animation in powerpoint presentation is best applied when

PRESENTATION DESIGN

When (and when not) to use PowerPoint animations

So you’ve been reading our blog and learning some powerful tips on how to add animations to PowerPoint slides . You’ve even been practicing, and are getting the hang of choosing the right animations, and making sure they play smoothly.

But the last question you come to is, “when should I add animations to my PowerPoint?”

The answer, as with all things in PowerPoint design, “it depends.” So in this blog, we’re going to run through a couple common situations when you might think of adding PowerPoint animations, and our recommendations for each. Let’s dive in!

What kind of deck is this, and what kind of audience?

Marketing or sales presentations.

Is this a marketing presentation? Are you trying to sell a product or an idea? Is your audience a potential customer? This is literally where the ad industry term sizzle originates. So as long as you are free of any technical concerns (more below on this), you can definitely include some PowerPoint animations.

Final answer: YES

Financial or Board presentations

If you are presenting to a more “buttoned up” audience, they may not see the value in animation the way other audiences do. If your audience is only interested in numbers, then that’s what you should give them. Instead of forcing animations, devote that time to improving your content.

Final answer: NO

Human stories and emotional content

These may be slightly less common overall, but many presentations rely on human interest stories, emotional resonance, and other forms of empathy. In these cases, PowerPoint animations can either add to your story, or cheapen your message, so proceed with caution.

Final answer: DEPENDS

How is your PowerPoint being presented?

Keynote stage or large room.

Keynotes might be the only time we pump up the animation for sheer sizzle. They are often used to build enthusiasm or hype, so drama and theatrics are right at home here. That said, all of our usual advice about designing for your audience and not overdoing slides still applies.

For settings like most small to medium conference rooms, animation works well when kept simple. Use it to emphasize key points, clarify infographics, or for tasteful designs, but remember that bolder animations that would be at home in a keynote will feel like too much in this case.

Final answer: SOMETIMES

Virtual PowerPoint presentations

In our experience, using animations in remote presentations isn’t a great idea. Lag is a common issue with screen sharing, as well as pixelization, both of which will ruin the effect of your animation.

Final answer: NOT RECOMMENDED

Printed or Leave-behind

If you are printing a presentation to send to someone, or leaving a copy behind after a meeting, you’ll either want to avoid animations or create a separate version without them. Obviously they won’t transfer to paper, which can cause other design problems as well.

How important is timing?

What’s the presenter's style.

Whether you are presenting or designing a deck for someone, it’s key to consider delivery style.

For people who like to control every click, YES

For people who like to improvise, NO

Is there a hard stop on the presentation?

Sometimes you just need to get to the point. If you have a time limit, or are presenting to a busy audience, you should skip the animation and focus on your content.

Will Animation help tell the story?

Animations play a key role in conveying your message.

Infographics and moments of emphasis can benefit from information moving and flowing in certain directions, or coming in at certain times.

Can your animation help set the mood?

Sometimes there is a lot of time spent on the opening slide of a presentation. In these cases, adding a looping movie or GIF to the beginning of presentation is a passive way to get a ton of extra sizzle in your deck before you’ve even spoken a word. It can set the tone for the meeting and get your audience tuned in to you.

Will you reuse these slides later?

Are you the only person using these animations?

It's common for slides (and whole presentations) to be shared, reused, or pulled apart for use in other presentations later. If your slides include animations and will be used outside the original slide deck, you might want to hold off on adding animations, since you don't know who will pick them up next or how they will be used.

If it's a custom, one-time-use presentation, then you are good to go.

Final answer:    SOMETIMES

As you can see, there are lots of times when PowerPoint animations are the perfect addition, and plenty when you should avoid it altogether. Basically, when you are learning to add animations, just remember the guiding principle of all PowerPoint design: “it depends.” Think clearly about your audience and your skills, and you will find smart, useful opportunities to improve your presentations with PowerPoint animations!

Update (03/24): we’ve revised this article to add some new details on best practices for PowerPoint animations

Looking for more information about presentation visuals and beyond? Check out our resources for expert advice and tested strategies.

Presentation Design 101

Presentation Training

Storytelling

PowerPoint design

PowerPoint tips and tricks

About the author

Danielle John is the founder of VerdanaBold. She has more than 25 years as an award-winning designer and creative lead, directing the visual expression and production of thousands of high-value new business pitches, C-level presentations and internal presentations for major global brands. When she's not busy at VerdanaBold, she can be found antique shopping and spending time with her husband and two kids.

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If Your PC Won't Run Windows 11, Here Are 5 Great Linux Operating Systems to Try Instead

This single feature makes new outlook for windows worth it, the 9 best features in the new outlook for windows, quick links, what are animations, what are transitions, things to note before you begin, how to add, amend, and remove an animation, how to add, amend, and remove a transition, using the morph transition.

PowerPoint's animations and transitions can help you grab your audience's attention, present information in bite-sized chunks, and—when used sparingly—deliver a more professional presentation. In this article, we'll run through the nuts and bolts of these useful PowerPoint tools.

Animations are effects you can add to your slides' text, pictures, shapes, graphics, tables, and other elements. There are four different types of animations:

• Entrance animations—These are the effects you can add to make an object appear on your slide in different ways.
• Emphasis animations—You can add an emphasis animation to an object already visible on your slide, such as changing its size or color.
• Exit animations—The opposite to entrance animations, exit animations make objects disappear from your slide through different effects.
• Motion paths animations —You can make an element on your slide move to a different place, with your audience seeing this movement from where it started to where it ends up.

You can use more than one animation on a single object. For example, you can apply an entrance animation to some text, followed by an emphasis animation.

A transition effect dictates how your presentation progresses from one slide to the next, and you can choose from three different levels of complexity:

• Subtle—These are the most basic types of transitions in PowerPoint, aiding speed and slickness as you jump from one slide to the next.
• Exciting—You can make your transitions more visually entertaining.
• Dynamic—A dynamic transition applies to all parts of a slide, except for the background, giving the illusion that the content is rolling through on a single page.

Only one transition effect can be added to each slide, and it's important that you apply the transition to the slide that will be visible once the transition is complete. For example, if you have two slides and want to create a transition effect as you move from slide 1 to slide 2, you will need to apply the transition to slide 2.

Before you add animation and transition effects to your PowerPoint presentation, bear in mind the following tips:

• Don't add too many animations and transitions . Overusing these features can distract your audiences in ways you didn't intend to, and they can also look tacky and unprofessional. Ask yourself, "Does this make my presentation better?" If the answer is no, don't add it.
• Another issue with using too many animations and transitions is that it could significantly slow down your PowerPoint file's processing speed , as it adds volume to your file size.
• Keep things professional in the right contexts. For example, if you're presenting a formal business plan, you don't want to add funky transitions that take ten seconds to complete. Try sticking to slick effects that last less than a second.
• Use the same transition effect for each slide and, if you can, the same animation for each item.

It's a widely shared opinion that Microsoft 365's desktop apps offer more flexibility and functionality than their web-based counterparts. However, the exact opposite can be said for adding animations, which is significantly easier to do on PowerPoint for the web than via the subscription-only app. So, to create the animations for screenshots in this section, we have used PowerPoint online, rather than the desktop app, and we recommend that you do the same.

Before you add any animations, click "Animation Pane" in the Animations tab on the ribbon. This will open a pane on the right side of your window, which will make seeing and managing your animations much easier.

Now, select the item you want to animate. If you want several items on a slide to animate in the same way at the same time, hold Ctrl while clicking them all. Then, click the down arrow in the Animations tab, and choose the appropriate effect.

You will then see an animation card in the Animation Pane for the effect you just added. Here, you can change the animation type, how it is activated (whether via a click, with the previous animation, or after the previous animation), and the duration and delay.

If you have more than one animation on a slide and want to reorder them, click and drag the six dots next to the relevant animation card upwards or downwards.

Finally, to remove an animation, click the trash icon on the appropriate animation card.

You can also animate paragraphs of text within a text box. To do so, select the relevant text, and follow the same process.

Whether you're using PowerPoint's desktop app or the online version of the program, adding transitions involves a very similar process.

First, select the slide you want to transition to (for example, you'll select slide 2 if you want to create a transition from slide 1 to slide 2) in the slide thumbnail pane, and then click the "Transitions" tab on the ribbon.

To see more transitions, click the down arrow on the right-hand side of the Transition To This Slide group.

Clicking any of the transition effects on display will do two things—first, it will show you a preview of what that transition will look like, and second, it will apply that transition to that slide.

You can then amend the options (such as the direction of the transition) and timing of the transition using the settings on the right side of the Transitions tab. This is where you can also add a sound effect to the transition, or decide whether the transition effect occurs when you click your mouse or automatically after a given length of time.

If you want to apply the same transition effect and options to all slides, click "Apply To All" in the Timing group of the Transition tab when you have finished setting up your transition's parameters. You can then select individual slides to make further adjustments if needed.

To remove a transition, select the slide in the slide thumbnail pane, and click "None" in the Transitions tab.

PowerPoint's Morph is a transition effect that recognizes differences between the same items on two slides, and smoothly transitions between them when you proceed from one slide to the next. For example, you might have an image on slide 1, and the same image in a different position on slide 2. The morph transition gives your audience the impression that you're still on the same slide, but the objects are merely moving and resizing.

This is different to the motion path animation, which you can set for different items and activate at different times on your slide. The morph transition, however, moves all items together as you move from one slide to the next, saving you from having to apply motion path animations to individual objects. Any objects on the first slide but not the second will simply fade away during the morph transition. Similarly, any new items on the second slide will appear gradually.

In this example, we have a title and an image on slide 1, and the same objects on slide 2 but in different places and different sizes. We created this scenario by copying and pasting the whole of slide 1, and then changing the text and image on slide 2. However, you can also create a blank slide, and then copy and paste the different elements you want to morph.

Then, we need to select slide 2, and click "Morph" in the Transitions tab on the ribbon.

Then, press F5 to see your presentation, and witness the smooth morph transition from one slide to the next. You can also use this transition effect to zoom into an image or fade an image into the background. Just ensure that you copy and paste from one slide to the next before you create the transition, so that PowerPoint recognizes them as the same.

If animations and transitions are new to you, check out these other tips that you should also know before you design your next presentation.

• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft 365

What Is Animation in Microsoft PowerPoint? An Expert Guide

Do you want to make your presentation stand out? Adding animation to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation can help you capture your audience’s attention and make your slides visually appealing.

In this expert guide, we’ll show you what animation is in Microsoft PowerPoint, how to use it, the types of animations available, how to create animations, and the benefits of using animation.

We’ll also provide tips for creating eye-catching animations and common mistakes to avoid when using them.

Short Answer

Animation in Microsoft PowerPoint is a feature that allows you to add movement and effects to objects on a slide.

Animation can be used to make presentations more engaging and interactive.

You can animate text, shapes, images, and other objects on a slide.

What is Animation in Microsoft PowerPoint?

It allows users to add visual effects to their slides, which can help to create a more engaging and professional-looking presentation.

The most common animations available in Microsoft PowerPoint are transitions, which allow users to move between slides with a variety of effects, such as fades, wipes, and slides.

Animations can be applied to elements on the slide individually, or to multiple elements at once.

Custom animations can be added to slides to create more complex effects, such as bouncing or spinning images.

Animations can be used to highlight certain elements, or to draw attention to specific points.

By using animations, presentations can become more engaging and professional-looking.

How to Use Animation in Microsoft PowerPoint

Animations can be used to transition between slides, highlight certain elements, draw attention to specific points, and create a more dynamic presentation.

Animations can also be adjusted to their preference, allowing users to control how long an animation will last and how it will transition from one slide to the next.

When selecting an animation, users can choose from a variety of different effects, including entrance, emphasis, exit, and motion paths.

Motion paths are used to create animations that move elements around the slide.

It also allows users to control the speed of the animation.

Transitions are used to move between slides, and can be used in conjunction with animations to create a more professional-looking and engaging presentation.

Types of Animations in Microsoft PowerPoint

When it comes to animations in Microsoft PowerPoint, there is a wide range of options available to users.

One of the most common types of animations is the Slide Transition animation.

This type of animation is used to draw attention to an element on the slide, such as text or an image.

This type of animation can be used to make an element move, shake, or wobble as a way to draw attention to it.

Animations can be a great way to make presentations more engaging and professional-looking.

How to Create Animations in Microsoft PowerPoint

Creating animations in Microsoft PowerPoint is a relatively straightforward process.

Animations can be added to any slide by selecting the Animations tab in the top toolbar.

The Animations tab in PowerPoint gives users access to a variety of preset animations.

The Animation Pane gives users access to even more customization options.

Triggers can be used to create complex animations that play out when certain conditions are met.

Transitions can be added from the Transitions tab in the top toolbar.

This is especially useful if users want to create an animation that will be used on multiple slides.

In summary, creating animations in Microsoft PowerPoint is a simple process.

