Countdown Timer Slides in PowerPoint

Creating countdown timer slides in PowerPoint is easy. Techniques explained in this tutorial work in new versions of PowerPoint. If you are using a very old version of PowerPoint, please look at our Countdown Timer Slides in PowerPoint 2003 page.

You can download the sample PowerPoint presentation here (around 117 kb).

1. Create a new presentation (Ctrl+N), or insert a blank slide in an existing presentation. Change the slide layout to Blank.
2. 

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2. Insert a text-box and type the number '1' or '01' or '001' depending on how many digits you want your counter to display (see Figure 1). Change the text alignment to center, change the font size to something large like 200 and resize the text box so that all digits are placed on the same line. Change your font style as required and position the text box right in the center of the slide, using guides or grids to position as required.
3. 
   Figure 1: Insert a text-box
3. Access the Transitions tab of the Ribbon. Select a simple transition such as Flash, as show in Figure 2. You can also choose the None transition effect within the Transitions gallery to remove any existing transition effects applied.
4. 
   Figure 2: Transitions tab of the Ribbon
5. If you are using PowerPoint 2007, you'll find transitions within the Animations tab of the Ribbon.
4. We also opted to automatically advance slides after 5 seconds (highlighted in red within Figure 3). You might want to choose a shorter or longer time delay for the transition.
5. 
   Figure 3: Slide Transition mode and delay set
5. Change the view to Slide Sorter, and select the formatted timer slide. Now, duplicate this slide as many times as required until you end up with the number of slides you want your countdown to contain, as shown in Figure 4.
6. 
   Figure 4: Slide duplicated in Slide Sorter view
6. Within each of the consecutive slides, you would like to edit the countdown number in reverse order so that the last slide contains number '1'. Since our example presentation contains 10 slides, it would look similar to what you can see in Figure 5, below.
7. 
   Figure 5: Countdown Timer presentation
7. We just finished creating a countdown timer. You might want to experiment with slide backgrounds, transitions, animations, font color and style, etc., to create a unique look. You might even want to experiment with digit styles or include seconds within the slides (for example 01:00). Also, you may want to add some text to each countdown slide like "minutes/seconds remaining" or similar.