In this article, I will show how to animate text in Excel. While working in Excel, we may need to add some animation effects to make the worksheet look more attractive and fancy. Unfortunately, unlike MS PowerPoint, there is no built-in tool to animate texts in Excel. Here, I will devise some useful ways to animate text in Excel. So, let’s get started.
How to Animate Text in Excel: 2 Useful Methods
In this section, we will demonstrate 2 effective methods to animate text in Excel with appropriate illustrations. In the first method, we will make the text scroll. Then, in the 2nd method, we create a blinking text. Let’s explore the methods one by one.
1. Animation of Text by Scrolling in Excel
In this method, we will make nice animation that is animated text by making them scroll. To illustrate the method, I have taken a sample workbook where in cell C4, there is a text message that we want to display as scrolling text in cell B6.
To make a scrolling animated text, follow the steps below.
Steps:
- First, open the Visual Basic Window by pressing Alt+F11. Then, open a new module by going to Insert > Module.
- Now, copy the code below and paste it into the new module.
' Scrolling Text
Sub Start_Text_Scroll()
My_Value = ActiveSheet.Range("C4").Value
Final_Value = WorksheetFunction.Rept(My_Value, 1)
Do
For initial = 1 To Len(Final_Value)
Length = Len(Final_Value) - 1
DoEvents
For AA = 1 To 10000000
AA = AA + 1
Next
Range("B6") = Mid(Final_Value, initial, Length) & Left(Final_Value, initial - 1)
Next
Loop
End Sub
Sub Stop_Scrolling()
End
End Sub
🗝️ How Does the Code Work? At first, we took a Subroutine named Start_Text_Scroll. Then we have assigned the variable My_Value to the cell C4 (Where the text to be scrolled is stored). Then we declared another variable named Final_Value and assigned the text of My_Value to it with a repetition number of 1 (by Rept function. The number indicates how many times the text will appear while scrolling). Then, we started a loop with the Do command. The loop will continue from the initial value of 1 to the total character length of the scrolling text, Len(Final_Value). Inside the Do Events, the For loop has the value of AA from 1 to 10000000 (The smaller this value is, the quicker the text will scroll). Finally, with the help of the Mid, and Left functions, we brought the left portion of the text to the right side and vice versa. While the loop will continue, the words’ position-swapping process will go on. To stop the Scrolling, I have taken another subroutine named Stop_Scrolling.
- Now, we want to add 2 buttons for starting and stopping the scrolling. To do that, insert two shapes by going to Insert tab and then selecting Illustration> Shapes. Now, choose your desired shape. I have chosen a rectangle.
- Then, write a text inside the rectangle such as “Start Scrolling”.
- Now, assign a macro by right-clicking on the rectangle box and selecting Assign Macro.
- Then, select the macro named Start_Text_Scroll and click OK.
- Similarly, insert another shape and assign a macro to it As a result, we will have two buttons by which we can start and stop scrolling the text message.
- Finally, use the buttons to start and stop scrolling the Text message.
This is how we can make animated text in Excel by making the scrolling with the help of VBA code.
2. Blinking Animated Text in Excel
In this method, we will write text in multiple text boxes and make them beautiful animated blinking text using VBA code. To know more, follow the steps below.
Steps:
- At first, we need to draw some text boxes. To draw text boxes, go to the Insert tab. Then select Text > Text Box.
- Now, draw the box with your convenient size.
- Now, you can write the text that you want to blink.
- Now, add some more text boxes of similar shapes and sizes. But this time the box will be empty.
- Now, rename the text boxes in the following format: TextBox 1, TextBox 2….
- Now, gather all the text boxes and put them one over another so that they are displayed as one single box.
- Then, similar to method 1, go to the VBA editor by clicking alt+F11 and open a new module by selecting Insert > Module.
- Now, write down the following code.
Sub Blink()
On Error GoTo skip
Do While Range("B4").Value = "Blink"
For txtbx = 1 To 5
ActiveSheet.Shapes("TextBox " & txtbx).ZOrder msoBringToFront
DoEvents
Next txtbx
Loop
skip:
ActiveSheet.Shapes("TextBox 1").ZOrder msoBringToFront
Exit Sub
End Sub
🗝️ How Does the Code Work? Here, we have created a subroutine named Blink. Then, we have taken a for-loop to bring the text boxes on the front one by one from TextBox 1 to TextBox 5 with the command of ZOrder. And for error handling, we will be bringing the first table which contains the text.
- Now, go to the worksheet code where your texts are. Then write the following code.
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Tgt As Range)
If Tgt = Range("B4") Then
Call Blink
End If
End Sub
🗝️ How Does the Code Work? In this code, we first activated cell B4. Whenever the cell any data is inserted into the cell, Excel will call the Blink module.
- Now, if you come back to the Worksheet and write Blink in cell B4, you will notice that the texts are blinking.
In this way, we can make the text inside the textbox blink.
Things to Remember
- In the 2nd method, you should rename the text boxes correctly and align them one behind another to make the animation properly.
Download Practice Workbook
Download this practice workbook to exercise while you are reading this article.
Conclusion
That is the end of this article regarding how to animate text in Excel. If you find this article helpful, please share this with your friends. Moreover, do let us know if you have any further queries. Finally, please visit Exceldemy for more exciting articles on Excel.
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