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

Setting Up Custom AutoFiltering

The filtering capabilities of Excel are very helpful when you are working with large sets of data. You can create a ...

Discover More

Printing a Short Selection

Need to print just a portion of a worksheet? It's easy to do if you follow the steps in this tip.

Discover More

Understanding Master and Subdocuments

Most people use Word to create regular documents that you edit, view, and print. The program also allows you to create a ...

Discover More

Do More in Less Time! An easy-to-understand guide to the more advanced features available in the Microsoft 365 version of Word. Enhance the quality of your documents and boost productivity in any field with this in-depth resource. Complete your Word-related tasks more efficiently as you unlock lesser-known tools and learn to quickly access the features you need. Check out Microsoft 365 Word For Professionals For Dummies 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

Missing Fonts in a Letterhead

When you create a document (such as a letterhead) that you want multiple people to use, you need to be concerned with ...

Discover More

Changing Strikethrough Lines

Want to change the way a strikethrough line appears? It's not as easy as you think, as you find out in this tip.

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 0 + 9?

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.