how to do an animated powerpoint presentation

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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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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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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. 

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How to Add Animation Effects in Microsoft PowerPoint

Last Updated: January 31, 2022 Tested

This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 450,351 times. Learn more...

You can animate text and other objects in a PowerPoint slide to add flair to your presentation. Follow these steps to learn how create animation effects in PowerPoint, as well as how to animate the transitions from one slide to another.

Animating Text or Objects

• To select a whole text box, click on the border of the text box. Powerpoint automatically distinguishes text separated by a paragraph or bullet break.
• If your Powerpoint has no objects to animate, you will need to add some .

• You can click through the animations to see a demonstration and view more animations by scrolling with the arrows on the right of the animations box.
• Entrance animations will change how an object enters the page.
• Exit animations will change how an object leaves the page.
• Emphasis animations will add movement or highlights to bring attention to an object.
• Paths determine a course of movement for an object on the page.

• This step can be repeated multiple times to add as many animations to an object as you like.

• This can be a useful tool for staying organized when working with multiple animations.

• “On Mouse Click” will hold the animation until you click the mouse.
• “After Previous” will automatically start the animation after any previous animation (or when the slide appears if there are no other animations)
• “With Previous” will play the animation at the same time as the previous animation on that slide.

• The delay begins after the selected animation action. That is if “On Click” is selected, the delay will start after the click.

• You can also click and drag animation listings in the animation pane.

• Choosing to add a sound manually will open up a window to browse for sound files on your computer, so you will need to have one handy.

Animating Page Transitions

• Select “None” on the left to remove a selected transition.
• A slide can only have one transition at a time.

• ”On Mouse Click” is selected by default.

• A higher duration means a slower transition.
• This setting only adjusts the duration of the transition, not of the slide itself.

• Choose “No Sound” from the same menu to remove any added sound effect.

Adding Animated Images and Videos to a Presentation

• You can click and drag the image to move it around on the slide once it's added.

• You must be connected to the internet during your presentation for online objects to display.

• Embedded videos can only play if you are connected to the internet during your presentation.

Community Q&A

• Click “Apply to all” on the Transitions tab to use the selected transition for all slides in a presentation. [3] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• The activation, timing, and duration options can also be accessed in the Animation Pane by clicking the down arrow next to a listed animation and selecting the option from the menu. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Apply-multiple-animation-effects-to-one-object-9bb7b925-ab0f-47d4-bc11-85d939194bed?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• ↑ http://www.thewindowsclub.com/add-sound-effects-to-powerpoint-animations
• ↑ https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-edit-or-remove-transitions-between-slides-in-PowerPoint-2016-for-Mac-937604f5-93f8-4f96-9232-8d55d7f0bead

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How to Add Animation to PowerPoint

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What to Know

• Select the item you want to animate, then go to the Animations tab > Animations group > More . Choose an animation.
• Use Effect Options if you want the animation on multiple items. Use the Animation Pane to change the order and timing.
• Use Play All to preview your animations.

So you have to give a talk to your boss and their entire team next week. You know what topics you want to cover, and you've put together a simple PowerPoint slide deck to help the audience understand your concepts. Consider using animation to make your presentation really stand out.

How to Add Animation to PowerPoint on a PC

Here are easy steps for using PowerPoint slide animation. The following instructions are for PowerPoint 2016, 2013, and 2010, as well as PowerPoint for Microsoft 365.

Open your PowerPoint presentation and navigate to the slide to which you want to apply animations.

Select the item you want to animate .

On the Animations tab, in the Animations group, select the More arrow in the Animations box.

You can also add Entrance , Emphasis , or Exit animations:

• An Entrance animates the item as it appears on the slide.
• An Emphasis animates the item after it’s already on the slide.
• An Exit animates the item as it leaves the slide.

Select the animation you want to use. When you select it, you’ll see the animation happen on your slide.

You’ll see the number “1” appear next to the object you’ve animated, indicating this will be the first animation to occur when you select within the slide during your presentation. If you animate more than one item, they'll be numbered in the order in which you create them.

If you want to animate several items within an object with the same animation, select the object, then choose your animation.

On the Animations tab, in the Animations group, select Effect Options to determine whether you want the animation to happen to all the items at once, or to each one separately. You can also adjust the way the animation happens; for example, whether an item “floats in” from the top or bottom of the slide.

