by Real Creations·Motion Graphics
Images © Real Creations. Used for product review; image policy.
keyboardFX earns its place in the aescripts library for pairing customizable keyboard generation with automatic typing animations across a long range of After Effects versions.
keyboardFX is a tool for Adobe After Effects that generates fully customizable keyboards together with user-defined typing animations. It covers a broad list of host versions, running on After Effects 2025 all the way back to CS6, which makes it usable across both recent and much older installations.
Recent additions center on the mobile and tablet keyboard. keyboardFX now includes intelligent case detection that reads your text and inserts {{SHIFT}} codes on every lower- and uppercase change, updating the keyboard layout as it goes. The mobile/tablet keyboard also gained numbers from 0 to 9 and lower- and uppercase letters. A Virtual Keyboard panel makes it easier to input the special codes for each keyboard type.
The 1.5 update delivered significant speed improvements when generating any type of keyboard, along with updated special codes and a move to license framework v4.2.0. The 1.51 release that followed fixed an expression setup freeze on some installations and corrected Arial font naming for generated text layers. A demo video is available.
keyboardFX is best for after Effects artists building keyboard graphics with typing animations, including mobile and tablet keyboard layouts.
keyboardFX is completely free to download and use.
keyboardFX supports a wide range of After Effects versions, from the 2025 release back through 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and the CC line including CC 2019, CC 2018, CC 2017, CC 2015.3, CC 2015, CC 2014, CC, and CS6. That span covers both recent subscription builds and much older installations, so most existing After Effects setups should be able to run it. An earlier 1.2 update also included specific fixes for Commodore64 keyboard generation on CS6, so older-version behaviour has been addressed in past releases.
keyboardFX is listed as free in this catalog, so you can add it to your After Effects toolkit without a purchase here. Licensing terms can change over time, and the developer, Real Creations, distributes it through aescripts, so it's worth checking the developer's page for current licensing details before you download. The 1.5 update also noted a move to license framework v4.2.0, which is another reason to confirm the latest terms directly at the source rather than relying on older information.
keyboardFX version 1.5, released in September 2024, brought significant speed improvements to generating any type of keyboard, added a Virtual Keyboard for inputting special codes, added numbers and lower- and uppercase letters to the mobile/tablet keyboard, and updated its special codes. It also moved to license framework v4.2.0. The follow-up 1.51 release fixed an issue where keyboardFX could freeze while setting up expressions on some installations, and corrected a problem where the Arial font name was not set properly for generated text layers.
keyboardFX reads your text automatically on the mobile/tablet keyboard and inserts {{SHIFT}} codes on every lower- and uppercase change, updating the keyboard layout to match. This intelligent case detection means the on-screen keyboard reflects the case of the characters being typed. The mobile/tablet keyboard also supports numbers from 0 to 9 along with lower- and uppercase letters, both added in the 1.5 update, giving it a fuller character set to work with during typing animations.
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