Benefits of Using Animations in Microsoft PowerPoint

Not only can they add visual interest and draw attention to specific points, they can also help to engage the audience and create a more professional-looking presentation.

Additionally, animations can be used to create more complex effects, such as fading in or out, rotating, and scaling objects.

Tips for Creating Eye-Catching Animations

Creating eye-catching animations in Microsoft PowerPoint is easy, but it takes a bit of practice to get good at it. To make your presentations stand out, you’ll want to make sure you choose the right animation for each slide. Here are some tips for creating animations that will make your presentations stand out:

1. Know what you want to accomplish: Before you start adding animations to your slides, make sure you know what you want to accomplish with them. Do you want to draw attention to a particular element on the slide? Do you want to transition to the next slide in an interesting way? Knowing what you want to achieve will help you choose the right animations for your presentation.

3. Choose the right animation: When selecting animations, make sure to choose one that matches the theme of your presentation. For example, if you’re creating a presentation about a new product launch, you may want to use an animation that shows a rocket taking off. On the other hand, if you’re creating a presentation about a new marketing campaign, you may want to use a slide transition that shows a logo popping up on the screen.

By following these tips, you’ll be able to create animations that will make your presentations more engaging and professional-looking.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Animations

First off, it is important to avoid overloading a presentation with too many animations.

Animations that are too fast can make it difficult to follow the flow of the presentation, while animations that are too slow can be tedious and boring.

Additionally, it is important to make sure that the animations are used in a way that enhances the presentation and does not distract from the main message.

Finally, it is important to choose animations that match the tone and style of the presentation.

Final Thoughts

By mastering the different types of animations and learning how to create custom animations, you can make your presentations more engaging and professional-looking.

James Wilson has extensive knowledge in the information technology industry.His second love, besides dealing with computers, is smart home technology. He is continually updating information to better comprehend this problem and has a deep understanding of the apartment’s support system.

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Home Blog PowerPoint Tutorials PowerPoint Animations: Animate Text, Objects, and Slides in Your Presentations

PowerPoint Animations: Animate Text, Objects, and Slides in Your Presentations

Working with graphic assets can bring a degree of expectancy when delivering a presentation, such as in the case of PowerPoint animations. They can help add emphasis to slide content and reveal parts of the slide gradually to help presenters discuss topics sequentially. 

As a presenting software, PowerPoint provides all kinds of animations for emphasis, entrance, exit, and to create a set motion. Join us today to learn all about animations in PowerPoint and unleash your creative potential.

Table of Contents

How PowerPoint Animations Can Benefit Presentation Design

Understanding powerpoint animation basics, types of animations in powerpoint, how to animate text on powerpoint, animating objects for visual impact, crafting seamless slide transitions in powerpoint, mastering advanced animation techniques in powerpoint, dos and don’ts of powerpoint animations, real-world use cases of animated presentation slides, recommended animated powerpoint templates, enhanced engagement and understanding through animations.

Dynamic presentations can have many benefits. The importance of such animations is often only realized by people familiar with PowerPoint. As we’ve seen in our guide on visual communication , graphical elements can make concepts more understandable. In the case of animations, we can use the transitions between slides or elements to split concepts and make them clearer.

Audience engagement is another factor, as eye-catching slides often include surprise elements hidden behind animations. These elements attract the audience’s interest and increase retention rate. In this case, animations serve as powerful presentation aids for the speaker.

Capturing Audience Attention

PowerPoint animations are more likely to capture the audience’s attention than static slides. The moving objects on-screen are the type of visuals people are likely to find attention-grabbing instead of trying to read through static slides or looking at static images. On this behalf, storytelling techniques boost their efficacy in connecting with the audience by implementing animations and transitions rather than sticking to static slides. 

Emphasizing Relationships Between Elements

Whenever we work with contrasting values, like pros and cons slides , animations help the presenter highlight areas of interest or disclose the opposite values section by section. This, in turn, structures the speech for real-time interaction with the graphical assets rather than having the audience read the slide and lose focus on the speech. 

Interactive Presentations

As mentioned before, presenters can craft compelling stories through the careful use of animations in PPT. What is often overlooked is the link between interactive presentations and animations. For instance, a speaker can deliver different outcomes of the presentation by selecting one path whose outcome is revealed through an animation. This “wow” factor induces surprise and creatively presents case scenarios.

Another option is when introducing your team in presentations. Rather than using static slides, incorporating animations gives more rhythm to the presentation and invites the public to interact with the speaker.

Getting Started with Animation in PowerPoint

To start with animations in PowerPoint, select an object you wish to animate and go to the Animations tab to choose an animation to add to the slide element. When adding animations to multiple objects in a slide, you should consider the sequence you wish to use to animate objects.

Accessing Animation Features

When accessing animation features, you will come across various animation types. By expanding the Animations menu, you can select animations for entrance, exit, emphasis, and motion paths to create a path for your animated sequence. You can also click to instantly preview an animation for the selected object or switch to slideshow mode to see how the animation will appear.

Adding Animations to Text and Objects

Once an animation is added to a text or object, a number is assigned. This number shows the sequence in which the object will be presented. For example, the object will be the first to be animated on screen, followed by two, three, and so on.

You can adjust the sequence of animations, triggers, and other settings from the Animation Pane in PowerPoint.

Timing and Sequence in Animations

The Timing menu in the Animations pane provides options to set the duration of the animation, the time to delay the animation on the screen (if necessary), and to assess if the animation starts on click, with the previous or after the last animation. How you select these animations will help you adjust the time and sequence of the animations. For example, you can use ‘ with previous’ option to show two animated objects simultaneously.

Entrance, Exit, and Emphasis Animations

Some of the most commonly used animation types fall under three categories: entrance, exit, and emphasis animations.

Entrance Animations

The Entrance Animations are meant to start or introduce objects. You can explore all entrance-related animations by going to Animations -> Animation (menu) -> More Entrance Effects . This will reveal all entrance animations you can click to preview for a selected object. These often consist of basic animations with effects like appear, fly-in, float-in, strips, wheel, circle, box, dissolve-in, split, wedge, wipe, plus, diamond, checkerboard, blinds, etc. The animations can be divided into three categories: basic, subtle, and moderate. These categories help identify the type of effects in each category according to how prominent they might be on screen.

Exit Animations

The Exit Animations are meant to help exit a slide or animated sequence to close a topic or subtopic, or to conclude the on-screen animations for a slide. These animations are similar to the Entrance Animations with the same effects. You can use these animation types for an exit sequence using effects like blinds, circles, checkerboard, box, plus, split, wedge, wipe, diamond, dissolve out, contract, swivel, fade, zoom, basic zoom, collapse, float up, etc.

Like the Entrance Animations, you can go to  Animations -> Animation (menu) -> More Exit Effects to preview the animations and to see the three categories for basic, subtle, or moderate animations.

Emphasis Animations

Other than basic, subtle, and moderate, the Emphasis Animations come with an additional category, ‘exciting.’ Emphasis animations in PowerPoint provide visual aids for emphasizing content within slides. The effects for these animation types in PowerPoint are also quite different from the entrance and exit-themed effects. Effects like fill color, grow/shrink, transparency, line color, teeter, color pulse, object color, desaturate, darken, lighten, blink, wave, and others can help emphasize an object within a slide to make it pop out before the audience.

Exploring Motion Path Animations

If primary effects aren’t what you want, it’s time to switch to Motion Paths . These are animated effects in PowerPoint that showcase objects across a specific path. In other words, these are elaborate animations that drag objects on the screen based on a particular shape or path, such as a 4,5, 6, or 8-point star, crescent moon, circle, diamond, football, heart, octagon, pentagon, square, trapezoid, teardrop, right triangle, arc (down, right, left, up), curvy right, bounce right, etc.

Motion Paths are divided into four categories. The basic effects consist of shapes, whereas, Line Curves provide lines and curves to animated objects. Similarly, the special category contains more elaborate effects such as inverted square, loop de loop, peanut, bean, curved square, etc.

Choosing Appropriate Animation Styles

When choosing animation styles, picking a style that best resonates with your presentation slides is important. The animations’ names and categories can help you identify what might work for you. Furthermore, after adding an animation, you can go to Effect Options to view the various directions and options used to refine the animation to build your sequence further. Depending on the animation type, you can pick variations of the animation, directions, colors, transparency, points to edit or lock, or other options for selected effects. The image below shows the variations for the Wheel animation in PowerPoint via Effect Options .

Similarly, if you select Transparency from Emphasis Effects, you can choose how transparent the object will appear on the screen. Likewise, many color-themed effects enable picking a custom color to animate an object.

Since Motion Paths are unique, you will get options to edit points, lock paths, reverse the direction of the default animated sequence, etc.

Now that you know how to animate in PowerPoint, it’s time to explore making written content more interesting using animations.

Start by opening a blank PPT file and adding a placeholder text. The idea is to learn how text interacts with animation effects without working with complex graphic layouts.

Select the text and switch to the Animations tab. In there, pick an animation effect of your preference. You will get a preview of the effect applied – which will show the number of the animation order once completed.

Animations for text, like any other animation, can be controlled in terms of behavior by accessing the panel at the right-most section of the Ribbon.

Additionally, we can expand the animations panel to select from the different effects offered by PowerPoint.

Animating Text Elements on PPT Templates

Animating text elements to highlight key aspects of your slides can be a great way to create engaging presentations. The Animated 3D 4 Steps & Core PowerPoint Template shown below are among the Animated PowerPoint templates at SlideModel that animate objects and text elements for emphasis while retaining a clear layout.

As visible from the animated sequence from the Animation Pane in the image below, the slide deck uses animated text boxes with a mix of other slide elements to create a sequence where a four-step diagram is highlighted with supported text to help elaborate each part of the diagram in an animated sequence. We can add, remove, or modify the included effects via the Animation Pane.

Balancing Text Animations for Impact

By balancing text animations, you can have maximum impact when highlighting content for your slides. The animations can be triggered to start simultaneously to reveal all the text after a sequence of objects, before objects appear, or one by one to reveal the diagram contents gradually.

Animating Images, Shapes, and Charts

When animating shapes and images, you can use a variety of animation types for entrance, exit, and emphasis, and to make the content pop out. However, charts require subtle animations, and it’s best to use basic effects to reveal charts, such as Appear and Disappear .

The Animated Network Diagram PowerPoint Template is an example of how to animate shapes.

The template’s title slide reveals shapes and icons in the form of a diagram in an animated sequence.

You can also include images in such a template to customize the given diagram and animate it to reveal the image simultaneously or after a set of objects has already been revealed.

If you are including a chart in your slide that is to be animated, make sure the animation corresponds to other elements that might also be animated. For example, you can trigger the chart to be revealed after the slide title with a simple Appear effect. In such a case, the chart can be displayed altogether or gradually, in animated form.

Applying Object Animations Strategically

When placing slide objects, you must apply the animations strategically to avoid revealing information out of sequence. Furthermore, it is also worth considering how your effects appear. For example, in the image of the diagram below, would you prefer the diagram to appear floating upward or downward? Such considerations and other vital elements, such as your branding needs, are important to ponder when setting your animated sequence.

Enhancing Presentation Flow with Transitions

While Animations for PowerPoint are one way of making your slides engaging, PowerPoint Transitions is another. You can access them via the Transitions tab in PowerPoint and apply transitions between slides.

While many legacy transitions provide basic effects when switching between slides, some of the more recent additions to this menu, such as Morph Transition , enable the creation of elaborate animations by using Transitions to animate your slides. The below example shows a slide with the Morph transition, giving an animated effect to the diagram.

Maintaining Coherence Between Slides

When applying Transitions, it is essential to maintain coherence between slides by ensuring they don’t overlap with any added Animations. To do this, you should preview your slide deck to see how it might appear once all the animated effects have been included in your slides. Like PowerPoint Animations, you can also use Effect Options for Transitions to set a sequence or direction that best suits your needs.

Layering for Complex Animation Effects

Using layers of multiple objects and slides can easily create advanced animation effects. This can be done using not only PowerPoint animations but also transitions. The Animated Pendulum Swing PowerPoint Templates from the SlideModel archive of animated templates use Transitions like Morph to create animated sequences. The below example shows a swinging pendulum created using Morph.

Combining and Triggering Animations

Depending on the number of elements within a slide and the animations used, you can use triggers to customize and set sequences for slide elements to animate. The example below shows the selected pendulum’s various linking options for the on-click trigger. By placing your slide objects to be connected and triggered with different parts of your slide, you can create and customize animated sequences that can be pretty attention-grabbing. 

PowerPoint Animation Painter

If you thought you had to start from scratch to animate each slide of your presentation, you are sorely mistaken. Much like the Format Painter option in PowerPoint, we can find Animation Painter , which is accessible via the Ribbon under the Advanced Animation control options.

This tool helps us duplicate animations between elements of the same slide or copy animation effects from one slide to another. As a format copying tool, it requires at least one animation effect to be placed otherwise the option is grayed out.

