XL2000: How to Copy the Text Within a Text Box to a Cell

This article contains a sample Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro 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 should 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 appears in scientific notation. If the data in the text box is alphanumeric, the cell holds only the first 255 characters of data. Microsoft Excel 2000 can hold a maximum of 32,000 characters per cell.

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 professionals 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 a Microsoft Certified Partner or Microsoft Advisory Services. For more information, visit these Microsoft Web sites:

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For more information about the support options that are available and about how to contact Microsoft, visit the following Microsoft Web site:http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS To create a text box in Microsoft Excel, follow these steps:

1. In a new worksheet, select Toolbars on the View menu, and then click Drawing.
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 inside the text box and type some text.
5. Repeat steps 1 through 4 several times to create multiple text boxes.

Sample Visual Basic Procedure

1. With the same Excel workbook open, point to Macro on the Tools menu, and then click Visual Basic Editor. In the Visual Basic Editor, click Module on the Insert menu.
2. Type the following sample macro code into the module sheet, and then click the Run Sub/UserForm button on the Standard toolbar:

   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
   					

Running this macro fills cells A1 through A4 with text from the text boxes.