2 Ways to Create HTML & CSS News Ticker (Horizontal and Vertical)

NAVIGATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble Download & Notes	Section A Horizontal Ticker	Section B Vertical Ticker
Extra Useful Bits & Links	Extra Video Tutorial	Closing What Next?

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here to download the source code in a zip file – I have released it under the MIT License, so feel free to build on top of it if you want to.

QUICK NOTES

• There is nothing to install, so just download and unzip into a folder.
• ticker.html is a horizontal ticker, while ticker-vert.html is a vertical ticker.

If you spot a bug, please feel free to comment below. I try to answer questions too, but it is one person versus the entire world… If you need answers urgently, please check out my list of websites to get help with programming.

THE HTML

<div class="tcontainer"><div class="ticker-wrap"><div class="ticker-move">
  <div class="ticker-item">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</div>
  <div class="ticker-item">Aliquam consequat varius consequat.</div>
  <div class="ticker-item">Fusce dapibus turpis vel nisi malesuada sollicitudin.</div>
  <div class="ticker-item">Pellentesque auctor molestie orci ut blandit.</div>
</div></div></div>

Yep… That is a lot of <div>, 3 layers to be exact. Will go through that later, but if you want to add more items, just sandwich more <div class="ticker-item"> within.

THE CSS

/* OUTER CONTAINER */
.tcontainer {
  width: 100%;
  overflow: hidden; /* Hide scroll bar */
}
 
/* MIDDLE CONTAINER */
.ticker-wrap {
  width: 100%;
  padding-left: 100%; /* Push contents to right side of screen */
  background-color: #eee;
}

/* INNER CONTAINER */
@keyframes ticker {
  0% { transform: translate3d(0, 0, 0); }
  100% { transform: translate3d(-100%, 0, 0); }
}
.ticker-move {
  /* Basically move items from right side of screen to left in infinite loop */
  display: inline-block;
  white-space: nowrap;
  padding-right: 100%;
  animation-iteration-count: infinite;
  animation-timing-function: linear;
  animation-name: ticker;
  animation-duration: 10s;
}
.ticker-move:hover{
  animation-play-state: paused; /* Pause scroll on mouse hover */
}

/* ITEMS */
.ticker-item{
  display: inline-block; /* Lay items in a horizontal line */
  padding: 0 2rem;
}

If you are interested in how this ticker works in detail, here is how from the outermost element to innermost.

• .tcontainer Just a 100% width container with overflow: hidden to hide the scrollbars.
• .ticker-wrap Another 100% width container, and has padding-left: 100% to push all the internal item offscreen to the right.
• .ticker-move This layer does the actual ticker magic with CSS animation.
• @keyframes ticker Basically, an animation sequence that moves .ticker-move from right to left.
• .ticker-item Individual items of the ticker. Displayed in inline-block, so all the text lines up in a single row.

In a nutshell, all the text items are pushed off the screen using padding-left: 100%, then moved back using a CSS animated translate3d(-100%, 0, 0). In an infinite animation loop, that is.

THE DEMO

THE LIMITATIONS & ADDING ITEMS

• As you can see, the animation-duration is fixed in CSS.
• Meaning, if more text is added, the ticker speed will become faster. You have to manually readjust the duration yourself based on the amount of text.
• This will also mean having a different ticker speed on various screen sizes.

RECOMMENDED SOLUTION

Yep, this is kind of dumb, but limit the amount of text that you put in, so that the speed is more-or-less controlled. You can also use the media query to control the ticker speed on different screen sizes.

@media only screen and (max-width: 768px) {
  .ticker-move { animation-duration: 20s; }
}

THE HTML

<div class="tickerv-wrap"><ul>
  <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.</li>
  <li>Aliquam consequat varius consequat.</li>
  <li>Fusce dapibus turpis vel nisi malesuada sollicitudin.</li>
  <li>Pellentesque auctor molestie orci ut blandit.</li>
</ul></div>

The HTML for the vertical ticker is a lot easier, just wrap a list inside a <div>. Captain Obvious, add more <li> if you need more items.

THE CSS

/* WRAPPER */
.tickerv-wrap {
  background: #eee;
  box-sizing: content-box;
  height: 25px; /* Take note of this */
  overflow: hidden; /* Hide scrollbars */
  padding: 10px;
} 

/* TICKER ANIMATION */
@keyframes tickerv {
  0%   {margin-top: 0;}
  /* Quite literally -ve height of wrapper */
  25%  {margin-top: -26px;} /* 1 X 25 px */
  50%  {margin-top: -52px;} /* 2 X 25 px */
  75%  {margin-top: -78px;} /* 3 X 25 px */
  100% {margin-top: 0;} /* Back to first line */
}
.tickerv-wrap ul {
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
  list-style-type: none;
  animation-name: tickerv; /* Loop through items */
  animation-duration: 10s;
  animation-iteration-count: infinite;
  animation-timing-function: cubic-bezier(1, 0, .5, 0);
}
.tickerv-wrap ul:hover {
  /* Pause on mouse hover */
  animation-play-state: paused;
}

/* ITEMS */
.tickerv-wrap ul li {
  font-size: 18px;
  line-height: 26px /* Same as wrapper height */
}

The vertical ticker is a little easier to understand than the horizontal one:

• Basically, we give the list items a fixed height .tickerv-wrap ul li { line-height: 26px }.
• Then, we put this list into a container that will only display one line .tickerv-wrap { height: 25px }.
• Finally, as you may have already guessed, CSS animation magic @keyframes tickerv will scroll through all the items.

THE DEMO

LIMITATIONS & ADDING ITEMS

Just like the above horizontal ticker, the keyframes in the CSS animation is fixed, meaning:

• If you want to add more or remove lines, you have to readjust the entire @keyframes tickerv manually.
• Also, remember to adjust the animation-duration as well.

But apart from that, not much pain to using this vertical version.

LINKS & REFERENCES

Changed your mind? Want to use libraries in your project? Here are a few news tickers that are based on libraries.

• 10 Best News Ticker Plugins In jQuery And Pure JavaScript/CSS – jQueryScript.net
• Scrolling Breaking News Ticker – Bootsnipp

YOUTUBE TUTORIAL

INFOGRAPHIC CHEAT SHEET