Re-Ordering Animation
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 2002, 2003, and 2007
Date Created: April 1st 2009
Last Updated: April 1st 2009
Excerpt/Capsule: This tutorial shows how to re-order animations on a slide.
You need to re-order your animations mainly because you might have more than one animated object on a slide, and you discover that some re-sequencing of animations as they happen in relation to each other may provide a better result. For something of this sort, PowerPoint provides a Re-Order option that lets you play with the sequence of the animation:
Note: Re-Ordering only works if there are more than one animated objects on a slide.
Follow these steps to re-order existing animations:
- Before you start, make a duplicate copy of your slide in the presentation -- this is easily achieved by selecting the slide in Slide Sorter view (see PowerPoint Views) or the Slides pane, and pressing Ctrl+D. This duplicates the slide, and it's good to know that you have a copy of the slide that you can go back to just in case!
- Next, make sure that the Custom Animation task pane is visible, as shown in Figure 1. If this task pane is not visible, you won't be able to see or select any animations.
For PowerPoint 2007 users, make sure that the shape is still selected, then activate the Animations tab of the Ribbon -- next click the Custom Animation button to bring up a task pane of the same name that you can see in Figure 1. Remember, this is a toggle option: click once to show the Custom Animation task pane, and click again to hide it!
Users of earlier PowerPoint versions (PowerPoint 2002 and 2003) can again make sure that the object is selected. Then they should choose Slide Show | Custom Animation to access a similar task pane (see Figure 1).
- Select any of the animations in the Custom Animation pane that you want to re-order, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Custom Animation
- Now click either of the Re-Order arrow buttons (above and below), located under the Animations listing, as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Re-Order
- Once you have re-ordered your animations, preview them to make sure that the results look like what you intended. You might have to tweak the animation events a little if re-ordering made some changes to them.
- Save your presentation.
Related Link: My book Cutting Edge PowerPoint 2007 For Dummies covers many aspects of PowerPoint 2007. A free chapter excerpt PowerPointing with the Best of Them is available on this site.