Creative Experimentation

Experimenting with Animations in PowerPoint can be pretty helpful to avoid making monotonous presentations. Experimentation does not necessarily require making slides from scratch, but you can also use ready-made templates such as the 3D animation PowerPoint Templates at SlideModel. Alternatively, some slide deck templates offer a considerable range of animation effects intended for maximum audience engagement, which users can quickly customize by editing placeholder areas for text, images, and logos.

Below is a list of do’s and don’ts of PowerPoint Animations for making presentations that best use animated effects.

Maintain Animation Moderation

It is essential to maintain moderation when using animations, as the use of too many animations on a single slide or presentation can make the content confusing.

Use of Appropriate Animations

Try to use appropriate animations for slide objects. The animation should suitably show if the object is to enter, exit, be emphasized, or be highlighted using a motion path.

Avoid Animation Overload

Avoid flashy animated sequences unless your presentation is meant for an audience that might find engaging, such as children in a classroom session.

Subtle can be Just as Engaging

Sometimes, subtle animations can be just as engaging as an animation with an elaborate effect. This can, in fact, be a better option than using animations that might be visually overpowering or difficult to follow due to elaborate effects.

Ensure Visual Consistency

As discussed earlier, it is vital to maintain consistency in using animated effects. Be it Animations or Transitions, using flashy effects or too many diverse effects can hurt how the audience perceives your content, as it might become confusing, visually overpowering, or unprofessional. In such a case, the audience might quickly lose interest in the presentation, leading to Death by PowerPoint.

Less is More

The design language of visual designs over the past decade or more has been intended to use fewer effects and graphical elements with ample space to make the interface look clean. Be it Modern UI or Material design apps, this design language has been evident across desktop and mobile UIs. Using the same concept, you can design your slides with fewer animations and graphical elements to make your content more visually appealing.

Turning PowerPoints into Millions

Courtney Allen, a professional PowerPoint designer who came out of a BFA in graphic design from Boise State University, had all but PowerPoint as a part of her portfolio. She started her freelancing career via Upwork, making over a thousand PowerPoints for clients, bringing in as many as $2 million. She suggests using simple designs and animations to make the most out of PowerPoint presentations. 

Guy Kawasaki Pitch Deck

Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple employee, whose famous 10-slide pitch deck has inspired a variety of PowerPoint templates. This rule was designed for startups and business presentations, focusing on pitching a concept to investors. While this isn’t directly related to using animations in presentations, it is an example of making the best use of minimalist content in a few slides. You can learn more about the Guy Kawasaki pitch deck from our article about the 10/20/30 rule for PowerPoint presentations .

How not to use an Animated PowerPoint Presentation in Court! 

Presentations with animations aren’t always a great idea. In 2014, a court in the United States criticized a PowerPoint presentation by the prosecutor, which led to the court throwing the case out. The presentation was made with sound effects and animations, with flashy elements like the bullseye. Some of the significant mistakes made by the prosecutor included ‘visual advocacy,’ where the defendant was marked with the word ‘guilt’ in the slide deck. Not to mention, the animated presentation seemed to be aimed at influencing the court using visual aids. Something that did not sit well with the court.

Use of PowerPoint by the US Military

The US Military has often been accused of Death by PowerPoint for preparing what some call the worst PowerPoint slides ever created. The issue became so profound that in 2011, it was revealed that an executive communications manager at Microsoft, Dave Karle, was tasked with ensuring that the US military could finally start using the software properly. After discussions with top military officials, an updated military presentation method was created, consisting of a number of presentation templates, tips, and graphics and more than 6000 map symbols. 

In this section, you can check some ready-made templates that can be easily customized for your presentation’s purposes. All these templates feature professionally made animation effects with native PowerPoint tools.

1. Multi-Purpose Animated PowerPoint Slide Deck

Those looking for how to animate in PowerPoint now have a ready-made solution to create mind-blowing presentations in a couple of minutes. This slide deck contains 26 slides in a broad selection of topics. We can present facts, introduce our team, our company, display charts with animated effects, and so much more. Check it out now!

Use This Template

2. Animated 8-Step Social Media Carousel PowerPoint Template

Bring dynamism to your social media posts by implementing this vivid social media carousel template. With eye-catching animated effects, this template emulates the typical carousel posts we can find on platforms like LinkedIn or Instagram.

3. Problem Solving Animated PowerPoint Template

Bring professional graphics to troubleshooting sessions with your team. This template, filled with PowerPoint animations, offers a user-friendly approach to conventional problem-solving situations in which the team has to observe the Issue Matrix, suggest possible solutions, and prepare an implementation plan and its corresponding process flow diagram. Thanks to its high-quality animation effects, the speaker can introduce the facts individually, without diverting attention from the speech.

4. Animated Company Profile Presentation Template for PowerPoint

We’ve seen this template as one of the examples of animations for PowerPoint. It is a 21-slide solution offering all the tools required for a corporate-styled company profile presentation, specifically tailored for service businesses.

5. Corporate Company Profile Animated PowerPoint Template

An alternative option for company profile presentations, featuring a minimalistic graphic layout with a broad variety of animation effects. Check these 12 slides and customize them with information relevant to your organization – we bring complex animation effects in a ready-made format. Colors and placeholder images can also be replaced.

6. Animated Roadmap PowerPoint Template

Bring more action to any planning meeting using this animated PowerPoint roadmap template. After a clear path overview, each milestone slide contains animation effects to introduce relevant information to the topic. It is a new take on traditional roadmap presentations that allows the speaker to pace themselves regarding how to disclose the information about the strategy to embark on.

7. Animated Pros & Cons Comparison Slide Template for PowerPoint

We mentioned the advantages of using PowerPoint animations to discuss contrasting values of a situation. Well, this animated Pros & Cons slide is the ideal tool for that purpose, offering a generalist view, then two accompanying slides for Pros & Cons, respectively, with animated effects to introduce additional information per point.

Using animations to make visually appealing and engaging presentations requires ensuring that your content corresponds with your added animated effects. It is always best to use animations in moderation and to keep your slides minimalist while unleashing your creativity as a presenter. Using ready-made PowerPoint templates can also help give you a good starting point to begin experimenting with animations and effects. This can also be useful for people new to PowerPoint Animations to explore what is doable with an animated slide deck, using animated sequences tailored for customization. 

Whether you’re using an animated template or making one from scratch, a preview in slideshow mode can save you a lot of trouble with potential issues tied to animated effects. Last but not least, using animations in PowerPoint isn’t always necessary, and you can even go for a simple slide deck with a handful of slides. What matters is that you should be aware of the information being presented, and the visual aids should be just to aid your slides and not meant to be the whole package on their own.

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What are Animations and Transitions in PowerPoint?

By: Author Shrot Katewa

PowerPoint is a powerful piece of software and it keeps getting better. With PowerPoint, you can add transitions and animations to your presentations and add a bit of flavor. But, what exactly are animations and transitions in PowerPoint?

Animations in PowerPoint are special visual or sound effects that can be applied to elements present on a slide such as text, shape, image, icon, etc. Whereas, Transitions in PowerPoint are special visual effects applied to a complete slide. The transition effects can only be seen as one slide moves to the next.

In this article, we are going to take a deep-dive into PowerPoint animations and transitions. We will be looking at the differences between the two, what each of them does, and how you can use both of them together to make your presentations really stand out. So for everything you need to know, keep reading!

What is Animation in PowerPoint?

Ok, so before we jump into the article, we are first going to discuss what exactly animations in PowerPoint are. Let’s use the text as an example. Imagine if you will, two PowerPoint presentations, each on the same slide with text.

Now imagine on the one presentation your text comes flying in and then pulsates on the screen while the other just remains dormant old text.

That is the best explanation of what animations are that I can think of. You get different types of animations in PowerPoint and we will be taking a bit of a deep-dive into what these are in the upcoming section.

Types of Animations in PowerPoint?

• Classification 1 – Intro Effects, Emphasize Effects, Exit Effects: As their names suggest, you can animate a piece of your presentation to enter or exit a slide, also to add emphasis on something. You could also use them for no reason other than to spice up the presentation.
• Classification 2 – Basic, Subtle, Moderate, Exciting: This is a broad classification as it encompasses all of the animation effects, and each of the animations under classification 1, falls under one of these.

How to Add Animation in PowerPoint?

The first step to having animations in your presentation is to first understand how to add them in. So, here’s how to add animations to any PowerPoint presentation slide in order to make them really stand out. Follow the below easy steps.

• In your PowerPoint presentation, create or add whatever it is you want to animate.
• Go to the “Animations” tab on the top and select it.
• Click on “Add Animation Pane” to open the animation pane on the right. Here you will get to see all the animation effects that are added to the slide.
• Click on your desired animation by selecting it. You can choose from the ones that appear or just to the right of that, you can select “Add Animation”.

• In the image above, you can see on the top right, a set of options. Use this to set the duration of the animation.
• Select whether you want the animation to be automatic or activated by clicking on it.
• Select the desired delay.
• Preview the animation.
• Save the presentation and you are done.

How to Animate Shapes in PowerPoint?

Animating shapes in PowerPoint allows you to animate multiple elements within a slide. If done well, this is great for giving a professional touch to your presentation that will make people remember it more effectively.

Here’s how you can animate shapes in PowerPoint in 11 easy steps!

• Add the shape to your presentation by selecting the “ Insert Tab ” in your presentation.
• Go to the “ Shapes option ” as per the picture below.

• Select the shape that you intend to add.
• Add it to the presentation by holding the left mouse button and scaling the shape.
• Click on your desired animation by selecting it. You can choose from the ones that appear or just to the right of that, you can select “Add Animation.
• Set the duration of the animation.

How to Animate Text in PowerPoint?

Let’s be honest for a second, a presentation with a lot of text might seem slightly boring but it really does not have to be. Being able to animate your text can take a presentation that has a lot of text and turn it into something that people will remember.

Animating text in PowerPoint presentations is great for the audience because it allows them to feel as if the text means more than what it is actually trying to tell them. This is always a great thing for anyone who is trying to sell a product or an idea.

So, here are my 9 easy steps on how to animate text in PowerPoint.

• Add your text to the presentation.
• Edit the text as you wish.

How to Animate Objects (such as Images or Icons) in PowerPoint?

A good PowerPoint presentation will contain a lot of images and icons. This is because, in a presentation, you need to get a message across and a lot of people, in fact, most people can remember things a lot easier by visual representation. That being said, here are my 9 easy steps on how to animate objects such as images and icons in PowerPoint.

• In your presentation, go to the “Insert” tab on the top and select it.
• Select the “Picture” option. Alternatively, you can just drag and drop an image or icon.

How to Add Animation in PowerPoint on Mac?

Although PowerPoint also works on Mac, sometimes the options are not exactly the same as they are in Windows.

So here are my steps on how to add animations in PowerPoint on Mac.

• Select the Text Box that you want to animate by clicking on it.
• Click on the “Animation Pane” to open the pane for animation on the right side of the slide.

• Click on the downward arrow as indicated in the image above.
• Choose your desired animation by clicking on it.
• Set the duration of the animation. Select whether you want the animation to be automatic or activated by clicking on it.

What are Transitions in PowerPoint?

You know that old saying that goes “first impressions count the most.” Well, that is very true when it comes to your presentations.

One of the ways to make a good first impression is to use simple but effective transitions on your presentation.

PowerPoint allows you to add transitions into your presentation. Transitions are basically visual effects that can be applied to a complete slide rather than individual elements on a slide. Moreover, the transition is only visible when you move from one slide to another.

Transitions also allow you to make your presentation look and feel better. It does this by allowing you to add transitions to every single slide or to multiple slides at once. The transition is simply the way that one slide goes out of the screen and the new one comes in.

Should You Use Transitions in PowerPoint?

You might be a little bit intimidated by transitions because you may be thinking that you aren’t a creative enough person to make the most out of them. Allow me to just stop you right there just for a moment.

Using transitions in your PowerPoint presentation is actually quite easy. Furthermore, by choosing the correct type of transition, you can actually create a positive impact on the audience.

While some feel that the transitions make your presentation look a bit “gimmicky”, but the trick is really to add a subtle transition.

Moreover, using transitions selectively can definitely make your presentation look and feel a bit more interesting.

What are the 3 Main Types of Transitions in PowerPoint?

Much like with the animations, there are three main groups of transitions and you can find these in the transitions menu in PowerPoint. For the sake of this article, I will highlight the three main groups of transitions in PowerPoint for you.

• Subtle: Still adds excitement to your presentation without being too flashy.
• Dynamic: This is a perfect balance and has the potential to add to your presentation while still being professional.
• Exciting: This is your go-to when you need to sell something or when your presentation contains a lot of text.

Having those different groups is great because we all have different personalities and we are all making presentations for different reasons. You can either choose what type of transition you want to use based on your audience or your personality, the choice is yours.

How to Add Transition to your PowerPoint?

Now, it’s time to start adding transitions to your PowerPoint presentation so allow me to give you my 9 easy steps on how to add transitions to your presentation.

