Animation Events in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

When you view a presentation in Slide Show view, any animations applied to slide objects typically play when you click your mouse or press the Spacebar. Another option to cause the animation to happen is by clicking a button on a presentation remote. Each of these options advances one animation at a time on a slide. If there are no more animations on the slide, clicking will take you to the subsequent slide. While this approach works for slides that have an animation or two, you will quickly realize that this is certainly not the way to go if your slides have tens of animations, or more. If you add that many animations to any slide, you probably want your animations to be automatically sequenced to happen one after the other, or even at the same time. That's exactly where PowerPoint's animation events can help.

PowerPoint supports three types of animation events:

1. On Click

This is the default animation event for any animation applied to a slide object. This animation can be played by either clicking the left (or default) mouse button, pressing the Spacebar or Right Arrow button on the keyboard, or activating a specific button on a presentation remote control.

2. With Previous

This animation event plays along with any previous animation(s) listed within the Custom Animation tab of the Toolbox. If there are no previous animations on the slide, this animation plays immediately after the slide transits from a previous slide.

3. After Previous

This animation event plays instantly after the previous animation finishes playing on a slide. If there are no previous animations on the slide, this animation plays immediately after the slide transits from a previous slide.

Follow these steps to change the animation event for any animation in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Open your presentation and navigate to the slide which includes several animations. If you don't have a slide with several animations available, consider creating a new slide with some shapes or other slide objects. Then, add some animations to these shapes or slide objects, as explained in our Adding an Animation tutorial.
2. You will now change the Animation Events for these animations. With the slide active, click the Toolbox icon on the Standard Toolbar, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.
3. 
   Figure 1: Toolbox icon on the Standard Toolbar
3. This action summons the Toolbox , as shown in Figure 2, below. Within the Toolbox, access the first tab, which is the Custom Animation tab, that you can see highlighted in red within Figure 2, below. Within this tab, you can see all the animations applied to different slide objects on the active slide. Select the animation for which you want to change the event.
4. 
   Figure 2: Start button within the Animations tab
4. To change the Animation Event of the selected animation, you can use either of these two options:
5. Locate the Animation Options group within the Animations tab of the Ribbon. Within this group, click the Start drop-down list, as hown highlighted in green within Figure 2, above. This action opens the Start drop-down list which includes Animation Events, shown in Figure 3, below. These three Animation Events are On Click, With Previous, and After Previous.
6. 
   Figure 3: Animation Events within the Start drop-down list
7. Alternatively, open the Timing pane within the Custom Animation tab of the Toolbox, as shown in Figure 4, below. Click the Start drop-down list, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
8. 
   Figure 4: Timing pane within the Custom Animation tab of the Toolbox
9. Doing so opens the Start drop-down list, as shown in Figure 5, below which includes the three Animation Events explained earlier. Select the Animation Event you want.
10. 
    Figure 5: Start drop-down list within the Custom Animation tab of the Toolbox
5. Preview your animations by playing the slide in Slide Show view.
6. Save your presentation.