Instagram Adds New Animation Feature To Text In Stories

Instagram is introducing an animation feature to its Story text boxes, giving them a more dynamic visual presentation.

Speaking of presentations, this really does harken back to the good old '90s and early 2000s, when sliding, expanding, and zooming texts were all the rage in PowerPoint slides, formal or otherwise. And while we've solemnly offered our farewells to the fad, Stories are a different medium from presentations. While certainly sharing similar visual cues, the more casual environment they awoke, along with all the various aesthetics they cater to, animated text boxes can easily carve themselves a niche here.

The new feature was recently unveiled by Instagram in the form of a short video uploaded to the its Twitter account. A 12 second clip, featuring the currently trending #ShareBlackStories tag as placeholder text in honor of Black History Month, demonstrates the features by having the hashtag slide up and down. This feature is enabled by the addition of a brand new Animate button to the Story interface.

Placed next to the other text icons displayed on top, such as alignment and color, the Animate button will give your texts virtual life and make it slide up and down the screen. While the complete range of animations is currently unknown, it's almost common sense that such a feature has a lot more than can be done with it. Let's see how quick to the draw Instagram proves itself.

The feature may not exactly be news to everyone. It has, as a matter of fact, been in limited circulation across specific IG accounts in attempts at A/B beta testing before releasing text animation to a wider audience. Even now, however, certain regions have not recieved the update and are awaiting the feature to roll by. Instagram has yet to roll out Reels to wider audiences, and it's been quite a while since the short-form video interface saw a widespread release.

At any rate, this new tweak seems to match up with Instagram's modus operandi of providing its users an endless barrage of creative and fun tools to express themselves with via the likes of Stories. Who knows? Maybe there's one user out there, waiting for the perfect finishing touches to a particularly interesting video clip, who's going to be overjoyed at such a sight. This author's rather impressed by their patience, especially if they hail from a region that hasn't encountered the new update.


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