Animating bullets and other objects on your slide can be a great way to grab your audience’s attention, and PowerPoint 2013 lets you animate just about anything.

Just click any object, then click Animations > Add Animation, and you’ll see a menu of possibilities.

Note: In PowerPoint, animations are not the same as transitions. A transition animates the way one slide changes to the next. See Add or remove transitions between slides.

Add an animation effect

1. Select the object that you want to animate.
2. Use the Animations tab and scroll through the effects there, or click Add Animation to see the whole gallery.
3. Click Effect Options if you want to do things like change the direction, or the way a set of objects animates.
4. Click Preview to see how your animation plays with the object.

Tip: Animations are fun, but be careful about going too crazy with them. Too many blinking, moving objects can be distracting, or even annoying, to your audience.

Add multiple animation effects to a single object

Sometimes you want an object to have more than one effect, like making it fly in and then fade out later. In that case, it’s most helpful to use the Animation Pane, which helps you see the order and timing of the effects. ClickAnimations > Advanced Animation > Animation Pane to open it.

1. On the slide, select the text or object that you want to have multiple animations.
2. On the Animations tab, in the Advanced Animation group, click Add Animation. Click the effect that you want to add.

Use the Animation Pane to choreograph the effects. Move effects up or down in the list to change the order they play in. Select an effect and click the arrow to change timing and other options. Click Play to see how it looks in action. Learn more about the Animation Pane in Going further with animations.

Remove an animation effect

If you do have too much action on your slide, remove effects using the Animation Pane or the ribbon.

Remove an animation effect

1. Click the object that has too many effects. All of the effects belonging to that object are highlighted in the Animation Pane.
2. In the Animation Pane, click the effect that you want to remove, then click the arrow to open the list of options, and then click Remove.

Remove all animation effects from an object

1. Click the object that you want to stop animating.
2. Click Animations, and then in the gallery of animation effects, click None.

Remove all animation effects from a slide

1. In the Animation Pane, click the first effect in the list, then press Shift and click the last effect in the list. This selects all of the animation effects belonging to the slide.
2. Click Animations, and then in the gallery of animation effects, click None.

More about animating text and objects

There are four different kinds of animation effects in PowerPoint 2013:

• Entrance effects. For example, you can make an object fade gradually into focus, fly onto the slide from an edge, or bounce into view.
• Exit effects. These effects include making an object fly off of the slide, disappear from view, or spiral off of the slide.
• Emphasis effects. Examples of these effects include making an object shrink or grow in size, change color, or spin on its center.
• Motion Paths. You can use these effects to make an object move up or down, left or right, or in a star or circular pattern (among other effects). You also can draw your own motion path.

The gallery of animation effects on the Animations tab shows only the most popular effects. Get even more possibilities by clicking Add Animation and then clicking More Entrance Effects, More Emphasis Effects,More Exit Effects, or More Motion Paths.

You can use any animation by itself, or combine multiple effects together. For instance, make a line of text fly in while it grows, by applying a Fly In entrance effect and a Grow/Shrink emphasis effect to it. Click Add Animation to add effects, and use the Animation Pane to set the emphasis effect to occur With Previous.

Source: Microsoft