• Open your PowerPoint presentation.
• Create a new slide.
• Go to the “Transitions” tab in the menu bar at the top and select it.
• You should see a row of popular transitions. Select the one you want.

• Select the transition that you want.
• Edit the duration.
• Apply a sound if applicable.

If you want to apply the same transition to all of your slides, you can just select the “Apply to all” option.

This is great if you want your presentation to be uniform. If more of your slides have the same transition but some are different, you can decrease your workload by adding the most common one to all. Then, edit the other slides individually.

How to Make Your Slides Transition Automatically?

Sometimes we don’t want to be constantly changing the slides. Perhaps we just want the slides to transition to the next slide automatically after a certain duration.

So here are my 7 easy steps on how to make your slides transition automatically in PowerPoint

• After adding your transitions and editing them, stay on the “Transitions”.
• To the top right, you will see an option called “Advance Slide”. Select the “After” option.
• Select how long you want each slide to last before it changes.

Setting up slides to transition automatically can be especially helpful when creating a presentation for a kiosk where you don’t want to keep controlling the slides throughout the day, and you perhaps want them to transition automatically.

If you are interested in knowing how to exactly loop your presentation so that it continues to play (especially to be displayed at a kiosk), then make sure you check out the other article that I wrote earlier –

Loop your PPT to Run it Automatically | Perfect Kiosk Solution

It is important to note that the speaker giving the presentation can stop the slides if he or she feels like they need more time to explain what’s going on. This is also good if they have an audience that is engaging with them, remember this is a good problem to have because an engaged audience is a good audience.

To pause an automatic slide, simply click on the presentation to pause it or, you can use the pause button if you are using a presentation remote control.

What is the Difference between Animations and Transitions in PowerPoint?

There are a number of differences between a slide and a transition. While they do both animate the presentation, they do so in different ways and they are used for completely different things. Let’s get into it.

Transitions affect the entire slide from the way it comes into focus and then leaves. When it comes to animations, they affect the content within the slide such as the text and/or charts.

You can use both of these options together in your presentations. Doing so will set your presentation apart from the standard old boring presentation that so many people put together when they are in a rush.

Final Thoughts

That just about wraps up this article, here are some of my final thought regarding this topic.

The goal of this article was not just to explain the difference between animations and transitions, it was to also encourage you to use them.

Our main goal of this website is to help you deliver the best impression with your work. So, bookmark this page and keep it as a reference.

Make sure you check out some of our other articles on the website. If you’ve perhaps got a question about presentations, we’ve most likely covered it on our website! So, be sure to check other articles out.

• Getting Started
• Best Practices

PowerPoint Animation Tutorial (2022) – Step-by-Step

July 27, 2022

Introduction

Animation in your slide deck is a great way to add visual interest. And when done well it can WOW your audience. This in-depth, step-by-step tutorial covers how to animate in PowerPoint showing the fundamentals of adding and modifying animations and then demonstrates advanced strategies like customizing timings, adding triggers, using morph, and creating animations with 3D objects.

Types of Animation Effects

Before you begin applying animation in PowerPoint, it helps to know how they are categorized and how these categories affect the function of the animation. These categories or types are also referred to as effects.

The first effect category is Enter. With this animation objects are not visible initially and appear based on a specific action by the presenter like a click of a mouse.

The second effect category is Emphasis. Here an object is visible on the slide and will animate to draw attention to it such as pulse.

The third effect category is Exit. Here an object is visible on the slide and then will exit from view based on an action like a mouse click.

Adding an animation

To apply an animation on a slide you need at least one object on the slide. An object is any type of content that can be added to a slide such as a shape, text, icon, picture, etc. In this example, I’ll use a shape on blank slide. The location of the object will be where the animation either ends or begins. You want to select the object. Click the Animations tab and click the animation you want to apply. You can scroll through the gallery or click the small drop-down arrow to display more options all at once. When you select an animation, the object will show what the animation looks like. You can also use the Preview button on the Animations tab to see what the animation looks like. You will notice that the object now has a small box with a number next to it. That is a visual indicator noting an animation has been applied to the object. The number indicates the order the animations occur if you have more than one object animating on the slide. In Windows if you select a new animation from the gallery, it will override the previous selection. For instance, if I apply an Emphasis animation the Enter fly-in is replaced. The same with applying an Exit Fly-out the Emphasis effect is replaced. To remove an animation, just choose None in the Gallery.

Some animations like the Fly In are pre-set to animate from a specific direction. To change the direction, click the Effects Option button after applying the animation. From the drop-down options choose the direction you want. If the Effects Option isn’t active, then that effect you selected can’t be changed in any way.

Motion Path animation

The next effect I want to touch on is the Motion Path option. You can choose a basic effect like moving in a straight line. Or something highly custom like drawing your own path. With the Motion Path, the small green dot is the starting point, and the red dot is the ending location. To extend the path, you can drag and drop the red dot to a new spot on the slide. With motion path the animation possibilities are quite extensive, especially if you use it with other effects.

Applying an animation to similar objects

If you have several objects that you want to add animation to, here are some strategies I use to save time. If you want to animation multiples of the same object in the same way first add the shape then add the animation to that shape and then press Control D to duplicate that shape.

Rearrange as needed and you will notice that all of the objects have a number indicator next to them. The different numbers indicate the order the objects will animate. Let's click the Preview button to see what it looks like.

Copying the shape and pasting is another option Either on the same slide or another slide. To copy either use Control C, Right-click and copy, or click the Copy button on the Home tab. Then paste either using Control V, Right-click and paste, or click the Paste button on the Home tab. Just like with Duplicate, there is an indication number.

If you want the same object to animation on a different slide, you can duplicate the slide Select the slide in the Thumbnail Pressing Control D or Right-click and choose Duplicate

Looking at the second slide, you can see the object has an animation indicator I will change the object's color so you can see what it looks like. I'll go into Presentation Mode and here is what the animation looks like.

If you have several different objects and you want them all to have the same animation, you have a couple of options. You can select them all. And click the animation type in the Animations tab. You will see they all have the same animation indicator next to them. As the Preview shows, this option sets the animation for all objects to start at the same time.

You can also use the Animation Painter. Once you’ve added an animation to an object, select it. Click the Animation Painter button. Then click on the object you want to apply the animation to.

With this option, it sets the animations to start one after the other. If you double click the Painter option, you can apply the animation to multiple objects without having to click the Painter button for each object.

Adjusting Start, Duration, and Delay

Once you’ve added an animation to an object, often the next step is modifying the timing of the animation. To the far right on the animation tab, there are three timing settings: Start, Duration, and Delay.

Modifying Start

The Start timing determines how the animation will start. The default is On Click. So when you click your mouse the animation begins.

The next option is With Previous. The object with this setting will animate at the same time as the previous animation. In this example the Triangle animates with the circle.

The third start setting is After Previous. Here an object animates after the previous animation is complete. In this example the triangle animates once the circle animation is done.

Changing Duration

The next timing is the Duration or speed of the animation. The default setting is typically Very Fast at half a second (0.5). You can use the up and down arrows to speed up or slow down the animation by quarter intervals. Or you can type in the duration.

In this example, you can see the Triangle fly in is much slower than the previous examples. As a side note, the duration can’t be changed for some animations.

Adding Delay

The last timing is Delay. This a slightly more advanced setting and this setting delays the start of an animation. The default setting is zero. Meaning there is no delay. In the example, the Triangle is set to start after previous with a one second delay.

Applying Multiple Animations

Now that you know how to modify a single animation, we can move on to apply multiple animations to one object. As I mentioned in Video 1 of this 3-part series, clicking a different animation in the gallery replaces the previous animation.

In this example, I will set the object to fly-in, pulse, and then fly-out. Do do this, I select the object. I choose the Fly in animation. Then I click the Add Animation button. Choose Pulse as an emphasis. I'll add the third animation, clicking the Add animation button and then choosing Fly-out. And the Preview shows what that will look like.

In Video 1 of this series, I demonstrated the Animation Painter, when you have multiple animations, this option comes in handy.

Using the Animation Pane

Once you start adding multiple animations to objects, using the Animation Pane can help you keep track. To display the pane either click the Animations Pane button or click one of the animation indicators by an object.

From the animation pane, you can see the order of the animations. They are listed from beginning to end. A mouse means it is an On Click start animation. No icon means that it is set to With Previous. And a clock indicates that the Start is After Previous.

The color of the star indicates the type of effect: green for enter, yellow for emphasis, and red for exit. If you can’t see color very well, the lines Indicate whether it is an Enter, an Emphasis, or an Exit.

If you want to change the order of the animations, you can use the up and down arrows. Or just drag and drop. You can select more than one by holding down the Shift key and then moving them all at the same time.

Deleting animations from the Animation Pane is quite easy. Select the animation and press the Delete key.

The animation pane also shows the timeline of the animations. The placement of the bar on the timeline indicates when the animation begins and end. You can drag and drop the bar to change the delay. You can resize the bar to change the duration of the animation.

Effects and Timing Dialog Box

When you mouse over or select an animation, To the far right of each animation is a small down arrow. Clicking the arrow provides options to show more settings for the effects and timings. Let’s take a look.

You will notice there are three tabs Effect, Timing, and Text Animation The added options in the Effects tab, is that you can add a Dim after animation setting. I usually apply this to content that I have as part of a list. So, when I am done discussing one bullet point, I dim that option and then display the next option.

If you don’t want to apply an exit animation, you can also make content disappear right after the animation or hide on the next mouse click.

The Timing tab, provides the same options as on the Animation tab for Start, Duration, and Delay.

You can also add a repeat loop. You can set specific times or until the next animation or until the end of the slide show. The speed of the animation will determine how the effect looks such as a rapid pulse or slow flash.

The trigger setting lets you set an On Click to a specific object. When you click the object with your mouse, it activates the animation for a different object. This differs from a typical On Click animation because the object itself must be clicked for the animation to work.

To do this, apply each animation to the specific object Then select the animation in animation pane Click the trigger button in the Animations tab and choose the object from the menu options Repeat this process for each object.

Renaming objects in the Selection Pane helps if you have several objects to trigger. One reason I like this option, is because it allows me to animate in any order.

Text Animation Strategies

With all of the examples so far, I’ve worked with shapes and other objects. Text can be animated just like any other object on the slide. But here are some things to keep in mind.

Selecting the text box will animate each line separately Selecting all of the text in the text box will animate all of the text at once. To change the setting, highlight the line or lines and change the Start to On Click. Selecting each paragraph or line in a bullet and then choosing your effect, will animate each line separately.

Morph Transition

A more advanced animation people like to use is called morphing. Within PowerPoint, morphing is a transition and not an animation. That means you apply the effect to the entire slide and not an individual object. Morphing as its name implies is an object that is changed into something different. This can be a simple effect like moving and changing in color.

For this effect, I will duplicate the slide with the circle. On the second slide I’ll move the circle to the right side and changed the color fill. With the second slide selected in the thumbnail pane, I click the Transitions tab and select Morph.

The Preview shows you what it'll look like. As you can see, unlike a fly in type of animation, the object appears to be changing with a slight fade.

Advanced Morph Transition

An advanced morph transition can be used to make an object change into a different object. Like this example of a circle morphing into a star. To apply an advanced morph, create the two slides with the different objects.

Before applying the transition to the second slide, open the Selection Pane. Select the object on the first slide, then click the Selection Pane button either on the Home tab or in the Shape Format tab.

Within the Selection Pane, you can rename objects to help keep track of multiple objects. For this animation to work, the objects on each slide need to have the same name starting with 2 exclamation points. I will rename this object to !!morph1. And copy the name. And then press Enter to set the new name of the object.

Now I need to select the second slide. In the Selection Pane, double click in the name of the star object. And paste in the name of the first object. Then I will press Enter to set the new name.

Now with the second slide selected, I can apply the Morph transition. And it will show what the morph will looks like. This is one of my favorite tricks to add some pizazz to a slide deck.

Animating 3D objects

The last animation I want to show you is animating a 3D object, like this example. Many people aren’t aware that they have access to 3D objects within their 365 subscription.

To add a 3D object, click the Insert tab. Then click the 3D object button and choose from Stock 3D Models. Or if you have a model on your device, choose that option. Search and select the object you want. In this example, I will insert a Monarch Butterfly.

To view the different sides of the model, click the center button with the multiple arrows. And then just drag your mouse to view the object. With the model selected, click the Animations Tab. And you'll notice that the Gallery now has 3D animations added.

These will be cubes with arrows around them. For this example, I will use the turntable effect. With the Effects option button, I can make some adjustments like the direction and amount of spine as well as the spin axis.

Using the Morph transition with a 3D object can add an extra visual element. Using the butterfly again, I will duplicate the slide. For the first slide, I will delete the turntable animation and change it to top view.

On the second slide I will keep the side view and the turntable animation. Then I will apply the Morph transition to the second slide. The preview shows the butterfly smoothly transitions from the top view to the side view. and then the turntable animation begins.

