Animations can be a valuable addition to your PowerPoint presentation because they add interest and movement to your slides and help keep your audience engaged.
How to Add Animations in PowerPoint
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Add all the text and images to your slide that you want to include.
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In the Animations tab>Advanced Animation panel, click Animation Pane. Keeping the Animation Pane open while you work will help you view which animations are added and in what order.
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Select the text or image you want to animate and click an animation type. You can select an option from the gallery (click the arrow to expand the gallery, as shown below) or from the Add Animation drop-down list in the ribbon.
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Hint: When selecting text, be sure to select the entire paragraph if that’s what you’re trying to animate.
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In the Animation Pane, click the arrow next to the added animation and select from the options for when you want your animation to start.
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Start On Click starts the animation when you click the mouse.
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Start With Previous starts the animation with the previous animation (for example, if you want an image to appear with a bullet).
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Start After Previous allows you to determine a set time after the previous animation for the selected animation to start.
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Continue adding animations to the elements on your slide.
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To change the order of the animation, use the arrow buttons at the top of the Animation Pane. You can also click Play From to play all the animations starting with the one selected in the list. (Hint: These options can also be found on the Animations tab if you don’t have the Animation Pane open.)
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To remove an animation, select it in the Animation Pane and press <Delete> or click the arrow next to it and select Remove from the menu.
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You can use the Trigger option in the Advanced Animation panel to set specific triggers, for example clicking on a title to trigger a bullet appearing.
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Before You Animate: A Few Things to Consider
Before adding animations to your presentations, here are some things to keep in mind:
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If you plan to post or send your PPT slides to your audience as a PDF for their reference, the PDF will capture the slide in its final state. Any text or images that you swap out or cover up with animations won’t be shown, so you should either reduce the animations or split them over several slides to ensure your PDF captures anything vital.
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If you have a script that goes with your slides, it’s helpful to include cues in the text for when the presenter should click to trigger the next animation.
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You may want to avoid timed animations if the presentation is given live or by different people, as you won’t necessarily be able to account for differences in timing between presenters.
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Ready to Start Animating?
There are lots of different animations styles and options you can play with. I hope this blog helps you get started with adding animations to your PowerPoint slides!
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