I’m always amazed when I hear folks complain about the titling capabilities of Final Cut Pro. “The Text tool sucks, when is Apple going to do something about it?” is the most common complaint I get. Well, yeah, it is a pretty basic and somewhat lousy text tool that’s best used for placeholder text during the edit. That’s pretty all I ever use it for.
But FCP DOES have a great text tool built in. Maybe it’s the name, “Boris 3D” that confuses people, but it’s a very powerful, full featured text tool that uses vector based graphics. You’ll find it in the Viewer, that same place where you bring up the “Text Tool,” but look instead for the Boris tab and inside that is Boris 3D.
Unlike the Text Tool which limits you to one font, one size, one color, Boris 3D is a WYSIWYG editor with full control over everything in your text element. Multiple fonts, multiple sizes, multiple colors, you name it, you can do it all in a single text element. It also features text Edges, multiple drop shadows, individal adjustments of X and Y scale and a host of other features.
Now if you have a lot of fonts loaded, Boris 3D will load slowly the first time you use it in an edit session. But after that, it will load quickly. You can make it run more snappy right off the bat by turning off some of your fonts.
So stop waiting for Apple to bring you a better text tool and start using Boris 3D. I’ve been using it for years now and it’s a great little (and free) tool!