Scroll text reveal

Also called text reveal, word-by-word scroll reveal, or scroll text highlight

A paragraph whose words brighten from faint to full one by one as you scroll through it, tied to the scroll position so it rewinds on the way up.

What is Scroll text reveal?

A scroll text reveal splits a paragraph into words and shows them all faint, around 15 to 20% opacity. As the reader scrolls, the words light up in reading order, as if the page were reading along. Each word’s opacity follows the scroll position, so scrolling back up dims the words again.

The usual build pins the paragraph with position: sticky inside a section two to four screens tall. Motion’s useScroll reads that section’s progress from 0 to 1, and useTransform gives each word its own slice: word 5 of 20 brightens between 0.25 and 0.30. Overlapping the slices a little makes a softer wave. In browsers that support it, CSS can do the same with animation-timeline: view() on each word.

Save it for one short statement, such as a mission line, a product promise, or a quote; a long paragraph makes people scroll a lot for a little. Keep the faint words readable, give screen readers the full sentence once and hide the split copy with aria-hidden, and show the text at full opacity for people who prefer reduced motion.

Often confused with

Scroll reveal
A scroll reveal plays a one-time entrance when an element enters the viewport. A scroll text reveal follows the scroll position word by word and rewinds when you scroll back.
Split text animation
Split text animates letters or words in on a timer, usually once. A scroll text reveal uses the same split, but the scroll position decides how far along each word is.
All terms

Scroll-driven animation

An animation whose progress is tied directly to the scroll position, so it moves forward as you scroll down and rewinds as you scroll up.

Split text animation

A text animation that breaks a heading into characters, words, or lines and animates each piece in turn, so the text arrives as a wave.

Scroll pinning

A scroll effect that holds a section in place while its content animates through several states, then releases it to scroll away.

Scrollytelling

A storytelling layout where a pinned graphic changes step by step as the reader scrolls through short blocks of text beside it.

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