I want to scroll my novel across my screen like a LED sign.

January 6, 2011 9:05 PM

I need a computer program that can take the text of my novel and scroll it across the laptop screen like one of those LED ticker scrolling signs in Times Square.

I've been googling like crazy, and found 2 things, (LED-Bar, and Scrolling LED bitmap generator) shareware, that for some reason doesn't seem to work for me. I know rudimentary Flash, but could only find flash programs if you needed a scroll bar on the side of a large column of text. Does anyone know offhand of freeware or shareware or even paidware that will essentially be a scrolling LED sign on my computer screen? It must be able to point to a .rtf or .doc file and take the contents of that and slowly scroll it across my screen like a screensaver. Thanks.

posted by Sully to Technology (5 answers total)

Not sure if I'm misinterpreting here.. is the LED look important, or just the scrolling.

If the latter, I'd open a text file and past into it:


[html][body][marquee]

Loads of text

[/marquee][/body][/html]


...(replacing the square brackets with the angled alternative that AskMe hates so much) then save as HTML. Open that in a browser and fullscreen it. Of course, you can then change background and font too in standard htmlishness.
posted by pompomtom at 9:18 PM on January 6, 2011

You could easily do this with a simple HTML page I think, by viewing that page with the browser full-screened. The HTML tag <marquee></marquee> will scroll whatever is placed inside it.
posted by XMLicious at 9:19 PM on January 6, 2011

Best answer: http://www.quackit.com/html/codes/html_marquee_code.cfm
posted by EtzHadaat at 9:33 PM on January 6, 2011

You'll need to use a text file, not doc or rtf for whatever solution you use.
posted by empath at 9:48 PM on January 6, 2011

You could also get an LED style font, make the text red and the background black. That would give it a little more authentic look.
posted by The Lamplighter at 10:42 PM on January 6, 2011