Reversing Paths of Motion Path Animations in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

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

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

Launch PowerPoint - you will see the Presentation Gallery which allows you to set all attributes of your new presentation, such as a preset Theme or template. Make selections, or just click Cancel in this gallery to open a blank presentation with a new slide. PowerPoint 2011 users can change the slide layout of this slide to Blank by selecting Layout | Blank within the Home tab of the Ribbon. Then, insert a shape and select it.
Apply a Motion Path animation to the selected slide object. You can 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 ends. The green arrowhead represents the start point of the motion path whereas the red arrowhead represents the end point.

Figure 1: Motion Path animation applied
Now, hover the mouse cursor over motion path so that your cursor changes to a hand, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 1, above. Right-click (or Ctrl+click) carefully to bring up a contextual menu with three options, as shown in Figure 2, and select 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 1 to see the difference.

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 Curve) within the contextual menu shown in Figure 2, shown earlier on this page? 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.