About the Author

Jennifer Sharkey is known as the Virtual Presentation Specialist. Being passionate about seeing people shine and be heard, she leans into her 20+ years of public speaking experience and uses what she has learned from presenting, both in-person and virtually, to small groups all the way up to 5000 people. Jennifer draws from her experience as an associate professor, academic librarian, and coach to help holistic coaches master virtual presentations to grow their business. Her unique immersive program provides practical strategies and methods to build confidence, engage audiences, and generate authenticity and authority.

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Ultimate Guide to PowerPoint Animations: Tutorials, Templates, Tips & Tricks

Animations in powerpoint.

We have put together a massive collection of resources for PowerPoint Animations. This includes free & premium tips, tricks, tutorials and templates that you can access online to polish your slides and engage your audience.

We will cover both Custom Animations and Transitions feature in PowerPoint. This includes the new Morph Transition introduced in PowerPoint for Office 365

About PowerPoint Custom Animations

Custom Animation is a useful feature in PowerPoint. You can use it to add interaction to your slides and make the presentation more engaging for your audience. Almost any element in your slide - text, photos, graphs, shapes, audio and video can be animated.  

You can add PowerPoint animations to any of these elements in just three steps: (1) Select the object to animate (2) apply an animation, and (3) customize the effects.

Let us see how to apply animation to different parts of a presentation.

Custom animation, when used correctly can enhance the effectiveness of your message in your business presentations. #PowerPoint #Tips

4 Types of Animations 

PowerPoint offers 4 types of Animations:

• Entrance animation: Animations to make elements enter the slide.
• Exit Animation : Animations to make elements exit the slide.
• Emphasis Animation :   Animations to highlight elements on the slide and direct attention
• Motion Path Animation : Animations that make elements on the slide move from one place to another along predefined paths. 

You can add more than one animation to the same object. With this feature, it is possible to create a variety of custom animations to suit your specific requirement.

Animation can help make a PowerPoint presentation more dynamic, and the information more memorable. The most common types of animation effects include entrances and exits. 

Learn how to set up basic animations with these tutorials on Microsoft website. 

[Basic] Add Animations in PowerPoint 2016

In this easy to follow video, learn how to add animation in PowerPoint 2016. This video shows how to get started and is a primer.

Customizing Animation Effects

Once you add an animation to an object, PowerPoint offers further options to customize the animation. Each Animation effect can be controlled using the following additional settings:

Option 1: Preview Animations

Animations in PowerPoint can be normally viewed only in Slideshow mode. So if you want to preview the animations you added on a slide, PowerPoint allows you to view them using the Preview option.

Option 2: Effect Options

Some effects in PowerPoint like Fly In have additional options available. For example, Fly In animation can be set to Flyin from Left, Right, Top or Bottom of the slide. 

In addition to this, text animation can be further set to: As One Object, All at One or By Paragraph.

Option 3: Advanced Animation Effects

These options help you fine tune your animation further. You can: 

Add Animation: Add more animation effects to an object

Animation Pane: View Animation Pane to view list of animations applied on the slide and modify them.

Trigger:   Start animation on a trigger like on click of a button/text etc. to make your slide more interactive.

Animation Painter: This lesser known tool can be used to copy all the animations applied to one object and "paint" or replicate the animation to another object. This is a very useful tool to reduce the time taken to create animation effects.

Option 4: Animation Timing

The Animation timing tools allow you to control when and how the animations play. 

Start: Animations can start On Click, With Previous and After Previous

Duration: Controls how long the animation should play for. 

Delay: This feature controls how long after the previous animation the current animation should be played.

Reorder Animation: When the Animation Pane is open, you can reorder the animations and move them up or down with these tools.

5. About Animation Pane

The Animation Pane provides the list of all the animations applied to a slide in once place. You can do the following actions in the Pane:

• Change the Start option
• Edit the Effect options
• Change the Timings
• Remove the animations 
• Preview the animations

You can find out more about Animation Panes in this post from Tutsplus .

How To Preview Animations

When you put together a slide with multiple animation effects, you need to preview the animation periodically. Going to Slideshow mode every time takes a lot of time. In this video, you will find some quick ways to preview animations. All the options shared in this video allow you to preview the animation in the slide itself.

Text Animation Effects

PowerPoint animations are useful for text or bullet lists. You can make each point in your list appear one at a time as you present it.  In this section we'll explore some basic and advanced ways to present text.

Animations to Bullet Lists

When you present a list of bullet points, you can add animations to make each point exit the slide, after you finish covering it.  This post from Techrepublic shows how to add an exit strategy to bullet points in a slide. 

[Easy] Useful Animation Tricks for Bullet Points

Learn 3 useful PowerPoint Text animation tricks in the video below. The tricks you will learn are: 1. How to animate a bullet point list one by one 2. How to dim a bullet point after it is animated 3. How to make a bullet point disappear after the animation PLUS How to animate bullet points in reverse order These PowerPoint animation effects should help you make your next presentation more effective.

[Advanced] Animation Effect for Text 

Learn how to create a realistic looking effect of a hand writing text in PowerPoint. The animation looks like it was created by whiteboard animation software like Videoscribe. This popular video by Presentation Process has over 1200 Likes and 134K views. 

Find these videos useful? Please subscribe to Presentation Process YouTube channel for more:

Most people use animation only to make the bullet points appear one after another. Some advanced users make the points dim after animation. There is so much more to animation than this basic feature. In the following sections we'll see some advanced and creative uses of Animations in PowerPoint.

Picture Animation Effects

In this section you will find some creative ways to animate slides with photos. This includes photos in jpeg or png format as well as vector images in EMF, WMF or SVG format.

You can find video tutorials on how to animate Pictures and Shapes on Microsoft website.

[Advanced]  PowerPoint Zoom Animation

Sometimes when you present large pictures in your business presentation, you may be required to zoom in to your pictures to show the details. In such a situation this PowerPoint zoom effect comes in handy. You can use the animation effect to zoom into a certain step in a large multi step process, or you can use this custom animation trick to zoom in on an individual in a large group photo or zoom in on a country in a large world map etc.

[Advanced]  PowerPoint Animation to Create Videoscribe Effect

Learn to create an interesting Videoscribe effect with PowerPoint Animation within a few seconds. The effect you will learn is to have a base image and to animate it so that it looks like someone is completing a drawing on the slide. This is a great way to add engagement to your training slides.

If you would like to follow this tutorial, you can download a similar image here .

This kind of animation can be done with any wmf or emf file and can be used to explain business concepts like planning and execution or explanation of a step by step process.

Shapes & SmartArt  Animations

Autoshapes in PowerPoint can be used to create visuals for your presentation. In this section, we will see how to animate Autoshapes as well as SmartArt.

[Easy]  PowerPoint Timeline Animation

Learn to create a beautiful Animated PowerPoint Timeline Infographic with this step by step tutorial. Grab your audience attention with this easy to design slide with custom animation effect.

[Easy]  PowerPoint Animation for SmartArt Objects

When you add animation to a SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint , initially the entire graphic gets animated. But PowerPoint does provide some control over animating SmartArt shapes. To learn how to animate a SmartArt graphic with more control read this post on Indezine .

You can also see the process of animating a SmartArt diagram with the tutorial video below. The diagram we will be using is a core diagram with a circle relationship from the inbuilt PowerPoint SmartArt

The type of diagrams you can create and the animations you can apply, are only limited by your imagination. 

Watch the video above to know more

Creative Slide Design & Animation

Design 25 beautiful Slides to impress your boss & clients – using PowerPoint Tips & Tricks. Save time and improve your workflow efficiency. Suited for Beginner and Intermediate PowerPoint users.

Chart  Animations

Most business presentations have charts included in them. Many times PowerPoint charts can be overwhelming for the audience.  The reason for their overwhelm is - too much information hitting them too soon. If you learn to sequence the way you present your numbers, you make it easy for your business audience to understand your PowerPoint presentation.

This video in Microsoft support site  shows how to add animations to Charts and SmartArt. 

[Easy]  Guide to PowerPoint Chart Animation

Learn to animate your charts like a pro. In this short video tutorial, you will find how to apply custom animation to your PowerPoint charts and present information at your own pace.

[Easy]  Animate Excel in PowerPoint

Many presenters have the habit of creating charts in Excel first and then again in PowerPoint. This video shows how you can simply copy an existing chart from Excel and animate it to present your information clearly and in sequence.

Adding Interactivity 

PowerPoint animations has a trigger feature which can be used to add interactivity to your slides. These are specially useful for training and e-learning presentations.

Hyperlinks and Triggers

Triggers are like an internal hyperlink on your slide. The person viewing the presentation can control what happens next. This is useful for building multiple choice quizzes. This post from Brightcarbon provides an overview of setting up triggers & hyperlinks.

Creating Simple & Interactive PowerPoint Animated Slide

Engage your audience in training and information presentation with this beautiful slide. The slide has 4 images. On clicking on an image, the description or details relevant to that image appears next to it.

Creating Interactive Buzzers with Sound in PowerPoint

Make your training more engaging and interesting with this creative PowerPoint idea. Follow this step by step tutorial video to create an interactive PowerPoint buzzer with sound effects. You can use this buzzer to run a quiz in your classroom.

45 PowerPoint Quiz Templates Pack

Create excitement & make learning fun with games in your classroom! Gamify your classroom & generate excitement with Ready To Use PowerPoint Quiz Templates.  

Quiz templates for any type of training: Corporate Training, Universities, Schools or Freelance Training. Includes complete instructions for customizing & playing each game

Video Animation Effects

You can insert and play videos in PowerPoint. You can insert these videos from YouTube, from your PC or Storage location like OneDrive.   This tutorial in Microsoft website covers how to insert video and audio in PowerPoint.

[Easy]  Insert YouTube Video in PowerPoint

Learn how to embed an online video into your next presentation. It is a fairly straightforward option in PowerPoint 2016.

[Advanced]  PowerPoint Movie Magic with Videos, Text and Animations 

Create PowerPoint Movie Magic by using the combo of videos, text and animations. Use this technique to create slides that engage your audience. The presentation shows a car moving along a road. The windshield wiper moves across the screen. Text appears and fades away in sync with the movement of the windshield wiper. We will use the Video Bookmark option, Text Entrance and Exit Animations, and Trigger animations options to create this effect.

Using Transitions Effectively

Slide transitions are the visual movements where one slide changes into another during a presentation. They add to the professional appearance of the slideshow in general and can draw attention to specific important slides. To know how to apply and remove transitions,  read this post on Lifewire.

[Easy]  5 Tricks to Use Transition Effects in PowerPoint

Learn how to use PowerPoint slide transition effects in an interesting way to make your presentations creative.

[Advanced]  The Power of Dynamic Pan Transition Effect

Sometimes the information you want to present spreads beyond one slide. For example, an excel spreadsheet you stuck on the slide has too many columns to fit into one slide.  A map you placed on the slide is too big to be shown on one slide. If you force yourself to show the image in one page (by shrinking the size of the map), the details get too small to be clearly visible to the audience in the last row.

Learn an easy trick to overcome this situation with the video below:

Using Morph Transition 

PowerPoint Morph is a revolutionary feature available for Office 365 users. It eliminates the need for complex animation. Technically speaking, PowerPoint Morph is a transition, but in reality it can be widely used a substitute/enhancement for complex animation. Read this post from Efficiency365 for a quick overview  of this feature.

[Easy]  Animated Roadmap with Morph Transition

Learn to create an interesting animated roadmap that looks like a video. We use the PowerPoint 2016 ( Office 365 ) Morph Transition feature to create this effect. You can use this type of roadmap or timeline in almost any kind of presentation. Engage your audience by explaining and revealing the steps one by one. Link for Roadmap Image

[Advanced]  How Morph Transition Can Replace   Animation

In this video you will find how to use PowerPoint Morph Transition to replace Custom Animations. See how this can be done with this example of a slide with multiple pictures with text. You'll find how to mimic PowerPoint animation with Morph Transition and create the slides very quickly.

If you would like to learn about Morph Transition, PowerPoint Designer and other such features available in PowerPoint for Office 365, checkout the course below...

Complete PowerPoint Foundation Course

Master Fundamentals of PowerPoint from scratch. From Basics to Advanced. Includes special section on features of PowerPoint 365:

• 13.5 hours on-demand video
• For beginner & advanced users
• Online Access: Full lifetime access
• Practice Activities: Assignments & Quizzes

Animated PowerPoint Templates

Animations take time to visualize and create. You can save time by using ready to use PowerPoint Templates. In this section you will find resources and links for Animated PowerPoint Templates.

PowerPoint comes with some animated 3D templates. This includes sparkling picture frames, lively photograph albums, 3-D rotating photos, and elegant transitions between images. 

This page on Microsoft support site provides the link and details.

You can find more free animated PowerPoint Templates including for physics presentations at Presentation Magazine website. 

While these free templates are a good resource for student and non-critical presentations, business & training presentations require professional and creative animation effects. 

