Need help with animated JLabel

Question

I've created an animated extension of the JLabel which imitates a "typewriter" effect. It works smoothly for single-line labels.
Here is a basic pseudo-code outline of how I went about doing it:
constructor(String fullText, int delay) {
  create swing timer
  start timer
//called by timer
actionPerformed() {
  if (all chars are printed)
    stop timer
  else {
    labelStr += fullText.charAt(pos);
    this.setText(labelStr);
    pos++;
}The problem is, whenever It recognises an HTML line break (to make it a multi-line label), all of the text gets bumped up. Here's a rough animation showing my animated label and a regular jlabel...
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/8459/typewriteranizy1.gif
As you can see, once the line breaks are added to the animated label's text, all the text is moved up. This creates a choppy scrolling effect, something I'm trying to avoid at the moment.
Any ideas on how I could keep the animated text in a fixed position, so it doesn't scroll up like this?
I can provide source code if needed.

Answer 1

Ah yes, my bad. I tried it now but realised I have tried it before, and it doesn't work. i never increments and so it prints the first character every time the timer fires instead. Here is a SSCCE:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class TW extends JFrame implements ActionListener
     JLabel iValue = new JLabel("i = ");
     JTextArea log = new JTextArea(10, 20);
     JButton start = new JButton("Start");
     Timer type;
     public TW()
          setLayout(new BorderLayout(0, 0));
          log.setEditable(false);
          log.setLineWrap(true);
          log.setWrapStyleWord(true);
          add(iValue, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
          add(log, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          add(start, BorderLayout.PAGE_END);
          start.addActionListener(this);
          setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          pack();
          setLocationRelativeTo(null);
          setVisible(true);
     public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
          ActionListener listen = new ActionListener()
               public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
                    int i = 0;
                    String msg = "This is a simple typewriter demo.";
                    if (i < msg.length())
                         String str = (String)new Character(msg.charAt(i)).toString();
                         log.append(str);
                         iValue.setText("i = " +i);
                         i++;
                    else
                         type.stop();
          type = new Timer(250, listen);
          type.start();
     public static void main (String[] args)
          new TW();
}