Bill,
No solution, but I see it happens when Len becomes bigger than 255. Excel is
unable to display text in cells formatted as Text at this length also, so I
would guess it has something to do with how Excel handles strings.

NickHK

"Bill Dilworth" wrote in message
...
Here is some basic vba code for automating an Excel sheet from a PPT app.
I
want to add a rectangle with some text to sheet 1. I know (because I
control the file creation) that this will be the 6th shape on sheet 1. So
I
used this code:


oExcel.Sheets(1).Shapes _
.AddShape(1, y + 10, (2 * x) + 20, y, x) _
.TextFrame.Characters.Text = _
strText

Works great, up to a point. If strText gets to about 200-250 characters,
it
blanks out the text display in the box, nada, nothing, gone, pfft. I
tried
changing the shape to a textbox (AddTextBox), with no change in behavior.
Since I know the text will be between 10 and 400 characters, depending on
the circumstances, I am forced to run with something like this:


oExcel.Sheets(1).Shapes _
.AddShape(1, y + 10, (2 * x) + 20, y, x) _
.TextFrame.Characters.Text = _
Left(strText, 200)

If Len(strText) 200 Then _
oExcel.Sheets(1).Shapes(6) _
.TextFrame.Characters(200) _
.Insert Right(strText, _
Len(strText) - 200)


I just wondering if I am missing something silly, or is this a standard
Excel design "feature"? Perhaps this is a cross app VBA inconvenience,
but
it kept me up half the night, banging my head against the monitor, trying
to
figure out where strText went half the time. The code now works, so this
isn't a crisis anymore, but I would love to find out why it does this.



--
Bill