Ready-to-Use Professional Animation Templates

The 750+ Advanced PowerPoint Animation Templates Pack is specifically created for use in training and business presentations. It includes advanced animations for text, lists, pictures, concepts and metaphors. You can preview some of the templates from this pack below:

Animations for Bullet Points, Agenda, Terms & Definitions

Animations for Timelines, Roadmaps & Process Flows

Source:  750+ Advanced PowerPoint Animation Templates Pack

Animations for Pictures and Lists

Animations for Concepts, Metaphors, Business Ideas

And More Professionally Animated Templates to Engage Your Audience...

Make Your Presentations More Engaging without Spending Hours struggling with PowerPoint Animations...

Download 750+ Advanced PowerPoint Animation Templates Pack. Tell your story with 750+ Ready to Use & Easy to Customize Powerful Animations in PowerPoint. 

Pramod Naik

Ceo, tianjin tianshi india pvt ltd.

These ready to use animated slides are very classy and ready to use , these are very thoughtfully done .

When I have to put a point across to the team or to a larger audience , these slides greatly benefit me to make my slides sharper and to the point … one just has to visualize as to what is that you need to share to the audience and how , if you can visualize , you are bound to find that slide in this pack , if not similar , better . Secondly when you scan through the slides , the way they are made you also get ideas as to what to share to the team and audience .

Tips for Professional Animation

Here are some quick tips when using PowerPoint Animations. These will help you save time and create your animations more professionally. 

[Tip]  How to remove Custom Animations from All Slides in 1 click

When you don't want any custom animation at all in your presentation - how do you go about it? Usually you will have to go to every single slide and remove the animations. However if you wish to have on-click control on whether animations are present or now - then use this trick and get complete control over your slides!

5 Irritating Ways to Use Custom Animation

Some presenters have the habit of applying animations the wrong way. Such animations have no purpose and end up irritating the audience. Watch the video below to learn the common mistake presenters make when using custom animations feature. 

Time-Saving Tip: Using Animation Painter

Animations take a lot of time to create. Learn how to easily reuse animations applied to an object using Animation Painter tool. This video is part of the bonus tutorial videos provided with purchase of Advanced Animations Pack. 

Good PowerPoint animation makes your audience focus on the message not the animation.

Turn Presentations Into Videos

When you make a recording of a presentation, all its elements (narration, animation, pointer movements, timings, and so on) are saved in the presentation itself. In essence, the presentation becomes a video that your audience can watch in PowerPoint.  Learn the step by step process in this Microsoft support article .

[Easy]  Convert PowerPoint to Video

In this tutorial, you will find how to use save your PowerPoint file as a video. When you save the file as a video, all the animations and transitions you have used will get saved along with the file.  You would use this option of saving your presentation as videos to: - Showcase photos in a video format online/ offline - Summary or review of keys points in a presentation or training - Create a booth or kiosk presentation etc.

Free Ultimate Guide to PowerPoint Animations for tutorials, tips & more. #PowerPoint #Presentations

More Ideas for PowerPoint Animation

How to create sparkling text effect for pictures.

Learn to create a Sparkling Text Effect in PowerPoint with this step by step tutorial. You can use this effect for title animation or to highlight an important quote in a presentation.

How to create Clock Needle Animation effect

Learn how to Create Clock Needle Animation Effect in PowerPoint 2013 This is a useful animation effect to show a list, agenda items, steps in a process and more. 

Create Motion Graphics with Animation

Learn how to convert Static Pictures into Animated images in PowerPoint. Tell your story with creatively animated PowerPoint slides. The effect looks like motion graphics created in an advanced software. However, this effect uses simple custom animation effects that you can follow in any version of PowerPoint. 

Related Posts

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How to Add Animations and Transitions in PowerPoint

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the basics of adding animations and transitions to your presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint. These visual effects will help you make your slides more dynamic and will keep your audience engage.

Adding an Animation to a Text, an Image, a Shape or Other Elements of a Presentation

Adding transitions to a slide.

• Select the object that you want to animate.
• Click the Animations tab.
• Select the animation that you want from the list.
• If you want to see which animations are applied to an object, click Animation Pane. You can also rearrange the animations as you see fit.
• Use the timing options to set the timing of the animation. You can choose when you want the animation to start: on click, with previous or after previous. You can also set the duration and even set a delay before the animation begins.

• Select the slide you want to apply a transition to.
• Click the Transitions tab.
• After you select any transition from the list, you’ll see a preview of the resulting effect.
• If you want to adjust the direction of the effect, among other settings, click the Effect Options drop-down arrow.

• To remove a transition, on the Transitions tab, click None.

• You can change the animations or transitions at any time. To do so, select the animated object or the slide with a transition applied to it and choose a different option from the list.

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How to Insert GIFs in a Google Slides Presentation

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How to Add Animation in PowerPoint (Animate Pictures, Shapes, Text and Other Objects)

Add Animation in PowerPoint to Create More Engaging Presentations

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated August 8, 2023

Applies to: Microsoft ® PowerPoint ® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 365 (Windows)

You can add animation to pictures, text and other objects in PowerPoint to create more engaging presentations. Animations can be entrance, exit, emphasis or motion path and can start on click or automatically when you run a slide show. Since animations add movement, they can help to focus attention. The key is to engage, not distract, your audience. You can add animation in Normal View or Slide Master View.

Recommended article: 10 Ways to Compress PowerPoint Presentations to Reduce File Size

Do you want to learn more about PowerPoint? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person classroom PowerPoint courses >

There are 4 types of animation in PowerPoint:

• Motion Path

Although you can also apply transitions between slides in PowerPoint (like Morph), transitions are different from animations and occur between slides when you run a slide show.

Add animation using the Animations Gallery

The easiest way to apply a single animation effect is to use the Animations Gallery on the Animations tab in the Ribbon:

The expanded Animations Gallery appears when you click the More down arrow:

Add multiple animations to an object

If you are adding more than one animation effect to an object, you must use the Add Animation command in the Advanced Animations group, not the Animations Gallery.

Add an entrance animation

The most common type of animation to add to an object is an entrance animation. Common entrance animations are Fade, Fly In or Wipe.

To add an entrance animation to a picture, shape or other object:

• In Normal View or Slide Master View, select a picture, shape or other object. For text objects, click in the text box or placeholder or click its edge.
• Click the Animations tab in the Ribbon.
• In the Animations group, click the More down arrow on the bottom right of the Animations Gallery.
• Click an entrance animation in the Entrance group.
• If you would like to select an entrance effect that does not appear in the Entrance group, click More Entrance Effects at the bottom of the gallery. A dialog box appears.
• Click the entrance effect you want to apply.

You can also apply an entrance animation by clicking Add Animation on the Animations tab in the Advanced Animation group.

The Change Entrance Effect dialog box includes several other entrance animations (some are only available in specific versions):

Add an exit animation

You can also add exit animations to objects. Common exit animations are Fade, Fly-Out or Disappear.

To add an exit animation to a picture, shape or other object:

• Click an exit animation in the Exit group.
• If you would like to select an exit effect that does not appear in the Exit group, click More Exit Effects at the bottom of the gallery. A dialog box appears.
• Click the exit effect you want to apply.

You can also apply an exit animation by clicking Add Animation on the Animations tab in the Advanced Animation group.

The Change Exit Effect dialog box includes several other exit animations (some are only available in specific versions):

Add an emphasis animation

You can apply emphasis animations to some objects in PowerPoint. Emphasis animations are normally used for text, shapes or images. Common emphasis animations are Grow/Shrink, Fill Color or Font Color. Emphasis animations are enabled only for the type of object you select. For example, you can only apply Font Color to a text object.

To add an emphasis animation to a picture, shape or other object:

• Click an emphasis animation in the Emphasis group.
• If you would like to select an emphasis effect that does not appear in the Emphasis group, click More Emphasis Effects at the bottom of the gallery. A dialog box appears.
• Click the emphasis effect you want to apply.

You can also apply an emphasis animation by clicking Add Animation on the Animations tab in the Advanced Animation group.

The Change Emphasis Effect dialog box includes several other emphasis animations (some are only available in specific versions and for certain types of objects):

Add a motion path animation

A motion path is a path that is followed during an animation. For example, you can have an object move along a straight line path down and to the right on a slide.

To add a motion path animation to a picture, shape or other object:

• In Normal View or Slide Master View, select a picture, shape or object.
• Move the picture, shape or object you want to animate to the desired starting location.
• Select the picture, shape or object. For text objects, click in the text box or placeholder or click its edge.
• Click a motion path animation in the Motion Paths group.
• If you would like to select a motion path effect that does not appear in the Motion Paths group, click More Motion Path Effects at the bottom of the gallery. A dialog box appears.
• Click the motion path effect you want to apply.
• Click OK. A path will appear. In 2013 and later versions, a second copy of the object appears.
• Depending on the type of motion path you selected, drag the end copy or point to a new location.

You can also apply a motion path animation by clicking Add Animation on the Animations tab in the Advanced Animation group.

Motion paths can be used in advanced animation sequences. In this article, we are focusing on simple motion paths.

To resize or redirect a motion path:

• Drag the green start point to a new location.
• Drag the red end point to a new location.

The Change Motion Path dialog box includes several other motion path animations:

Preview animation effects

After you add an animation effect, you can click the Preview or Play button on the Animations tab in the Ribbon to preview it. You can also preview animations by running a slide show (click the Slide Show button on the bottom right of your screen). By default, animations are set to play on click.

Set Effect Options

You can also set different Effect Options for animations. Effect Options change depending on the animation effect you selected. For example, if you selected the Fly In entrance effect, options would include From Top, From Left, From Right and so on.

To set an effect option for an animation effect:

• Select a picture, shape or object. For text objects, click in the text box or placeholder or click its edge. We'll assume here that there is one animation applied to the object.
• Click Effect Options. A drop-down menu appears.
• Click an option.

The following Effect Options appear for the Fly In animation:

Control the way animations start

Although animations are set by default to start on click, you can start them in other ways.

To control the way an animation starts:

• In the Animations group, select an option from the Start drop-down menu in the Timing group. You can select On Click, With Previous or After Previous. With Previous or After Previous will run based on a previous animation.

Note the Start setting is set by default to On Click:

Control the speed or duration of animations

When you apply an animation, a duration or speed is automatically set for the animation (in seconds). The default duration is different for each animation effect. The initial duration is often fast and you may want to increase the duration to slow it down.

To set a speed or duration of an animation:

• Select an picture, shape or object. For text objects, click in the text box or placeholder or click its edge. We'll assume here that there is one animation applied to the object.
• In the Animations group, enter a time for the animation in the Duration area of the Timing group. You can click the up and down arrows to change the duration or type a duration.

Note the Duration in the example below:

Editing animations using the Animation Pane

When you apply multiple animations to an object, it's best to display the Animation Pane so you can easily edit the animations.

To edit animations using the Animation Pane:

• Click Animation Pane in the Advanced Animations group. The Animation Pane appears on the right side of the screen.
• Click the animation effect you want to edit.
• Select the desired options on the Animations tab in the Ribbon or click the down arrow to the right of the animation effect and select options for the animation. You can also select Effect Options and choose more options in the Effect Options dialog box.

The Animation Pane will display the animations you have applied. If you have applied an entrance and exit effect, two animation effects will appear in the Animation Pane. You can click the animation effect in the Animation Pane and click the arrow to the right to display a drop-down menu with options or you can select options in the Ribbon for that effect.

In the Animation Pane, a green star appears beside entrance animations and a red star appears beside exit animations as follows:

Remove animations

To remove animations from pictures, shapes or objects on a slide:

• Select a picture, shape or object. For text objects, click in the text box or placeholder or click its edge.
• Shift-click any other objects with animations you want to remove.
• In the Animations group, click None in the Animations Gallery.

Animation can help engage your audience and focus attention and it's not difficult to use in PowerPoint presentations.

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More resources

How to Insert Slide Numbers in PowerPoint

How to Make an Object Appear and Disappear in PowerPoint

How to Quickly Remove All Animations in PowerPoint Presentations

How to Use Morph in PowerPoint to Design Engaging Presentations

How to Remove the Background of an Image in PowerPoint (2 Ways)

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Best Slide Transitions And Animations For Business Presentations

Most, if not all, presentation software offer plenty of slide transitions and animations. But which ones should you use for your business presentations? Should you go for the simple fade animation? Or would the fancy boomerang and bouncing effects be better? Well, continue reading because that’s what you’re going to find out in this article!

Animations vs Transitions: What’s the Difference?

You may think animations and transitions refer to the same thing – they don’t. Transitions refer to slide transitions or the animation that occurs when you transition from one slide to the next. Transition effects are applied to the whole slide. Thus, you can only choose a single transition effect to a slide. So, if you have 15 slides in your slideshow, then you can have 15 different transition effects.

Animations , on the other hand, refer to object or element animation. You can animate the text, any charts or tables, images, shapes, icons, etc. on your slides. You can animate every single element on your slide and add various effects, if you so desire. But, of course, I don’t recommend this unless you want everyone to get a migraine!

