Animating SmartArt in PowerPoint 2010
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 2010
Date Created: June 2nd 2011
Last Updated: June 2nd 2011
Excerpt/Capsule: Learn how to animate a SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint 2010.
After inserting a SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint 2010, you can do so much: change colors of SmartArt, apply SmartArt styles, etc. However, once you add animation to your SmartArt, you'll discover that the entire graphic animates at the same time -- it may seem that you have no control over animating individual SmartArt shapes, but that's not entirely true since PowerPoint 2010 does provide some control over animating SmartArt shapes -- in this tutorial, you'll learn where to find those options, and how to use them to animate a SmartArt graphic with more control:
- Select your existing SmartArt graphic, as you can see in Figure
1. The SmartArt layout used in this example is Basic Matrix.

Figure 1: Basic Matrix SmartArt graphic
- Now select the Animations tabs
on the Ribbon.
Locate the
Animation group, then click the downward pointing arrow (highlighted
in red in Figure 2).

Figure 2: Animation group
- This brings up the Animation drop-down gallery
that you can see in Figure 3. You can choose any of the Entrance animations or choose the More Entrance Effects option located at the bottom of Animation gallery (highlighted in red in Figure 3).

Figure 3: More Entrance Effects option
Tip: PowerPoint provides four animation types. To know more about animations check the Types of Animation tutorial.
- In this window, if you click on any entrance effect, you can see the live
preview of how it works on your selected SmartArt graphic. Select any of
these effects and click OK. For this tutorial I have selected the Wipe
(highlighted in red in Figure 4) entrance effect.

Figure 4: Wipe entrance effect
- This applies the Wipe animation to the SmartArt graphic. The digit 1 (highlighted in red in Figure 5) indicates that the SmartArt graphic has an animation applied. And since you see only "1" without any "2", "3", etc. -- you can assume that everything is going to be animated at once.

Figure 5: Wipe entrance animation applied to SmartArt graphic
- As soon as the animation is applied, the Effect Options button located just next to Animation drop-down gallery is no longer grayed. Click the button to summon the Effect Options drop-down list, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Effect Options drop-down gallery
Within Effect Options drop-down gallery, you can the choose from four Wipe animation Directions, and the animation Sequence which are explained below:
- As One Object: Animates the entire SmartArt at one go.
- All At Once: Animates all SmartArt shapes at one go.
- One by One: Animates SmartArt shapes one by one.
Note: The Effect Options will be different for each Animation Type.
- You can even make changes by clicking the dialog launcher (highlighted in red in Figure 7) within the Animation group of Animations Ribbon tab.

Figure 7: Click the dialog launcher in the Animation group
- This summons a multi-tabbed dialog box with the same name as the animation applied to your SmartArt graphic, as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Wipe animation dialog box
- Within this dialog box you'll find three tabs (refer to Figure 8 above). They are:
- Effect: Within this tab you can find setting for the animation effects (refer to Figure 8 above).
- Timing: This tab provides you options for changing the timing of the animation effect you have applied, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: Timing tab
- SmartArt Animation: Within this tab you can find the Group graphic drop-down list which consists the animation sequence, as explained in point 6 above. Other than that you can set the animation to play in reverse order by choosing Reverse order check box (highlighted in red in Figure 10).

Figure 10: SmartArt Animation tab
- Effect: Within this tab you can find setting for the animation effects (refer to Figure 8 above).
- Click OK to apply the changes. Play your slide to preview the animated SmartArt graphic.
- Save your presentation.