Countdown Timer
By: Geetesh Bajaj
Date Created:
Last Updated: February 28th 2009
Creating countdown timer slides in PowerPoint is easy - I'm using PowerPoint 2003 for this tutorial, but the techniques should work in versions as old as PowerPoint 97.
You can download the sample presentation here... (around 4 kb)
- Create a new presentation (Ctrl + N) and insert a blank slide.
Or insert a blank slide in an existing presentation.
- Insert a text-box and type the number '1' or '01' or '001'
depending on how many digits you want your counter to display.
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.
- Choose Slide Show | Slide Transition - this will activate the
Slide Transition task pane in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 (or open
the Transition dialog box in older versions).
- Choose a simple transition - for this example, I chose the
Box Out transition effect. You can also choose the 'No transition'
option if you prefer. I've also set the Speed to Fast and opted
to automatically advance slide after 10 seconds. You might
want to choose a shorter or longer time delay for the transition.
- Choose View | Slide Sorter and click the formatted timer slide.
Choose Edit | Copy (or Ctrl + C). Then choose Edit | Paste (or
Ctrl + V) to paste an identical slide. Paste as many times as
required until you end up with the number of slides you want
your countdown to contain.
- Within each of the consecutive slides, you'll want to edit
the countdown number in reverse order so that the last slide
contains the number '1'. Since my example presentation contains
10 slides, it would look like this after the number values have
been edited. (see screenshot)
- 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.
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