Toolbox - Custom Animation Tab in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

The first tab within the Toolbox in PowerPoint 2011 is the Custom Animation tab. This tab provides options to reorder, change, and remove existing animations on your slides. To use any of the options in this tab, you must have a slide object that has animation added to it - in Figure 1, you can see that animations applied to a Rectangle show up in this tab within the Animation order list.

Figure 1: Custom Animation tab showing animations on the active slide

Within the Animation Order section of the Toolbox, select any animation to enable the additional Toolbox sections and options, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Additional sections within Custom Animation tab

Let us now explore the animation options within the Custom Animation tab of the Toolbox, as marked in Figure 2, above:

A. Animation order

This section displays the list of all the animations on the current slide. For this tutorial we have applied two animations to the same Rectangle, and they show within the Animation order section (refer to Figure 2 above).

B. Reorder

Click either of the Re-Order arrow buttons to move the selected animation before or after in the sequence. The Re-order button only works when there are two or more animations on a slide.

C. Remove Animation

Click this button to remove the selected animation(s) from the active slide.

D. Effect Options

Click the disclosure triangle to expand this section. The Effect Options section provides settings for the selected animation (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Effect Options

Within this section you can customize the following options:

Property: Click the drop-down list to display properties for the selected animation. In Figure 3 above, the property allows you to change the direction of the animation, but these properties will differ based on the animation selected.

After animation: In this dop-down list, you'll get options for the action that happens after the animation has occurred. You can choose Theme Color, Colors, Don't Dim, Hide after Animation, and Hide on Next Animation. Again, options may differ based on the selected animation.

Sound: This drop-down list provides various sounds which can be applied when the animation is played. You can also choose the Other Sound option to choose a sound file located on your system.

Smooth Start and Smooth End: Select these check boxes to smoothly start and end your animations, otherwise the effect plays at a constant speed, some people may call this abrupt. Availability of Smooth Start and Smooth End check boxes depends upon the type of animation selected.

E. Timing

This section provides options for changing the timing of the animation effect you have selected, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Timing

Within this section you can customize the following options:

Start: Choose from On Click, With Previous, and After Previous.

Speed: Choose from the predetermined time intervals.

Delay: Use the spinner control to set the number of the seconds to wait before the animation begins to play.

Repeat: Choose how many times you want to repeat the animation.

Rewind when done playing: Select this check-box to start over the animation when the slide containing the animation is shown again.

F. Text Animations

Within this section you can find the options to apply fancier animations to Text, similar sections may be available for Charts and SmartArt (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: Text Animations

Within this section you can customize the following options for Text Animation:

Animate text: Choose from All at Once, By Word, and By Letter.

Group text: Choose how the bulleted text is animated, as a group all at once, or by paragraph (bulleted) levels.

Animate attached shape: When this checkbox is selected, the shape that contains text is animated along with the text in it. When not selected, only the text is animated.

In reverse order: Sets the paragraphs in text animations to animate in reverse order.