PowerPoint: Animation Painter

We frequently go to a lot of trouble to create the perfect animation in PowerPoint. In PowerPoint Essentials, we discuss options for adjusting duration, delaying animations, triggers for animations, and other various tweaks you can make when selecting an animation. Once you have spent a lot of time making these adjustments, you may want to apply the same effect to another object in your presentation without recreating the wheel every time. Animation Painter is the perfect tool for this!

Exercise File

If you would like to follow along, download the exercise file here: AnimationPainterExercise

This file has the beginnings of a presentation on Wichita State University. Slide 2, titled Shocker Hall, has an image with a couple animations applied to it; both animations have been tweaked for timing. Slide 3, Culture and Activities, has an image with no animations applied.

Your Challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to apply the animation from Slide 2 to the image in Slide 3.

Important: Animation Pane

For this exercise, and really any time you are working with animations in PowerPoint, toggle on your Animation Pane. There are many ways this will make your life easier when working with animations, and working with the Animation Painter is no exception.

  • Go to: Animations tab, Advanced Animation group, select Animation Pane.
    Animations Tab, Animation Pane button

Animation Painter

Let’s paint some animations!

Slide two selected, click on element, go to animation painter.

  1. Select Slide 2 (Shocker Hall) from the preview pane on the left side of the screen.
  2. Select the Shocker Hall image.
  3. Note the animations applied to the image in the Animation Pane on the right.
    • To preview the animations, press the Preview button in the left side of the Animations tab.
      Preview Button
  4. With the Shocker Hall image selected, go to the Animation tab, Advanced Animation group, and select Animation Painter.
    Animation Painter
  • Note that your cursor turns into a paintbrush (just like the Format Painter we explore in Word and Excel Essentials)

Cursor is a paintbrush

5. Select Slide 3 (Culture and Activities) in the preview pane on the left side of the screen.

6. Select the Performance image in the slide; this will “paint” the animation settings onto this picture.

Click on image

  • A preview of the newly-applied animation should occur immediately, but can also be replayed with the Preview button in the Animations

Possible Pitfall

  • Mouse Click Folly: Be careful where you click with this feature: be sure you have selected what you would like to copy, then immediately click onto the object to be altered. It is very easy to “paint” animation onto the wrong item (don’t forget, ctrl Z can be your best friend).

Thoughts?

How will you use this feature on your presentations?

Congratulations, Power Users!

Congratulations to our newest Power Users! For the full gallery, and more information about the WSU Microsoft Office Power User Program, please visit: wichita.edu/poweruser

  • Jesse Koza
    (channeling Clippy!)Jesse Koza