So, now you know the difference between transitions and animations. It’s time to show you where you can find these in 3 of the most popular presentation software today: PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides.

Where to Find Transition Effects?

Look for the Transitions tab in the toolbar. As you can see, transitions are categorized into three: Subtle, Exciting, and Dynamic. Click on the effect you want to use and you’ll get a quick preview of how it looks like on your slide.

For Keynote users, you can access the different transition options by clicking on a slide in the navigation pane (step 1 in the screenshot below). Then click the Animate button (step 2). Finally, click on the blue Add an Effect button (step 3). You can set the duration and direction as well as when you want to start the transition.

• Google Slides

If you’re a Google Slides user, you’ll find your transition effects by first clicking on a slide in the navigation pane (step 1). Then look for the Transition button in the menu bar (step 2). The Transitions pane will appear on the right. Choose from the 7 different transition options (step 3) as you see below:

Where to Find Animation Effects?

This is what the Animations tab look like in PowerPoint. It’s categorized into Entrance, Emphasis, Exit (not shown), and Motion Paths (not shown). If you want to view the complete list of animations, then check out the extra options inside the red box below.

You can access the different object animation options by first clicking on the object you want to animate (step 1). Then click on the Animate button (step 2). As you can see below, there are three tabs: Build In, Action, Build Out (step 3). These 3 are the Keynote equivalent to PowerPoint’s Entrance, Emphasis, and Exit effects.

In Google Slides, you would also need to click first on the object you want to animate. Right-click and select Animate   to access the Transitions side panel. Then click on Add Animation like you see below:

Just like the Transition effects, you only have a limited number of object animation options in Google Slides (13 to be exact).

Why Use Animations and Transitions in Your Presentation?

Here are a few good reasons why you should consider adding animations and transitions to your PowerPoint (and Keynote / Google Slides) presentations:

• Enhance your presentation’s appearance

You don’t need to add any effects to your presentation. But, I promise you, if you use the right animation and transition effects, you can transform your entire presentation’s appearance. From boring to fun and even dramatic, it’s all possible with animations and transitions.

• Emphasize key points

This is especially easy to do with object animation. For example, if you’re presenting a numbered list or some bullet points, you can set each point to appear one after the other. This means you get some time to discuss each point without your audience reading ahead to the next items on your list.

• Control the pace

When you show everything at once on the screen, then it’s a given that everyone will know what you’re about to say. However, with animations, you can control the pace of your presentation. You can build up some ‘drama.’ When the time comes for the big ‘reveal,’ use the right animation to achieve your desired effect!

• Grab people’s attention

Animations and slide transitions are useful in grabbing people’s attention. Even if your audience isn’t looking directly at the screen, any slight movement on your slides can get them to look at your slides again. Use animations sparingly though. You don’t want people to stop looking at your slides altogether simply because they literally felt sick from watching your animations!

Best Practices When Adding Transitions and Animations to Slides

You’ve probably heard of “death by PowerPoint” by now. Well, do you know its cousin, “motion sickness by PowerPoint?” If you’ve ever sat on a presentation which used tons of transitions and animations, and found yourself a bit dizzy after, then you’ve experienced motion sickness.

I’m sure you don’t want to subject your audience to this unpleasant feeling. For best results, follow these practices when adding various animations to your slides:

• Keep it simple

Yes, there are tons of fancy animation options in PowerPoint, but it doesn’t mean you need to use most, or all, of them in your presentation. Can you imagine how your audience is going to react when they see you’ve added an animation effect to every single element on each slide? It would be a disaster, I can assure you.

Let’s say you’ve got 10-20 elements (text, images, icons, shapes, etc.) on each slide. And you add entry, emphasis and exit animation effects to each element . This translates to at least 30 animations on just a single slide! If I were sitting in your presentation, I’d be walking out after the first slide (yes, it’s that bad).

• Ask yourself this question: would this animation make my presentation better?

When answering this question, try to be as objective as possible. Sure, adding fancy effects may look “cool.” But not if it’s at your audience’s expense. With that said, if your answer is “yes,” then, by all means, go ahead and add the animation. Otherwise, it’s best to forego adding that particular effect.

• Use the same transition effect for all slides

In line with the principle of keeping things simple, it’s best to use a single transition effect for all your slides. It can get confusing for your audience if you mix it up. For example, if you decide to use a simple fade transition, then consider using that for all your slides. Here’s how you do this in PowerPoint:

In the Transition pane, choose the effect you want to use. Then click the Apply To All button, like you see below:

Unfortunately, Keynote doesn’t have the same shortcut button for transitions. So, if you want to apply the same transition effect to all slides, you’d need to manually select all the slides in the slide navigator. You can use the keyboard shortcut: command + a . Then click on the Animate button and select the transition effect you want to use for all slides. Here’s a screenshot of the different transition effects in Keynote:

For Google Slides users, you’re in luck. Because just like PowerPoint, you can apply the same transition effect to all your slides. Simply click the Transition button to open up the Transitions pane. Then, select your preferred transition effect and click that magic Apply to all slides button. Here’s how it looks like:

• Preview the animations

Preview all the animations you’ve added and try to look at your presentation slides objectively. When you practice your speech, time the animations to coincide with what you’re saying. Or, say, for instance, make an object appear or exit with your timed pauses.

It shouldn’t take you more than a second or two to decide if an animation actually adds value to your presentation. If it distracts from the main point, then perhaps you may want to replace it with a non-headache-inducing effect. Or better yet, totally remove it from the slide.

Fine-tune your animation if you need to. At the end of the day, it’s your audience who’s going to decide if your presentation is awesome or if it’s a total bust. Remember, no one’s going to complain if you use zero animations on your slides. But trust me, you’re going to hear something negative if you use one too many!

The Top Slide Transitions and Animations for Business Presentations

The saying “less is more” holds absolutely true in all kinds of presentations. You don’t want to crowd your slides with too much information. You don’t want it to look like there are a million things going on in there.

Why? Because it distracts from your role as a speaker and presenter. You want people’s attention to be on you and what you’re saying – not on your slides. PowerPoint slides are supposed to be used as mere visual aids. They’re not the star of your presentation – YOU ARE!

With that said, below are the top transitions and animations that are most commonly used in PowerPoint business presentations. For Keynote and Google Slides users, use animations that are similar to the effects outlined below:

Best Transition Animations in PowerPoint

• Fade – this is an old favorite among business presenters. The previous slide will ‘fade’ away to reveal the next slide. You can choose to have the previous slide fade smoothly or have it fade through black.
• Push – this effect makes the previous slide ‘push’ the new slide into view. You can use this effect to connect related slides. For instance, if your timeline spans two slides, then you can use this effect to let your audience know the slides are connected. You can choose from 4 different effect options: push from the bottom, left, right, and top.
• Cut – this actually works like a much faster fade effect. The previous slide will disappear almost instantly and the current slide will appear in its place.
• Cover – this is a relatively simple transition effect. The new slide will essentially cover the previous slide. You can choose to have the new slide move in from 8 different directions.
• Uncover – this is the exact opposite of the Cover effect. Instead of the new slide moving in and covering the previous slide, it’s going to be the previous slide moving out of the way to quickly reveal the new slide.

Best Animation Effects in PowerPoint

As mentioned earlier, there are several object animations you can choose from in PowerPoint. These are categorized into 4: entrance, emphasis, exit and motion paths animation.

For business presentations, it’s important to not get caught up at the prospect of having multiple options at your fingertips. I know it’s easier said than done, but think of how much time you can save if you don’t overthink your animation options.

That being said, I do realize that presentations aren’t equal and some fancy effects may be necessary to get your point across. But for the most part, basic animation effects are usually enough for business presentations.

Entrance Animation Effects

If you don’t want your slide elements to appear all at once, then you may want to add entrance animation to some objects. You can set it to start (1) on click, (2) with previous animation, or (3) after the previous animation. You can also set how long you want the animation to last (duration), or even apply a delay to your animation.

Go to Animations > More Entrance Effects for a complete list of effects in this category. Here’s a screenshot of all available entrance effects in PowerPoint:

Appear , Fade and Wipe entrance animation effects are great (and simple) options if you want to animate something in your business slides.

Emphasis Animation Effects

One of the best ways to draw attention to a specific object on your slide is to use an emphasis animation effect. These effects can only be applied to objects that are already on the slide. So, if you’ve applied entrance animation to the same object, then the emphasis effect is going to happen AFTER it’s made an entry and is already on the slide. Also, objects with emphasis effect aren’t going to disappear from your slide (that’s what the exit animation effect is for).

Go to Animations > More Emphasis Effects for a complete list of effects in this category. Here’s a screenshot of all options:

Note that not all emphasis effects are going to be available for all kinds of elements. For example, if you want to animate an image , then options like Font Color, Bold Flash, Brush Color, etc. are going to be greyed out and will be unclickable. If you want to animate a certain shape, then Shimmer, Underline, Grow With Color, etc. are not going to be available, and so on.

For most business presentations, go over the available Basic and Subtle emphasis effects first (but skip the Grow/Shrink and Spin options). Remember, you want to add value to your presentation, not give your audience a headache!

Exit Animation Effects

Exit animations are used if you want an element to disappear from your slide. This is especially helpful if you’re trying to convey a point where a specific element is no longer needed.

Go to Animations > More Exit Effects   for a complete list of available effects in PowerPoint. Here’s what it looks like:

For business presentations, the best exit animations are Disappear, Dissolve Out, Wipe, Fade, Float Down, and Float Up. The objects will exit from the slide, but won’t cause visual anxiety to your audience.

Motion Path Animation Effects

PowerPoint may not be known as an animation software. But if you know how to use motion path animation, then you can easily take your presentation to the next level. You can use it to tell effective stories and demonstrate certain points in your presentation. If you want to understand more about how motion path animation works, and how you can use it to make your presentation stand out, then I recommend you read this article .

For a complete list of motion path effects, go to Animations > More Motion Paths . Here’s a screenshot:

Adding Sound Effects to Animations

Sound effects may not be necessary for most business presentations. But in cases where you absolutely need to add some sound effects to your slide animations, then here’s how:

1. Click on the element you want to animate

2. Go to the Animations tab and choose your animation

3. Click on Animation Pane (still in the Animations tab)

4. In the Animation Pane , click on the animation you want to add the sound effect to. A small triangle will appear on the right. Click on this triangle to reveal more options. Then click on Effect Options .

5. In the Effect tab, click on Sound and choose from the available options. Then click OK.

For Mac PowerPoint users, the same steps will apply. However, the interface will look different from Windows. Here’s where you can find the Sound effects for your selected animation:

Just like all the other animation effects I’ve discussed in this article, it’s best to use sound effects sparingly. If it’s not going to add any value to your presentation, then consider not using it at all.

Many business presentations should follow the ‘less is more’ principle. Don’t depend on animations to impress your audience as it can quickly backfire. Instead, focus on getting them to listen to you and engage with you throughout your presentation.

You might also find this interesting: How to make a picture transparent in PowerPoint

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PowerPoint  - Animating Text and Objects

Powerpoint  -, animating text and objects, powerpoint animating text and objects.

PowerPoint: Animating Text and Objects

Lesson 19: animating text and objects.

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Introduction

In PowerPoint, you can animate text and objects like clip art, shapes, and pictures. Animation—or movement—on the slide can be used to draw the audience's attention to specific content or to make the slide easier to read.

Optional: Download our practice presentation .

Watch the video below to learn more about animating text and objects in PowerPoint.

The four types of animations

There are several animation effects you can choose from, and they are organized into four types.

To apply an animation to an object:

• Select the object you want to animate.

At the bottom of the menu, you can access additional effects.

Effect options

Some effects will have options you can change. For example, with the Fly In effect you can control which direction the object comes from. These options can be accessed from the Effect Options command in the Animation group.

To remove an animation:

• Press the Delete key. The animation will be deleted.

Animations are best used in moderation. Adding too many animations can make your presentation look unprofessional and can even be distracting to your audience. Consider using subtle animations, or not using them at all.

Working with animations

To add multiple animations to an object:.

If you select a new animation from the the menu in the Animation group, it will replace the object's current animation . However, you'll sometimes want to place more than one animation on an object, like Entrance and Exit effects. To do this, you'll need to use the Add Animation command, which will allow you to keep your current animations while adding new ones.

• Select an object.
• Click the Animations tab.
• In the Advanced Animation group, click the Add Animation command to view the available animations.

To reorder the animations:

To copy animations with the Animation Painter:

In some cases, you may want to apply the same effects to more than one object. You can do this by copying the effects from one object to another using the Animation Painter . In our example, we want to copy an animation from one slide to another because they have similar layouts.

To preview animations:

Any animation effects you have applied will show up when you play the slide show. However, you can also quickly preview the animations for the current slide without viewing the slide show.

• Navigate to the slide you want to preview.

