How to Add Animation in Google Slides

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Adding animations to your Google Slides presentations can make them more visually engaging and help emphasize key points. Animations can help clarify complex ideas, reveal information sequentially, and add a professional polish to your slides.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through how to add different types of animations in Google Slides using simple step-by-step instructions.

Types of Animations in Google Slides

Google Slides provides various built-in animation effects that you can add to individual text boxes, shapes, images, charts, tables, and other elements. Some of the most commonly used animations include:

  • Appear/Disappear: The element fades in or out.
  • Fly In/Out: The element flies in or out of the slide from the specified direction.
  • Zoom: The element zooms in or out.
  • Spin: The element spins.
  • Color: The color of the element changes.
  • Grow/Shrink: The element grows or shrinks in size.

You can use these animations individually or combine multiple animations to create more complex effects.

Step 1: Select an Object to Animate

To add animation in Google Slides, first select the object – text box, shape, image, etc. – that you want to animate. You can select an object by clicking on it.

Select object to animate

Step 2: Open the Animations Pane

Next, open the Animations pane. You can open it in one of two ways:

Option 1: Click Insert > Animations in the top menu.

Option 2: Right-click on the selected object and choose Animate from the context menu.

Both options will open the Animations pane on the right side.

Open Animations pane

Step 3: Add an Animation

In the Animations pane, click Add animation under the Object animations section.

Add animation

A menu will open up showing all the available animations in Google Slides.

Step 4: Select an Animation Effect

Scroll through the animation menu and select the effect you want to apply to the object. For example, choose Fly in to make the object fly into the slide.

Additionally, you can specify the animation direction like left, right, top or bottom for directional animations.

Select animation effect

Once you select an effect, it will be applied to that object.

Step 5: Customize the Animation

You can customize the selected animation by changing options like duration, delay, trigger etc. from the bottom of the Animations pane.

Customize animation

Some key options include:

  • Start: Choose when you want the animation to start – on click, with previous, or after previous.
  • Duration: Set how long you want the animation effect to last.
  • Delay: Add a delay before the animation starts playing.

Playing around with these options can help you fine-tune the animations to suit your needs.

Step 6: Preview the Animation

Once you finish adding and customizing animations, preview how they appear on the slide by clicking the Play button in the Animations pane.

Preview animation

Review and tweak the animations until you are satisfied.

Step 7: Add More Animations

You can add multiple animations to the same object by repeating Steps 3-5. The animations will play one after the other in the sequence they are added.

Or go back to Step 1 to select a different object and add animations to it similarly.

Tips for Using Animations Effectively

Here are some tips to use animations effectively in your Google Slides presentations:

  • Use sparingly: Limit animations only to important elements so as not to distract.
  • Keep consistent: Use the same style of animations to maintain flow.
  • Time appropriately: Ensure animations match the pace of your narrative.
  • Preview thoroughly: Review animations from the audience’s point of view.
  • Support content: Align animations to reinforce your key messages.

Animating Text by Paragraph

You can also animate text to appear one paragraph or bullet point at a time, which is great for revealing key points sequentially.

To do this:

  1. Select the text box.
  2. Open the Animations pane.
  3. Check the box next to By paragraph at the bottom.

Now each paragraph or bullet will appear one by one when presenting.

Animating text by paragraph

Adding Slide Transitions

Apart from object animations, you can also add cool transitions to your entire Google Slides to transition between slides:

  1. Click on the slide after which you want to add a transition.
  2. Select Slide change > Transition from the top bar.
  3. Choose a transition effect and duration.

Adding slide transitions

Some popular transitions are Fade, Push, Wipe, Split, etc. Add transitions judiciously to all your slides.

And that’s it! By following these easy steps, you can start adding animations like a pro to your presentations in Google Slides. Animations can tremendously improve the impact of your slides provided they are used purposefully and sparingly.

Hope you found this guide useful! Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions.

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