XL: How to Copy the Text Within a Text Box to a Cell

 Last reviewed: February 3, 1998
Article ID: Q152379 
 The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition
  • Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
  • Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a
  • Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 5.0, 5.0c
  • Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 5.0, 5.0a

    SUMMARY

    This article contains a sample Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro (Sub procedure) that copies the text within a text box and pastes it into a spreadsheet.

    After following the steps outlined in this article, you should see the text appear in the various cells in column A, starting with cell A1. Each separate cell will contain the text of one text box.

    NOTE: In Microsoft Excel 7.0 and earlier, if a text box contains more than 255 characters, numeric data will appear in scientific notation. If the data in the text box is alphanumeric, the cell will only hold the first 255 characters of data. Microsoft Excel 97 and Microsoft Excel 98 can hold a maximum of 32,000 characters per cell.

    MORE INFORMATION

    Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language being demonstrated and the tools used to create and debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific needs. If you have limited programming experience, you may want to contact the Microsoft fee-based consulting line at (800) 936-5200. For more information about the support options available from Microsoft, please see the following page on the World Wide Web: 

       http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/refguide/default.asp
    To create a text box in Microsoft Excel, follow these steps:

    1. In a new worksheet, point to Toolbars on the View menu, and then click Drawing. Click OK.

    2. On the Drawing toolbar, click the Text Box button.

    3. Position the insertion point on the spreadsheet where you want the text box to appear, and while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer to the right to draw the text box.

    4. Click in the text box, and type some text.

    5. Repeat steps 1-4 several times to create multiple text boxes.

    Sample Visual Basic Procedure

    Before working with the sample code, perform the following steps:

    1. Open a new workbook.

    2. In Microsoft Excel 97 or Microsoft Excel 98, point to Macro on the Tools menu, and then click Visual Basic Editor. In the Visual Basic Editor, click Module on the Insert menu.

      -or-

      In Microsoft Excel 5.0 and 7.0, point to Macro on the Insert menu, and then click Module.

    3. Type the sample macro code into the module sheet: 

            Sub Main()
          Sheets("Sheet1").Select
          ' Assign the counter an initial row value.
          x = 1
          ' Loop through each text box in the activesheet.
          For Each tbox in ActiveSheet.TextBoxes
              ' Select the next row down and place the text there.
              Range("a" & x).Value = tbox.Text
              ' Increment the counter
              x = x + 1
          Next tbox
      End Sub

    • Additional query words: 5.00 5.00a 5.00c 7.00 7.00a vba 8.00 XL97 XL98 XL7
    XL5
    Keywords : kbcode kbprg PgmHowto
    Version : WINDOWS:5.0,5.0c,7.0,7.0a,97; MACINTOSH:5.0,98
    Platform : MACINTOSH WINDOWS
    Issue type : kbhowto

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    Last reviewed: February 3, 1998
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