The Animation Pane

The Animation Pane allows you to view and manage all of the effects that are on the current slide. You can modify and reorder effects directly from the Animation Pane, which is especially useful when you have several effects.

To open the Animation Pane:

If you have several animated objects, it may help to rename them before reordering them in the Animation Pane. You can rename them in the Selection pane . To open the Selection Pane, click an object , then from the Format tab click Selection pane . Double-click the name of an object to rename it.

To reorder effects from the Animation Pane:

• The effects will reorder themselves.

To preview effects from the Animation Pane:

If the timeline is not visible, click the drop-down arrow for an effect, then select Show Advanced Timeline .

To change an effect's start option:

By default, an effect starts playing when you click the mouse during a slide show. If you have multiple effects, you will need to click multiple times to start each effect individually. However, by changing the start option for each effect, you can have effects that automatically play at the same time or one after the other .

When you preview the animations, all of the effects will play through automatically. To test effects that are set to Start on Click , you will need to play the slide show.

The Effect Options dialog box

From the Animation Pane, you can access the Effect Options dialog box, which contains more advanced options you can use to adjust your animations.

To open the Effect Options dialog box:

• From the Animation Pane , select an effect. A drop-down arrow will appear next to the effect.

Some effects have additional options you can change. These will vary depending on which effect you have selected.

To change the effect timing:

• Open our practice presentation . If you already downloaded our presentation to follow along with the lesson, be sure to download a fresh copy.
• On slide 2, select the text box that contains Answer: Neil Armstrong , and add a Pulse animation from the Emphasis group.
• In the same text box, add a Wipe animation from Entrance group.
• Change the Effect Options so it wipes From Left.
• Reorder the animations so the Wipe animation will happen first.
• Change the Start options for the Pulse animation so it starts After Previous.
• Use the Animation Painter to copy your animations to the Answer: Mercury text box on slide 3.
• Remove the animations from the text box on slide 3 containing What planet is closest to the sun?

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Best slide transitions and animations for presentations

One of the best ways to capture the audience’s attention is by using transitions and animations in your presentations. For this reason, it’s common for presentation software to include a wide array of these effects. However, this can make it harder for you to decide which ones to incorporate into your show. Let’s look at some of the best ways to choose which effects you incorporate into the show and how you can apply them to the presentation.

What’s the difference between animations and transitions?

Let’s start by looking at some of the differences between the two most commonly used types of effects, animations, and transitions. While many people assume that animations and transitions are the same things, this isn’t the case. Transitions are used when you are moving from one slide to the other. For this reason, they will be applied to the whole slide. Because of the entire slide is used, you will only be able to use one transition effect per slide. In comparison, animations can be applied to every element of the slide. For example, you might want to have an animation for the text and a different animation for a picture. Because of this, you will be able to use multiple different types of animation for each of the elements on the slide. The way that you apply these effects will often depend on the kind of software that you are using to create the presentation. For example, different platforms might offer different types of effects. To help you with this, let’s look at some of the most common types of presentation platforms and how you apply effects on them.

Applying transitions

Let’s start by looking at how you can add a slide transition in the show. These will make it easier to distinguish between different slides. It can also be a great way of keeping your audience engaged.

Applying transitions in PowerPoint

Let’s start by looking at how you can find and implement the best PowerPoint transitions. First, you will need to move to the  Transitions  tab. This tab will give a long list of potential options. You will then be able to find the one that will work best with your presentation.

The transitions are placed into three separate categories to make this choice easier. These are subtle, exciting, and dynamic. Also, when you click on an effect, you will see a preview of how it will look when applied to the show. This preview can give you an idea of whether it will work with your presentation.

Applying transitions in Keynote

Another popular type of slideshow creation technology is Keynote. Using Keynote can be a little trickier for you to find and apply transitions. First, you will need to go to the navigation panel. Then, you will need to click on the  Animate button in the top-right hand corner of the screen.

This choice will bring up a list of transition options from which you can choose. Once done, you will need to decide how for how long you want the effect to last. You will also need to determine when you want the transition effect to start. After this, select the build order button.

Adding transitions in Google Slides

To add transitions to Google Slides, you will need to enter the  Transitions  tab at the top of the screen. This tab will cause the Transitions pane to appear. In this section, you will have several options from which you can choose. Having choices will ensure that you can find and apply the right one for your presentation.

Adding animations

Another powerful effect tool that you can use is animations. These can give you more control over the presentation, letting you choose when each element is introduced. It will also allow you to bring the audience’s attention to critical areas. Let’s look at some of the ways you can apply these. 

Adding PowerPoint animations

To add an animation to a PowerPoint presentation, you will need to use the  Animations  tab.

There, you will see the various effects offered by the platform. These are often categorized to make it easier for you to select the best one. For more complicated options, you might want to use the  More Effects  buttons at the bottom of the window.

Adding Animations Keynote

As we mentioned earlier, to add animation, click on the element to which you want to apply the effect. Then, select the  Animate  option.

This choice will bring up a list of options. There are divided into three sub-categories: build-in, build-out, and action. Then you can go through the steps to create the one that works best for you.

Adding animations in Google Slides

In Google Slides, you will need to right-click on the object that you want to animate. Then, select the  Animate  option.

This selection will present a list of animation options for you to consider. Select the right element by clicking on it. You will then be able to customize it further, deciding at what time it plays and how long it will run. When doing this, you should know that Google Slides might limit the number of animations you can include to 13.

Benefits of animations and transitions

As we’ve seen, there are multiple ways to access these effects when you are creating a presentation. There are several reasons why you might want to consider using them during your slide show. First, it helps improve your presentation’s appearance.

For this reason, your audience will often appreciate a few effects to break up the show. Besides, you will be able to use effects to help emphasize the critical points of the presentation. For example, it will allow you to control the pace of the show, controlling when each new point is introduced. Controlling the speed of the show will let you determine how much discussion each element receives before you move on. Finally, these will allow you to grab your audience’s attention, ensuring they remain engaged with the presentation.

 Best practices when using effects

While the best animations and PowerPoint transitions can be a great tool, you will need to learn how to use them correctly. First, you should make sure not to overuse them because this can distract from the message. For example, it might be wise to stick to one or two transition effects throughout the presentation to make sure that it doesn’t feel too disjointed. You should also make sure to consider your audience. The type of audience will often influence the kind of effects that you will need to use. As an example, if you are giving a business presentation, you might want to keep the effects to a minimum, to make sure that you don’t distract them. However, if you were presenting to a group of children, you might want more effects to keep them engaged with the show.

In addition to choosing the right effects, you will need to think about the duration that you will be using. For example, you don’t want them to run for too long, to risk the audience getting bored. On the other hand, if they move too quickly, you might induce feelings of motion sickness. To solve this problem, you should try using each transition at multiple speeds. This trial and error will allow you to pick the one that works best in your presentation.

After going through the process, you should also make sure to preview each of these effects. Previewing is a great way to make sure that it is having the desired impact on the audience. It will also allow you to recognize when something is too distracting or doesn’t look visually appealing. You will then be able to tweak that element. By doing this, when you give the presentation, everything will look the way you want it to look. If, after trying multiple settings, you still can’t get an effect to work, you might want to consider removing it from the presentation entirely.

Best transitions and animations in a business presentation

As we’ve seen, there are multiple factors to consider when choosing which animation or transition you are going to use. Most importantly, you don’t want to allow them to overshadow the show. However, some types of effects will work well in most presentations. Let’s look at some of them.

Let’s start by looking at some of the most popular PowerPoint transition options. First, you might want to use a fade. Depending on your needs, you can either have it slowly fade into the next slide or fade to black. Another popular option is the ability to push. Pushing causes the new slide to move the old one off. There are multiple ways of doing this, such as shifting from the bottom of the side. Another PowerPoint transition option is to cut. Cutting causes the old slide to disappear and the new one to materialize instantly. Finally, you can either cover or uncover. This option means that the new slide will be covering the old one, or be lifted from the top of the old one. With each of these choices, there is a range of customization options, so you can find the one that works best for you.

When creating a PowerPoint presentation, you might also want to include some of the most popular animations. In this area, you will have four options from which to choose. First, you might want to add an entrance effect. This effect will allow you to determine when the element arrives, which is excellent for controlling the pace. You might also want to consider an emphasis animation. These are designed to bring attention to the parts that are already visible on the slide.

In some cases, these types of effects might not work with all the elements. If this is the case, merely choose a different kind of emphasis animation. The third type of animation in PowerPoint is exit effects. This effect will cause an element to leave the presentation. Finally, you may want to add motion to the display. Though this category can be a little more complicated, learning to use this technology effectively will allow you to have a significant impact on your audience.

Adding sound effects to the presentation

In some cases, you might want to add a sound effect to help highlight an important point. However, if you overuse this, you risk irritating the audience. For this reason, you should only use a sound effect when necessary. To create a sound effect, you will first need to click on the element that you want to apply to the sound effect. You will then need to move to the  Custom Animation  pane. Then, you will need to select the  Effect Options  to display more information.

Once done, you will be able to choose the  Sound  option. There you will be presented with multiple options.

In some cases, you might even want to use a custom sound. After choosing the sound, you will need to select when it gets played. For example, do you want to play it after a click, or as soon as the transition begins? After deciding this factor, you will need to think about how long the sound will play. In most cases, this should only be for a few seconds. If it’s too long, you might risk overshadowing the presentation. Finally, you might want to control the volume, to make sure that it’s comfortable for the audience. You will also be able to do this on a Mac, following the same procedures. However, because of the different operating systems, it might look a little different to some of the example images provided.

Animations and transitions can be a great way of capturing your audience’s attention and highlighting important points. Hopefully, you will now have a better understanding of the most popular animations available and how to apply them to your presentation. We also discussed some of the ways to make sure that you use these elements wisely to avoid overwhelming your audience. So, the next time you are creating a presentation, you can use transitions and animations more confidently.

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Change, remove or turn off animation effects

In PowerPoint, you can change one animation effect applied to an object for another, modify the settings for an animation, or remove the animation from the object.

Change an animation effect

Select the object that has the animation effect that you want to change.

On the Animations tab, select the new animation that you want.

Remove one animation effect

You can remove animation effects that you previously applied to text or objects (such as pictures, shapes, SmartArt graphics, and so on).

Note:  If you're looking for information on removing a transition effect from an entire slide, see Add, change, or remove transitions between slides .

On the Animations tab, select  Animation Pane .

On the slide, select the animated object that you want to remove the effect from.

Tip:  All of the effects applied to that object are highlighted in the Animation Pane.

In the Animation Pane , select the effect you want to remove, select the down arrow, and then select  Remove .

Remove more than one or remove all animation effects

To remove more than one animation effect from text or an object, in the Animation Pane , press Ctrl, click each animation effect that you want to remove, and then press Delete.

To remove all animation effects from text or an object, click the object that you want to stop animating. Then, on the Animations tab, in the gallery of animation effects, click None .

Turn off all animations in a presentation

Although you can't remove all animations from an entire presentation in one step (you have to remove animations from each object individually, as described above), you can disable all animations in your presentation.

On the Slide Show tab, select Set Up Slide Show .

Under Show options , select Show without animation .

Animate text or objects

Note:  If you're looking for information about changing or removing transitions between slides, see Add, edit, or remove transitions between slides .

To change or remove an animation effect you've created, select the slide you want, click the Animations tab, and then use the Animations pane on the right to edit or rearrange effects.

In the Animations pane, you can do any of the following:

Move or delete an animation     Select the effect in the Animations pane. At the top of the pane, click the arrow keys to change the order of your animations, or click the red X to delete an animation.

To delete all animations from a slide at once, click the first item in the list, press and hold the SHIFT key as you click on the last item in the list, and then click the red X.

Change to a different animation     Select the effect in the Animations pane, and click a different effect in the ribbon on the Animations tab.

Add another animation to the same object     First select the text or object on the slide (not in the Animations pane), and then click the additional effect you want to apply.

Change the effect properties     Select the effect in the Animations pane and make the changes you want under Effect Options .

The settings available here depend on the type of animation you selected. This example shows the options for a Fly In animation.

Change the effect timing     Select the effect in the Animations pane and make the changes you want under Timing . Options include how the animation is triggered, how long it lasts, and whether you want to delay its start or repeat it.

For longer animations that might get triggered again during your presentation, you can choose Rewind when done playing to speed things up a little bit the second time around.

If you want to disable animations from an entire presentation, click the Slide Show tab, click Set Up Slide Show , and then select Show without animation .

Animate text and objects

Animate text and objects with motion paths

Animate or make words appear one line at a time

Animate bullet points one at a time

Add, edit, or remove transitions between slides

On the Animations tab, select    Animation Pane .

Tip:  All of the effects applied to that object are highlighted in the Animation pane.

Remove more than one animation effect at once

In the Animation pane, multi-select the effects you want to remove: Press and hold Ctrl while you select each animation effect in turn. 

Tip:  To remove all the animation effects from a single object at once, you can select the object, then on the Animations tab, open the Animations gallery and select None .

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