To fine-tune the way animations happen during your presentation, on the Animations tab, in the Advanced Animation group, select Animation Pane . A pane will appear in the right-hand column of your screen.

• To change the order of an animation, select it from the list, then use the arrows in the upper-right corner of the pane to move it up or down.
• To adjust the timing, select an animation from the list and select the down-arrow for options.
• To view how the animations happen, select Play All .

To remove an animation, select an animated item, then, on the Animations tab, in the Animations group, select None .

How to Add Animation to PowerPoint Using a Mac

The following instructions are for PowerPoint 2019, 2016, and 2011 for Mac, as well as PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 for Mac.

Open your PowerPoint presentation and navigate to the slide to which you want to apply the animation.

Select the item you want to animate.

On the Animations tab, you’ll see choices for how an item appears on the slide, receives emphasis, or exits the slide. Select the one you want to use.

In PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, the selections are labeled as “entrance,” “emphasis,” and “exit” effects.

You’ll see the number “1” appear next to the object you’ve animated, indicating this will be the first animation to occur when you click within the slide during your presentation. If you animate more than one item, they'll be numbered in the order in which you create them.

To fine-tune the way animations happen during your presentation, click the number of the animation you want to adjust to open the Animations pane.

In PowerPoint 2011 for Mac, these options are available via the Animation tab, under Animation Options .

• Use the Effect Options dialog box to change how the animation works.
• Note : If Effect Options is not available, it may be because there are no options available for that effect.
• Use the Timing dialog box to set how long the animation lasts.
• Click Play From to see your changes in action.

Remember, your purpose is to support your message and build interest. Use animations judiciously, and leave the fancy displays for another time. 

You're done.

Why Animation Makes Your Presentation Stand Out

There are a number of ways to spice up your PowerPoint slides, including music, video, slide transitions, and animation. These elements can add interest and depth to your presentation, but too many can become distracting rather than enlightening. The key is choosing elements that will enhance your presentation rather than overwhelm it.

Using animation means applying movement to an item (such as lines of text, graphs, or images) on a slide. Presenters often use it to reveal bullet points one at a time instead of showing them all at once. This strategy can help keep audiences interested because they won’t know what’s coming next. Subtle effects like “appear,” “fade,” and “wipe” often work best; options such as “swivel,” “bounce,” “zoom”, and "typewriter" may get you into distraction territory.

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Animate a picture on your slide

To add some spirit to your presentation, you can add an animation effect to a picture or to shapes on your slides.

In this example, we’ll animate two pictures:

Select the first picture.

On the Animations tab, select an animation effect. For example, select Fly In .

Click Effect Options , and then pick a direction for the animation. For example, From Left .

Select the second picture that you want to animate.

On the Animations tab, pick Fly In .

Click Effect Options and pick From Right .

Tip:  You can change the order of the animations by selecting a picture and, under Reorder Animation on the ribbon, clicking Move Earlier or Move Later .

To test the animations you just applied to the two pictures, select the Slide Show button located at the bottom-right corner of the browser window:

In slide show view, click a slide to start each animation.

Tip:  To remove an animation effect, in Normal view, select the picture, and on the Animations tab, click None .

More about animation:

Animate text or objects

Animation effects available in PowerPoint for the web

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How to do Animations in PowerPoint?

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Introduction:

Microsoft PowerPoint is a robust software that enables users to create captivating and interactive presentations. While most users are familiar with its basic features, many are unaware of the advanced capabilities that can take presentations to the next level. In this article, we will learn how to make stunning animations in MS PowerPoint.

Understanding Animations in PowerPoint:

Animation in PowerPoint refers to the movement or transition effects applied to text, images, shapes, and other objects within slides. These animations can add visual interest, emphasise key points, and create a more engaging presentation experience. PowerPoint offers different  animation options like entrance, emphasis, exit, and motion path effects.

Getting Started with Animations in PowerPoint  To begin animating objects in PowerPoint, open your presentation and navigate to the slide containing the object you want to animate. Select the object by clicking on it, then navigate to the “Animations” tab in the PowerPoint ribbon.

By clicking the Animations Tab, the Animation Ribbion opens, showing different groups under the Animation Tab.

