was founded by the great Steve Martin who was my train-the-trainer instructor when I first became an Apple pro-apps trainer myself. His fun, enthusiastic teaching style and obvious love of the material was a big inspiration for my own training  and teaching work. If you ever have a chance to be in one of his classes, you’re in for a treat.