Reversing Paths of Motion Path Animations in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Now that you have learnt how easy it is to add motion paths using presets, and draw your own custom motion paths, it is time that you start getting more familiar with some tricks used with motion path animations. The simplest motion path trick is the reverse motion path option. This option is very helpful if you want an object to animate using a motion path, and then animate again from the end of the motion path to the beginning!

Follow these steps to learn how to reverse your motion paths animation:

Launch PowerPoint 2010. Most of the time PowerPoint will open with a new slide in a presentation -- PowerPoint 2010 users can change the slide layout to Blank by selecting Home tab | Layout | Blank. Now, access the Shapes gallery, and then choose any shape. Click once on the blank slide to place a shape.
Apply a motion path animation to the shape. Refer to our adding a motion path or drawing a custom motion path tutorials to get started.
Now, select the shape to which you applied the motion path animation, and you shall be able to see a dashed line representing the motion path (as shown in Figure 1 below). This dashed line has green and red arrowheads at both its ends, the green arrowhead represents the starting point of the motion path whereas the red arrowhead represents the end point.

Figure 1: Shape with a motion path animation applied
Now, select the motion path by clicking on the dashed line, and right-click carefully to bring up a contextual menu with three options as shown in Figure 2. Choose the Reverse Path Direction option.

Figure 2: Reverse Path Direction option to be selected
As soon as the Reverse Path Direction option is selected, you'll see a preview of the reversed animation. Also notice that now the green and red arrowheads have swapped positions, as shown in Figure 3 (compare with Figure 2 above).

Figure 3: Swapped arrowheads

Tip: You can duplicate an object that contains a motion path animation, align it next to the original object, and then reverse the motion path of the duplicated object. You can then add an exit and entrance animations to the original and duplicated objects. The animation build sequence would thus be:

Motion Path animation on original object
Exit animation on original object (use the Disappear animation effect)
Entrance animation on duplicated object (use the Appear animation effect)
Reversed motion path animation on duplicated object.

Note: Did you notice the other two options (Edit Points and Close Path) within the contextual menu shown in Figure 2 above? These may or may not have been grayed out depending on the nature of your motion path. Confused? Don't worry -- we cover this in our Open and Close Motion Paths and Edit Points in Motion Paths tutorials.