I want to copy animation data but I don't want to use CTRL+L, how can I do that? I have a dozen objects in my scene right now. I have one of them moving along the Z axis. I want to copy that movement to the other objects. Right now I'm being told I should use CTRL+L to link animation data from the one object to the rest. However, I later want to be able to manipulate the individual objects further, but when I do that, it copies that change to all of the objects, because their animation data is linked. How can I copy the keyframes from one object to many others without using the Link Animation Data command so that I can manipulate them individually after that?
You can use CtrlL to give the same animation to all the objects. Then when you want one of these objects to have its own, press U (Make Single User) > Object Animation.