By selecting the object you want to animate, we can activate all the animation options in the Animation Ribbon.

In the Animation Ribbon, under Animation Group. We can see all the different types of animations we can apply to our selected object.

And by clicking the dropdown button on the Animation Group, we get to explore even more types of animation options.

In the dropdown Animation Panel, we can see a variety of Animations like Entrance, Emphasis, Exit, Motion Paths and None.

None in the Animation Panel shows that the object we have selected has no animation set on it.

Entrance Animations in PowerPoint

Entrance animations are used to introduce objects onto a PowerPoint slide . To apply Entrance Animation to an object, first select the object. Then click the Animations Tab. Under the Animations Tab, we have to click the drop-down button in the Animations Group. In the drop-down panel, we get to see multiple Entrance Animations such as “Appear”, “Fade,” “Fly-In,”, “Float In”, “Split”, “Zoom”, etc.     

Emphasis Animations  

Emphasis animations draw attention to specific objects or text within a slide. To apply an emphasis animation select the object you want to animate. Below the Entrance, we can find the Emphasis Animations list in the Animation’s group drop-down list.

Exit Animations  

Exit animations are used to remove objects from the slide. To apply Exit Animation to an object, first select the object. Then click the Animations Tab. Under the Animations Tab, we have to click the drop-down button in the Animations Group. In the drop-down panel, we get to see numerous Exit Animations such as “Disappear”, “Fade”, “Fly Out,” “Split”, “Zoom”, etc.

Motion Path Animations  

Motion path animations allow them to move objects along a specified path on the slide. To apply a Motion Path animation select the object you want to animate. Below the Exit Animation list, we can find the Motion Path Animations.

MS PowerPoint gives more Entrance, Emphasis, Exit and Motion Path Effects to apply to the object. Under the Motion Path Effect list, you can see more options for these effects.

By clicking them we get a Panel related to each effect, from which we can choose our desired Animation Effect.

Effect Options

Effect Options is a setting in MS PowerPoint that allows us to modify the movement of the selected animation. When we apply the Animation Effect to an object we get access to the Effect Option. It is located beside the Animation Effect Group on the Animation Ribbon.  

We can see that when we select the “Fly-In” Entrance Animation Effect, the Effect Options box on the right gets activated. By clicking the drop-down arrow we get a list of directions from where the Fly-In animation can enter the slide.

Most of the Animation Effects offer variations through Effect Options but a few allow us to set a sequence of the animations. The Animation Effects like Appear, Fade, Grow& Turn, Swivel, and Bounce in Entrance Effect.

The Emphasis group includes Pulse, Teeter, Desaturate, Darken, Lighten, Complement, Underline, Bold Flash, Bold Reveal, and Wave animation effects.

Disappear, Fade, Shrink & Turn, Swivel and Bounde under Exit Animation Effects are restricted to setting a sequence only. 

Under the Emphasis group animation effects like Object Colour, Line Colour, Fill Colour, Brush Colour, and Font Colour allow us to play with colours to make our animations in PowerPoint Presentations even more stunning.

Add Animation

If you want to add multiple animations to the selected object we use the Add Animations Option available on the Animation Ribbon.

When we add multiple animations to an object we can see numbers appear on the top left corner of the object when we select it. The numbers show the sequence in which the Animation Effect has been applied. These numbers also allow you to check which animation effect you have chosen for the object.

The Trigger option present in the Advanced Animations Group helps us set conditions for the initiation of the animation. When you set Trigger on an object, you can start the animation only by clicking on the object.

First, we have to select the object to activate the animation tab. Then select the animation effect on which you want to set the Trigger. For this case, we are using Trigger for 2 nd Animation Effect. Then click on Trigger and go to “On Click of”. This will ensure that the animation effect takes place only when you click on the object. Then select your Animation Object here it’s “Title 1”.

When you apply Trigger on the Animation Effect a Lighting Bolt icon appears on the sequence number with the Trigger Animation.

To undo the Trigger we select the object, go to the Trigger, press “On Click of” and uncheck the selected object.

Animation Pane:

The Animation Pane displays the list of all the animated objects present on the slide. It helps you to organise the sequence of all the animations.

On the slide, we have one animation object and two animation effects applied to the same object. It can be seen on the right-hand side of the Animation Pane window.

