Animating Your Text

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 11, 2021)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

You can add a little pizzazz to your documents by animating your text. What does that mean? Simply that you can make it wiggle, blink, shimmer, and shake on the screen. This formatting can be applied to any characters you desire by following these steps:

Select the text you want to animate.
Choose Font from the Format menu. Word displays the Font dialog box.
Make sure the Text Effects tab is selected. (See Figure 1.) (In Word 97 you select the Animation tab.)

Figure 1. The Text Effects tab of the Font dialog box.

In the Animations list, select the animation effect you want applied to your text. In the preview area of the dialog box you can see how your text will appear.
Click on OK.

You should note that the animation formatting is visible only on the screen. Animated text will not affect how your document is printed.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (613) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Creating Custom Document Properties

Word allows you to keep track of any number of custom properties about a document. Here's how to create those properties ...

Discover More

Copying Form Field Contents

Are you developing a form with Word? In some instances it is advantageous to copy whatever is entered in a form field to ...

Discover More

Seeing What Changed in a PivotTable

PivotTables are great for aggregating and analyzing tons of raw data. If you want to see what changes in the PivotTable ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Letters Turn into Squares

Imagine that you are typing away, and all of a sudden your beautiful prose turns into a series of small rectangles that ...

Discover More

Applying the All Caps Format

Want your text to always appear in upper-case, regardless of how you type it? Word allows you to add formatting to your ...

Discover More

Replacing Quoted Text with Italics

If you have text surrounded by quotes in a document, you may want to remove the quote marks and make the text that was ...

Discover More

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

Notify me about new comments ONLY FOR THIS TIP

Notify me about new comments ANYWHERE ON THIS SITE

Hide my email address

What is seven more than 3?

2025-01-06 20:23:05

Mohammad

FAO: Allen Wyatt

Hi!

Can I get flashing texts in other versions of MS Word?

Thanks!

Mohammad

2022-02-28 06:17:18

Doppelbob

Not working in Word 2016

2022-02-24 17:39:28

Noel V.

Is there a Word feature where you can click on a subject line of text and the rest of the paragraph's text appears and disappears as you toggle?

This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.