Glyphs are the individual characters in a text layer—the letters, numbers, or symbols. In Motion, you can select and then modify or animate individual glyphs independently of the word, line, or paragraph of which they are a member. Using glyph transform handles, you can drag in the canvas to spatially transform several glyph attributes, including position, rotation, scale, face (fill), outline, glow, or drop shadow. And using controls in the Inspector, you can modify many other text attributes, including fill color, outline color, font, font size, slant, and so on.
You modify glyphs by selecting the Transform Glyph tool (in the canvas toolbar), selecting the glyphs you want to transform in the canvas, and then either adjusting controls in the Inspector or dragging handles in the canvas.
To animate glyphs, see Animate text characters with the Transform Glyph tool.