Timing Group : The Timing group in the Animation Tab allows you to control the timing and duration of the animation effect applied to the objects. This group contains various options that determine when animations start, how long they last, and the order in which they occur during a slideshow.

Start: It determines when the animation effect begins relative to the other events in the slideshow. MS PowerPoint offers three options:

• On Click: The animation starts when the user clicks the mouse or presses a key during the slideshow.
• With Previous: The animation starts simultaneously with the previous animation effect on the slide.
• After Previous: The animation starts immediately after the previous effect finishes.

Duration : Duration helps you to set the length of the animation effect.

Delay: Delay specifies the time between the slide transition’s start and the animation effect’s beginning. It helps us to pause before the animation begins.

We have looked at Animation tools like Animation Effects, Additional Effects, their timing, sequence, etc. With the help of these animation tools, we can build stunning presentations which can help us effectively communicate the message to the audience.

Mastering animations in PowerPoint is essential for creating engaging and impactful presentations. By understanding different animation effects and techniques offered in MS PowerPoint, you can effectively communicate your message to the onlookers. Whether you’re presenting financial data, sales projections, or marketing strategies, animation can elevate your presentation to the next level. With practice and experiment with different effects, timings, and sequences we can find the perfect animation style for our content.

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How to create animated presentations [Easiest Way for 2023]

Guru - November 22, 2022 - Leave your thoughts. 11 min read

animaker deck , animated presentations , online presentation maker , presentation maker

It's no secret that traditional presentations can get boring for the audience as they often include many sentences, subheadings, and images—and that's just the beginning. 

You also don’t want it to look like a high school science project: all over-the-top formatting and an overwhelming amount of text.

So how can you make your presentation more engaging? Well, don’t worry anymore, we have got an alternative for you!

This is where animated presentations come in. 

In this article, we have compiled the quickest and easiest steps to create an animated presentation using Animaker Deck .

Introduction to Animaker Deck

With Animaker Deck, you can create your own animated characters and use tons of pre-built templates, millions of stock assets, real-time collaboration, and more! 

It can do everything that Powerpoint can do and much more!

If you want to ensure your presentation keeps people engaged and interested, it’s time to change things up a bit from the usual way of creating a presentation.

So why wait? Let’s jump right into the steps!

Signing up with Animaker Deck

Understanding the user interface.

• Ways to create an animated presentation in Animaker Deck

Creating an animated presentation from scratch

Creating an animated presentation from templates, previewing & presenting the slides, sharing your work-of-art.

Click here to log into Animaker if you're already a registered user. If you are new to Animaker, you can sign-up and create an account with Animaker Deck for free.

Before we start to create a presentation, let’s spend some time understanding the user interface of the Animaker Deck app. 

On the left side, we have the Library section . Under the library section, you can access the Templates, Characters, Properties, Text, Background, Images, and Upload features with a single click.

Moving on, to the right, we have the Slides section , where you can re-arrange the slides, duplicate the slides, delete the slides, and even make edits to the slides, such as transition effects.

In the center, we have a Workspace displaying the selected slide. Here you will add fonts, and images, change the background and other properties and make all the slides customizations.

And at the top, you will find options to Share, Import, and Present the slide deck.

We shall look into each option in depth in the upcoming steps.

Ways to create an animated presentation in Animaker Deck:

 There are two ways to create an animated presentation in Animaker Deck

Customizing the Background

Introducing characters, using properties, adding text .

      2. Creating an animated presentation from templates

Selecting a template

• Editing the text

Customizing the Character

Editing the background images.

Let's get started right away!

One way of creating an animated presentation in Animaker Deck is from scratch on a blank canvas. Here’s what we will cover:

Using the Backgrounds feature, you can easily search and apply backgrounds according to your preferences. 

The best part is that you can customize the background colors to match your slide style.

For instance, let’s say you want to create an intro slide for your business. First, choose a suitable background for your slide from the Library.

Once you find and select a suitable background, it will appear in the central workspace. Also, you will notice a few options pop up in the workspace. It is called an “item menu.” 

You can customize the colors, add filters, swap elements, and resize and delete the elements in the slide from these options.

Do all the presentations you have made so far lack personality? 

You can now infuse life into the slides with the help of Animated Characters.

