How to Use Motion Graphics Templates in Premiere Pro

A workflow taught by Adobe Certified Instructors at Adobe Video World.

Motion Graphics templates, or .mogrt files, are pre-built animated graphics — titles, lower thirds, intros, and transitions — that you customize without animating from scratch. They let you drop professional motion design into your edit in seconds. This guide covers installing templates, customizing them in the Essential Graphics panel, and where to find them.

What Motion Graphics Templates Are

A Motion Graphics template, with the .mogrt file extension, is a packaged animated graphic with editable controls. Someone designs the animation in After Effects or Premiere, then exposes properties like text, color, and size so you can customize it easily.

This means you get polished, professional motion design without building it yourself. Drop in a lower-third template, type your name and title, and it animates beautifully — the speed and quality of an expert with a fraction of the work.

Open the Essential Graphics Panel

Templates live in the Essential Graphics panel (Window > Essential Graphics). Its Browse tab shows available templates, while the Edit tab is where you customize a template’s controls once it’s on your timeline.

This panel is the hub for all template work in Premiere. Familiarizing yourself with its two tabs — browsing to find templates and editing to customize them — makes working with .mogrt files fast and intuitive.

Install a Template

To add a .mogrt file, click the Install Motion Graphics Template button at the bottom of the Essential Graphics Browse tab and select your file. The template then appears in your library, ready to use across projects.

Once installed, templates stay available whenever you need them. You can build a personal library of go-to titles and graphics, so the styles you use repeatedly are always a click away.

Add and Customize a Template

Drag a template from the Browse tab onto your timeline like any clip, then select it and open the Edit tab to customize it. The exposed controls — text fields, color pickers, sliders — let you tailor the graphic to your project.

Change the text, swap colors to match your brand, and adjust size or position, all without touching the underlying animation. This is the magic of templates: deep customization through simple controls, no keyframing required.

Use Templates for Lower Thirds and Titles

The most common templates are titles and lower thirds — the name-and-title graphics that introduce speakers. A template animates these on and off screen professionally, and you just type the names, as our lower thirds guide explores in depth.

This saves enormous time on interview and documentary work, where you might need dozens of name graphics. One well-chosen template handles them all consistently, keeping your branding uniform across every introduction.

Find Templates in the Adobe Stock Library

Premiere includes free and paid templates through Adobe Stock, browsable right in the Essential Graphics panel. Beyond that, marketplaces and creators offer thousands of .mogrt files for every style, from minimal titles to elaborate intros.

Browsing these libraries is a fast way to elevate your videos without design skills. Choose templates that match your project’s tone, and a small collection of quality ones will cover most of your everyday graphic needs.

Create Your Own Templates in After Effects

Once you’re comfortable, you can build your own templates in After Effects and export them as .mogrt files. You design the animation, expose the controls you want editable through the Essential Graphics panel, then export for use in Premiere.

This is powerful for teams and repeat work — build a branded title once and reuse it forever, with easy customization. Combined with the skills in our motion graphics guide, custom templates turn your designs into reusable assets.

Keep Templates Organized

As your template library grows, organization keeps it usable. Name templates clearly, group them by type — titles, transitions, intros — and remove ones you don’t use, so finding the right graphic stays quick.

A tidy, curated library beats a sprawling one you have to dig through. Treating your templates like any other asset collection means you spend your time customizing the right graphic rather than hunting for it.

Motion Graphics Template Best Practices

• Install .mogrt files via the Essential Graphics Browse tab.
• Customize text, color, and size in the Edit tab.
• Use templates for consistent titles and lower thirds.
• Build your own in After Effects for branded, reusable graphics.

Common Template Mistakes

• Leaving placeholder text or default colors unchanged.
• Using flashy templates that clash with your video’s tone.
• Letting an unorganized library slow you down.
• Overlooking the free templates built into Premiere.

A Real Template Workflow Example

Say you’re cutting a ten-person interview series and every guest needs a name graphic. You install one lower-third template, drag it onto the first guest’s clip, and type their name and role in the Edit tab. For each new guest you copy that instance, change the text, and the animation stays perfectly consistent.

What could have been hours of building and matching graphics becomes minutes of typing, with flawless uniformity across all ten introductions. This is the everyday power of templates — professional, on-brand motion design at the speed of filling in a form, which is why edit teams lean on them so heavily.

Adjust Template Timing and Duration

Templates come with built-in animation timing, but you can adapt it to your edit. Trimming the template clip on the timeline changes how long the graphic stays on screen, and many templates expose controls for the in and out animation speed so you can match your video’s pace.

If a title animates on too quickly or lingers too long, these adjustments fix it without rebuilding anything. Treating a template as a flexible starting point rather than a fixed block lets you keep its polish while tailoring the timing, the same control you’d want over any keyframed animation.

Templates for a Consistent Brand

For creators and businesses, the real power of templates is consistency. Using the same lower-third, intro, and transition templates across every video gives your content a recognizable, cohesive identity, so viewers come to associate that look with you the way they would a logo or color scheme.

Building or buying a small set of on-brand templates and reusing them religiously is one of the fastest ways to make a channel or company’s videos feel professionally produced. Combined with the custom-template skills in our motion graphics guide, this turns scattered one-off graphics into a unified visual brand.

Key Takeaways

• A .mogrt template is a pre-built, customizable animated graphic.
• Install and customize templates in the Essential Graphics panel.
• Templates speed up titles, lower thirds, and intros.
• Build your own in After Effects for branded reuse.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I install a Motion Graphics template in Premiere Pro?

Open the Essential Graphics panel (Window > Essential Graphics), go to the Browse tab, click Install Motion Graphics Template at the bottom, and select your .mogrt file. It then appears in your library.

How do I customize a .mogrt template?

Drag the template onto your timeline, select it, and open the Edit tab in Essential Graphics. The exposed controls let you change text, colors, size, and position without touching the underlying animation.

Can I make my own Motion Graphics templates?

Yes. Design the animation in After Effects, expose the controls you want editable through the Essential Graphics panel, then export it as a .mogrt file for use in Premiere Pro — ideal for branded, reusable graphics.

Sources: Adobe’s guide to Motion Graphics templates.