Now if you like the workflow of Master Properties and CSVs, you're really going to love the workflow of Master Properties with CSVs and expressions.
Using CSV data with master properties
In this exercise, we're actually going to use a CSV to change the subtitle of our title graphic here, but we're going to use an expression to automatically have the subtitle change every time we duplicate a composition.
So, let me show you how we can build that.
I'll go ahead and just click once in the Master Properties and Expression composition here.
This is my master composition, and I'm going to go back to the beginning and press the Spacebar to preview the animation, and you can see I've got a title animation here called TRAVEL ZONE.
Now, I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop playback and I have a version composition already set up, so I'll double click on Version 1 and here, you'll notice I have a CSV file which I've already imported and added into the Timeline.
In that file, I have a subtitle.
And in that subtitle column, it has three different properties.
And for my Master Properties and Expressions composition, I already added a Master property to be able to change the subtitle text.
Linking CSV subtitle data to a master property
So, what I'll do is, I'll go to the property pickwhip for the subtitle text, and I'll point it at Subtitle 0 and it's going to pull that information from that specific row inside of my CSV.
I know that may not seem like a big deal, but let's go ahead and open up the arrow to the left of the stopwatch for my subtitle text.
In here, you can see I have an expression that's been written.
Now, the first thing I'm going to do is make note of the name of this column which is Subtitle.
So, I'm going to go up here under my Versions and I'm going to rename this composition.
I'll click on the composition; I'll press Return and I'll call it Subtitle 0.
So, the name of the column is subtitle and this is Subtitle 0.
Now, I'm going to go here
Modifying expressions to reference composition names
to where it says Subtitle 0 and I'll click once, and I'm just going to delete everything inside these two brackets.
And this time, I'll go ahead and start to type the word this, and I'm going to choose thisComp, so I'll click once on that and press Return, and then I'll type .na and I'll click once on name and I'll press Return.
So, the last section of this expression is going to say (thisComp.name).
And I'll click outside of there just once and it doesn't look like anything's happened, but let's go up here to the Version's composition
Duplicating compositions to auto-generate subtitles
and I'll click once on Subtitle 0 to make sure it's selected, and I'll press Command D to duplicate it.
And it's going to skip to Subtitle 2, but that's okay.
I'll press Return and I'll just rename this Subtitle 1.
And then, I'll press Command D to duplicate that again and now I have Subtitle 2.
And if I had more fields here in my CSV, I could keep duplicating the composition and it's going to keep pulling more information from each one of these different rows.
So, let's look at the results.
Subtitle 0 has the first row of information with the first column, and I'll go ahead and double click.
Now, Subtitle 1 has TRAVEL ZONE, which is the second thing in my spreadsheet.
In here I'll go ahead and double click, Subtitle 2 – TRAVEL WAYS.
So, when it comes to actually working extraordinarily quickly by combining Master Properties and CSVs, you can work even faster by adding an expression on top of it.
This sample file contains Adobe Stock assets you can use to practice what you learn in this tutorial. If you want to use the sample file beyond this tutorial, you can purchase licenses on Adobe Stock. Check out the ReadMe file in the folder for the terms that apply to your use of this sample file.
What you learned: How to write an expression to automatically pull data from different fields in a CSV file
Link a CSV to the text in a composition
Add the CSV into the composition.
Use the Property Link Pick Whip from the source text of a Master Property to link it to a field from the CSV.
Customize the expression to automatically pull from the next row as the name of the composition updates
Rename the composition to match the name of the column in the CSV.
Change the last bracket of the expression to say (thisComp.name).
Duplicate the composition in the Project panel, and each time the name changes the last number of that comp, the expression will now pull from the next row in the CSV.
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