With Animaker Deck, you can create your personalized characters or use the built-in characters from the Library section, whichever fits your scenario.

In this instance, let’s choose one from the built-in character library.

The selected character will appear in the slide, along with the item menu. Use the options in the item menu to customize the character per your preferences.

Also, you can find the Actions and Expressions section on the right side of the workspace. Apply a suitable action and expression to your character from the available options. 

If you are not happy with the pre-built characters, you can even create and introduce your own custom characters into the slide deck.

Use the Create Your Avatar button under the Characters feature to create your own custom character.

Animaker Deck offers you options to create a character between Young Adults and Children.

Pick the one as per your preference. Once you select the type, you will be taken to the character customization screen. 

Here you can customize each and every aspect of your character, starting from head to toe.

This is the cherry on top of the Animaker Deck app. This way, you can introduce yourself as a character in your presentation as well. 

Once you have finished the customizations, save your character and refresh the project. You can find the newly created character in the My Characters tab under the Character feature.

Animaker Deck is loaded with tons of Properties. Icons, Graphs, Charts, Numbers, Illustrations, or anything you name, are covered under the properties section. 

Now, let’s add a speech bubble to the character. You can do this by searching for a speech bubble under the properties section in the library.

Once you select the speech bubble, it will appear in the workspace. Use the item menu options to customize the size and color. 

You can also add animation effects to the speech bubble from the options available on the right side of the workspace.

Introducing entry and exit animations to the properties in the slide adds extra appeal to the presentation overall.

Using the Text feature, you can add text to your slides in two ways. 

One is to choose and edit from the built-in text templates designed along with animation effects, and the second is to enter the text manually with text boxes.

Select a suitable text design from the Text feature under the library section.

Once you select the text design, it will appear in the workspace; now, you can type in the required text and use the item menu options to customize the color, font style, size, and alignment and adjust the case sensitivity of the text. 

In this instance, we have used the empty text box design and entered the text manually. You can also use the built-in text design templates and edit them accordingly. 

Also, it is possible to add animation effects to the text just like we did to the properties earlier. 

You can even adjust the transparency of the text by using the transparency slider beneath the animation effects on the right side of the workspace.

This way, Animaker Deck gives a complete customization option for the users to edit and change the slides according to everyone’s preferences.

Another way of creating an animated presentation is from pre-built templates. 

Here’s what we will cover:

Animaker Deck offers more than 50 professionally designed templates to choose from. 

Use these templates to inject fresh ideas into your static slides!

The templates feature is on the left side under the library section.

Go carefully through the different templates and select a suitable one for your use case. Then click Add all. 

A pop-up window will appear, asking you to overwrite; click confirm to insert the template.

Once you have clicked the confirm button, all the slides will be inserted into the project.

Now the best part about creating an animated presentation from templates in Animaker Deck is that every aspect of the template is completely customizable. The three main aspects of the template that you can customize as per your preferences are 

• Background Images

Editing the Text

Select the Text that you want to edit. Then click on the Settings option from the item menu. You can find different options to customize the text on the right side.

For instance, you can choose a different font, change the font’s color, and adjust the line spacing. You can also make the text a Hyperlink by toggling the Hyperlink button.

Use all these options to edit the text according to your preference. 

Select the Character and use the item menu to customize it. You can alter the color of the character and its attire as per your preference.

You can also introduce actions and expressions to the character and bring life to your presentation. Simply select an action under the action tab, and it will reflect in character immediately. It’s that easy to animate your characters. 

Also you can even introduce your own custom characters into the slide deck. 

Animaker Deck, in partnership with GIPHY, PEXELS & PIXABAY, provides access to thousands of quirky gifs and iconic images which can be used in your slides with a single click.

You have the flexibility to even customize the existing background image in the template as per your preference.

Select the Background image and use the Item Menu options to edit the elements present in the background image.

For instance, you can alter the color of the elements, resize them, group them together or delete them. 

Also, you can introduce animation effects to the background image to lit up the presentation.

However, if you are still unhappy with the customizations, Animaker Deck has covered you with the Upload option.

Animaker Deck offers up to 25 GB of storage space for you to upload your custom files onto the slide decks.

That’s some steal, right?

You can upload your own custom images and images into the slide decks by using the Upload feature in the library section.

