Animation Events in PowerPoint 2007, 2003, and 2002 for Windows

Once you add animation to any slide object, you can play the animation in Slide Show view by clicking your mouse cursor or pressing the Spacebar key on your keyboard. Another option is to use a button on a presentation remote. Each of these options advances one animation at a time, or may even 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, and 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 key, by clicking the Right Arrow button on the keyboard, or activating a specific button on a presentation remote control.

2. With Previous

This animation event is set to play simultaneously with any pevious animation(s) on the same slide. If there are no previous animations on the slide, this animation plays immediately after the slide transition.

3. After Previous

This animation event plays the very instant when previous animation(s) finish playing on a slide. If there are no previous animations on the slide, this animation plays immediately after the slide transition.

Follow these steps to change the animation event for any animation in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows:

1. Select the object that has an animation applied to it. To learn how to apply animation to a slide object, refer to our Adding an Animation tutorial.
2. Now, make sure that the Custom Animation Task Pane is visible, as shown in Figure 1, below. If this Task Pane is not visible, you won't be able to see or select any animations.
3. 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, below. Remember, this is a toggle option: click once to show the Custom Animation Task Pane, and click again to hide it!
4. Users of earlier PowerPoint versions can again make sure that the shape is selected. Then they should choose the Slide Show | Custom Animation option to access a similar Task Pane, as shown in Figure 1.
5. 
   Figure 1: Custom Animation Task Pane
3. The Custom Animation Task Pane lists all the animations added to slide objects on the active slide. Choose the animation for which you want to change the animation event.
4. Now, access the animation event drop-down list, as shown in Figure 2, below and select the animation event you want to use for the selected animation. Test the animation by playing the slide.
5. 
   Figure 2: Animation Events
5. Save your presentation often.