Happy Birthday Sign on Your Phone, Lit Up

Q: How do I make a happy birthday sign without printing anything?

Use the phone. In LED Banner pick the Happy Birthday template, add the name in Message and tap Full Screen. It fills the screen in landscape and stays bright until you double-tap to close it.

Lights off, candles lit, a phone propped against the fruit bowl behind the cake: the sign shows up before the candles do.

The Happy Birthday template gives you a scrolling HAPPY BIRTHDAY with a cake emoji at each end, in Rainbow, cycling through every colour once every 4 seconds. On an iPhone set to Spanish the text already comes in Spanish. Type over it with anything you like, FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS included.

Steps for the cake moment

Create > Templates > Happy Birthday. It saves as a new banner and opens in the editor.
Tap Text and edit Message, for example to HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIA.
Set Weight to Bold (it actually draws the heavy weight, thicker than you expect) and keep Size at 120.
Tap Motion and slow Speed if you want the name to stay readable while people are singing.
Open the sign with Full Screen a minute before the cake comes in. Brightness jumps to maximum and the phone will not lock while it shows.
Afterwards, double-tap the screen to close it.

How long does the message take to go past?

Width matters more than letters. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIA in the heavy weight at Size 120 measured 1,276.0 pt wide on a Mac with the same system font, against 852 pt of a 6.1-inch iPhone in landscape. One full pass is the text plus the screen width, divided by the speed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIA, Size 120, Loop, 852 pt wide iPhone (approximate)
Speed	One full pass	Each letter on screen
80 pt/s (template default)	26.60 s	10.65 s
120 pt/s	17.73 s	7.10 s
150 pt/s	14.19 s	5.68 s

At 80 it feels slow: the name comes round only once during the song. About 120 is a better pick, where it passes twice.

Or make it huge and still

For the photo, a still sign looks better. A second banner reading MIA 7 in Black at Size 300 with Loop set to None measures 819.7 pt, leaving 16.1 pt each side: tight but whole. At 280 it leaves 43.5 pt and looks less cramped. Anything wider than the screen gets cut at both edges, so check it in Full Screen before the guests arrive.

Colours that worked in a dark room

Rainbow from the template is cheerful, but with candles in front it gets busy. Solid with the yellow from Quick Colors works better.
Gold looks warm next to candle light.
The template starts on Stars. Switching Background to Pure Black works better: Stars, Galaxy and the other animated backgrounds are Pro options in the editor, and plain black keeps the candle light the brightest thing in the room.

Weddings, christenings and other days

There is a Just Married template and a Congratulations one; Party and Graduation are in the list of 40 too. There is no christening or baptism template, so start from New Banner and type it. One line only: a long text like HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY CARLOS AND ANA does not wrap, it just takes longer to scroll past.

What to know before you install

The free version saves 3 banners. A birthday, a still name and a wedding sign fill it, and a fourth opens the Pro screen, where you can sometimes Watch ad for 1 free banner. You can always edit an old banner's text instead of making a new one.

Ads show in the menus and can appear after every third time you close the sign, never while it is on screen. It cannot record a video, save a GIF or show on a TV: the phone or iPad screen is the sign. Any Pro plan removes the ads and opens the locked colours, backgrounds and effects.

Questions and answers

How do I make a happy birthday sign without printing anything?

Use the phone. In LED Banner pick the Happy Birthday template, add the name in Message and tap Full Screen. It fills the screen in landscape and stays bright until you double-tap to close it.

Can I put happy birthday on a TV screen with this app?

No. LED Banner has no AirPlay or external display output, so the sign only shows on the iPhone or iPad itself. An iPad gives you the bigger sign.

Is happy birthday scrolling text something I can copy and paste?

Not from this app: it draws the text as a sign on your screen and has no export or copy feature. You type the message yourself, with emoji if you like.

Does the birthday sign need internet?

No. Making and showing the sign happens on the device. Only ads and buying or restoring Pro use the network.

How to show big text on your phone screen, full screen · LED Banner

How do I make a happy birthday sign on my phone?