Click on the Upload button to browse files from your local disc and upload them directly to your project. 

Another simpler way of customizing your background is by playing around with the colors.

You can use solid colors as a background, or even better, you can use gradient colors matching your presentation style.

You can add up to five colors and create a gradient-style background on your own!

This way, you get complete control over the selected template and customize it as per your needs. 

Once you’ve finished customizing the template, click on the present button to preview the entire presentation. 

Once you have added the character, text, and properties and selected the suitable background, it’s time to preview how everything looks together when presented.

To do this, head to the Present option in the top menu. Clicking on the Present button will allow you to preview the slide in fullscreen. 

This way, you can check and alter the slide's contents accordingly. It’s that simple to create an animated presentation from scratch in Animaker Deck.

Similarly, you can add more slides and customize them according to your use cases.

If you are working in a team, the next step is to get your presentation reviewed by your tea members. A collaborative review process can help elevate your presentation’s quality.

Use the Share button in the top right to share the presentation with your team. All you need to do is enter your colleagues' email addresses and choose between copy and edit links.

Animaker Deck makes it easy for you to collaborate with your entire team and edit your slide decks together in real-time.

Also, there’s an option to preview the created slide decks with the help of the Present button in the top right corner. 

Use this present button to review all the changes, animations, and other transition effects made (if any) throughout the slide.

And that’s a wrap!👏 

You have now successfully learned how to create kick-ass animated presentations in a jiffy. 

With the advent of influential online presentation makers like Animaker Deck, creating professional-looking animated presentations has become easier and more affordable than ever before. 

It is only the beginning! The world of presentations awaits you!

Get started and sweep your audiences right away!

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How-To Geek

6 ways to create more interactive powerpoint presentations.

Engage your audience with cool, actionable features.

Quick Links

• Add a QR code
• Embed Microsoft Forms (Education or Business Only)
• Embed a Live Web Page
• Add Links and Menus
• Add Clickable Images to Give More Info
• Add a Countdown Timer

We've all been to a presentation where the speaker bores you to death with a mundane PowerPoint presentation. Actually, the speaker could have kept you much more engaged by adding some interactive features to their slideshow. Let's look into some of these options.

1. Add a QR code

Adding a QR code can be particularly useful if you want to direct your audience to an online form, website, or video.

Some websites have in-built ways to create a QR code. For example, on Microsoft Forms , when you click "Collect Responses," you'll see the QR code option via the icon highlighted in the screenshot below. You can either right-click the QR code to copy and paste it into your presentation, or click "Download" to add it to your device gallery to insert the QR code as a picture.

In fact, you can easily add a QR code to take your viewer to any website. On Microsoft Edge, right-click anywhere on a web page where there isn't already a link, and left-click "Create QR Code For This Page."

You can also create QR codes in other browsers, such as Chrome.

You can then copy or download the QR code to use wherever you like in your presentation.

2. Embed Microsoft Forms (Education or Business Only)

If you plan to send your PPT presentation to others—for example, if you're a trainer sending step-by-step instruction presentation, a teacher sending an independent learning task to your students, or a campaigner for your local councilor sending a persuasive PPT to constituents—you might want to embed a quiz, questionnaire, pole, or feedback survey in your presentation.

In PowerPoint, open the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, and in the Forms group, click "Forms". If you cannot see this option, you can add new buttons to the ribbon .

As at April 2024, this feature is only available for those using their work or school account. We're using a Microsoft 365 Personal account in the screenshot below, which is why the Forms icon is grayed out.

Then, a sidebar will appear on the right-hand side of your screen, where you can either choose a form you have already created or opt to craft a new form.

Now, you can share your PPT presentation with others , who can click the fields and submit their responses when they view the presentation.

3. Embed a Live Web Page

You could always screenshot a web page and paste that into your PPT, but that's not a very interactive addition to your presentation. Instead, you can embed a live web page into your PPT so that people with access to your presentation can interact actively with its contents.

To do this, we will need to add an add-in to our PPT account .

Add-ins are not always reliable or secure. Before installing an add-in to your Microsoft account, check that the author is a reputable company, and type the add-in's name into a search engine to read reviews and other users' experiences.

To embed a web page, add the Web Viewer add-in ( this is an add-in created by Microsoft ).

