How to Copy the Animation in a PowerPoint
By Elizabeth Mott
Microsoft PowerPoint animations enable you to add movement to objects, controlling how and when they appear, which direction they move and where their motion paths end. Used sparingly, animations can help you add emphasis, creating subtle effects that reinforce a point, and emphasizing information that's crucial to selling a project to a client or influencing employee performance. Once you've created and fine-tuned an animation, you can apply it to other objects without recreating the same effect parameters from scratch, saving time and simplifying standardization among multiple objects.
Open the Microsoft PowerPoint file that contains an animation you want to copy. Locate the slide that includes the object to which you've applied the animation.
Click on the object to select it. Switch to the Animations tab in the PowerPoint ribbon and locate the Advanced Animation Group.
Click on the "Animation Painter" button. When the cursor displays a paintbrush graphic to the right of a hollow arrowhead, click on another object to apply the animation to it. The target object can appear on the same or another slide in your presentation, or in another open PowerPoint file.
Select an object and press "Ctrl-C" to copy it to the clipboard. Press "Ctrl-V" to paste it on another slide or into another presentation, bringing its animation with it as well as all its appearance parameters. When you want to add a duplicate of an object to other slides or in other presentations, the clipboard offers your quickest, most effective option.
Tips
The Animation Painter only copies and applies animation parameters. It does not change the target object's color, effects or other attributes. To copy these parameters, use the Format Painter, located in the Home tab's Clipboard group.
To use the Animation Painter to apply copied parameters to multiple target objects, double-click on its icon to place it in "sticky" mode. Press the "ESC" key to turn it off.
Once you use the Animation Painter to apply settings from one object to another, you can fine-tune the target object's animation parameters and delete one or more of them without affecting the behavior of the object from which you copied the settings.
Warnings
Use animation judiciously to avoid creating presentations in which so many objects move that the effect becomes overdone or even annoying.
References
Resources
Writer Bio
Elizabeth Mott has been a writer since 1983. Mott has extensive experience writing advertising copy for everything from kitchen appliances and financial services to education and tourism. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in English from Indiana State University.