Do you want to learn how to insert a text box in Excel? This Microsoft Excel tutorial will surely help you!

The Excel Text Box feature allows you to insert a floating text placeholder where you can write things freely. Text Boxes don’t anchor their content to any cell or cell range. Therefore, when you format cells, the content in a text box stays untouched.

These Excel objects make the best elements to create headers, footers, instruction boxes, interactive buttons linked to VBA macros, and many more.

I’ve outlined below the tried and tested methods to add an Excel Text Box to your worksheet following manual and automatic methods. So, follow along with the steps to learn this indispensable Excel skill. Do note that the Text Box feature is only available in Excel 2016 and newer editions.

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Insert Excel Text Box Using the Insert Tab

Text Box is an item of the Text commands block.

Select the Insert tab on the Excel ribbon menu and go to the Text block.

Now, click on the Text Box button.

The mouse cursor will change to a sword-like icon.

You now can draw a text box anywhere on the active worksheet.

The above is an example of a basic Text Box.

To customize various elements of the Text Box, you can right-click on the object.

The right-click context menu will let you modify various text formatting styles, add or remove bullets, format text effects, and so on.

Alternatively, you can press Alt + N + X to insert a default Text Box. Then, you can change its dimension according to your requirements.

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Insert Excel Text Box Using the Shapes Tool

The Text Box object is also available in the Shapes menu of the Illustrations block of the Insert tab.

Go to the Insert tab and click on the Shapes drop-down menu.

Click on the Text Box item inside the Basic Shapes group.

You can now draw your Text Box on the worksheet.

Though, you can also add any other shape and double-click to enable the text editing feature. So, Excel Shapes also serves the purpose of a text box with a light blue fill color style.

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Insert Excel Text Box Using the Quick Access Toolbar

If you often need to add text boxes in Excel, you can add this object in the Quick Access Toolbar.

Find the Quick Access Toolbar drop-down arrow in the top right corner. It’s near the Redo icon. Click on that.

Now, select More Commands from the context menu.

The Excel Options dialog box will open. The Quick Access Toolbar category will be selected automatically.

Click on the Popular Commands drop-down menu and select All Commands from the list of items.

Scroll down to the listed items that start with the alphabet T and click on the Text Box option.

Now, click on the Add button to insert the Text Box item into the Quick Access Toolbar.

Click OK to save the modification.

You should now see the Text Box icon near the Quick Access Toolbar arrow.

Click on that to activate the command and draw your Text Box.

Insert Excel Text Box Using ActiveX Controls

If you’re looking for an advanced text box that you can program with VBA scripts, you can use the ActiveX Controls Text Box.

The ActiveX Controls menu is available in the Developer tab of Excel.

If you haven’t activated the Developer tab yet, you must enable it now.

Right-click on any tab on the ribbon menu and click on the Customize the Ribbon option in the context menu.

The Excel Options dialog box will open. Scroll down the list of Main Tabs on the right side until you find the Developer checkbox.

Checkmark the checkbox and click OK to save this modification.

The Developer tab will now show up on your Excel desktop app. Navigate to the Developer tab.

Click on the Insert Controls drop-down menu inside the Controls commands block.

Go to the ActiveX Controls group in the context menu and click on the Text Box element.

The mouse cursor will change to a crosshair. Use that to draw a text box.

Right-click on the Text Box object, hover the cursor over the TextBox Object menu, and choose Edit in the overflow menu.

Now, you can enter text content on the Text Box.

Insert Excel Text Box Using Excel VBA Editor

Excel VBA macros offer the most intuitive experience for adding a Text Box in Excel. In this approach, you only need to interact with visual message boxes to input a few data. Then, Excel VBA Editor integrates your input to create and place the text boxes you need.

If you’re new to Excel VBA, read this Excel tutorial to learn how to create a VBA macro from a VBA script:

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Now that you know the steps to set up a VBA macro, find below the script and the rest of the instructions to automate text box creation in Excel:

Sub AddTextBoxWithInput()
    Dim width As Integer
    Dim height As Integer
    Dim text As String
    
    ' Prompt for dimensions
    width = InputBox("Enter the width of the text box in pixels:")
    height = InputBox("Enter the height of the text box in pixels:")
    
    ' Prompt for text
    text = InputBox("Enter the text to be displayed in the text box:")
    
    ' Add the text box
    With ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddTextbox(msoTextOrientationHorizontal, 100, 100, width, height)
        .TextFrame.Characters.text = text
    End With
End Sub
 

Use the above script to create a macro. Now, press Alt + F8 to launch the Macro dialog box.

Select the AddTextBoxWithInput macro in the dialog box and hit the Run button.

Excel will ask you to enter the value for the text box width in pixels.

Another dialog box will ask you to enter the pixel value for the height.

You’ll need to enter the text you want in the last message box.

Excel will populate the Text Box according to the configurations you’ve entered in the input boxes.

Conclusions

These are the five proven methods to insert a text box in your worksheet. Select the method that aligns with your specific requirements and your familiarity with Microsoft Excel.

If the article helped you you can comment below to share your acknowledgment. Do you know how to insert a text box in Excel in a better way than the ones mentioned here? Write about that in the comment box.