Go to the relevant slide and open the Web Viewer add-in. Then, copy and paste the secure URL into the field box, and remove https:// from the start of the address. In our example, we will add a selector wheel to our slide. Click "Preview" to see a sample of the web page's appearance in your presentation.

This is how ours will look.

When you or someone with access to your presentation views the slideshow, this web page will be live and interactive.

4. Add Links and Menus

As well as moving from one slide to the next through a keyboard action or mouse click, you can create links within your presentation to direct the audience to specific locations.

To create a link, right-click the outline of the clickable object, and click "Link."

In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click "Place In This Document," choose the landing destination, and click "OK."

What's more, to make it clear that an object is clickable, you can use action buttons. Open the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, click "Shape," and then choose an appropriate action button. Usefully, PPT will automatically prompt you to add a link to these shapes.

You might also want a menu that displays on every slide. Once you have created the menu, add the links using the method outlined above. Then, select all the items, press Ctrl+C (copy), and then use Ctrl+V to paste them in your other slides.

5. Add Clickable Images to Give More Info

Through PowerPoint's animations, you can give your viewer the power to choose what they see and when they see it. This works nicely whether you're planning to send your presentation to others to run through independently or whether you're presenting in front of a group and want your audience to decide which action they want to take.

Start by creating the objects that will be clickable (trigger) and the items that will appear (pop-up).

Then, select all the pop-ups together. When you click "Animations" on the ribbon and choose an appropriate animation for the effect you want to achieve, this will be applied to all objects you have selected.

The next step is to rename the triggers in your presentation. To do this, open the "Home" tab, and in the Editing group, click "Select", and then "Selection Pane."

With the Selection Pane open, select each trigger on your slide individually, and rename them in the Selection Pane, so that they can be easily linked to in the next step.

Finally, go back to the first pop-up. Open the "Animations" tab, and in the Advanced Animation group, click the "Trigger" drop-down arrow. Then, you can set the item to appear when a trigger is clicked in your presentation.

If you want your item to disappear when the trigger is clicked again, select the pop-up, click "Add Animation" in the Advanced Animation group, choose an Exit animation, and follow the same step to link that animation to the trigger button.

6. Add a Countdown Timer

A great way to get your audience to engage with your PPT presentation is to keep them on edge by adding a countdown timer. Whether you're leading a presentation and want to let your audience stop to discuss a topic, or running an online quiz with time-limit questions, having a countdown timer means your audience will keep their eye on your slide throughout.

To do this, you need to animate text boxes or shapes containing your countdown numbers. Choose and format a shape and type the highest number that your countdown clock will need. In our case, we're creating a 10-second timer.

Now, with your shape selected, open the "Animations" tab on the ribbon and click the animation drop-down arrow. Then, in the Exit menu, click "Disappear."

Open the Animation Pane, and click the drop-down arrow next to the animation you've just added. From there, choose "Timing."

Make sure "On Click" is selected in the Start menu, and change the Delay option to "1 second," before clicking "OK."

Then, with this shape still selected, press Ctrl+C (copy), and then Ctrl+V (paste). In the second box, type 9 . With the Animation Pane still open and this second shape selected, click the drop-down arrow and choose "Timing" again. Change the Start option to "After Previous," and make sure the Delay option is 1 second. Then, click "OK."

We can now use this second shape as our template, as when we copy and paste it again, the animations will also duplicate. With this second shape selected, press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, type 8 into the box, and continue to do the same until you get to 0 .

Next, remove the animations from the "0" box, as you don't want this to disappear. To do this, click the shape, and in the Animation Pane drop-down, click "Remove."

You now need to layer them in order. Right-click the box containing number 1, and click "Bring To Front." You will now see that box on the top. Do the same with the other numbers in ascending order.

Finally, you need to align the objects together. Click anywhere on your slide and press Ctrl+A. Then, in the Home tab on the ribbon, click "Arrange." First click "Align Center," and then bring the menu up again, so that you can click "Align Middle."

Press Ctrl+A again to select your timer, and you can then move your timer or copy and paste it elsewhere.

Press F5 to see the presentation in action, and when you get to the slide containing the timer, click anywhere on the slide to see your countdown timer in action!

Now that your PPT presentation is more interactive, make sure you've avoided these eight common presentational mistakes before you present your slides.