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Animation Delay in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Author: Geetesh Bajaj

Product/Version: Microsoft PowerPoint 2011
OS: Mac OS X

Date Created: August 22nd 2012
Last Updated: August 22nd 2012

Excerpt/Capsule: Learn about Animation Delay in PowerPoint 2011.

Once you add animation to a slide object, you can make the animation happen slower or faster using its speed properties. You can also cause the animation to happen on a click, or automatically by changing its event. However, you can do much more -- did you know that you can set a delay time after which any slide object animates? So, why would you add a delay? There are several reasons and primarily, delay can be beneficial if you want to maintain a time limit between two animations -- as in having the second animation occur 10 seconds after the first one concludes. Of course, that was just a simple example and animation delay can be helpful in many other scenarios. This delay is calculated in seconds; follow these steps to learn more:

1. Make sure that you have at least one animated slide object on your slide, as shown in Figure 1. Select this object.
   
   Figure 2: Animated slide object
   
   
2. Now, access the Animations tab of the Ribbon -- here, click the Reorder button (highlighted in red within Figure 2, below).
   
   
   Figure 2: Reorder button within the Animations tab
   
   
3. This brings up the Custom Animation tab of the Toolbox, as shown in Figure 3, below. Within the Animation order pane, select the animation for which you want to change the delay. Then, click on the Timing pane that you can see highlighted in red, within Figure 3.
   
   Figure 3: Animation selected
   
   
4. This reveals the options within the Timing pane as shown in Figure 4. Within the Timing pane, locate the Delay option that you can see highlighted in red within Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Delay option within the Timing pane
   
   
5. Here, you can either directly type the required delay in seconds into the Delay box or use the up and down arrow button next to the Delay box (highlighted in blue within Figure 4, above), to increase or decrease the value in seconds. In Figure 5 you can see that we set the delay to 3 seconds (highlighted in red).
   
   
   Figure 4: Delay set to 3 seconds
   
   
   Note: Animations in PowerPoint 2011 are timed to deca-seconds (100 deca-seconds in a minute), rather than using the typical 60 seconds. So, half a second is shown as 0.50 rather than 00:30.
   
   
6. Once you set the Delay to the required number of seconds, click the Play button within the Preview group (highlighted in red within Figure 5) of the Animations tab to preview the animation. You will see that the animation waits for the delay time specified, before starting.
   
   
   Figure 5: Play button within Preview group
   
   
7. Save your presentation.

See Also: Animation Delay in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows