Adding animations to objects in your PowerPoint presentations can help make them more visually engaging. However, sometimes having too many objects on a slide at once can be distracting or make it difficult to build your desired animations. Fortunately, PowerPoint makes it easy to hide objects before their animations begin playing.

Why Hide Objects Before Animation?

There are a few key reasons you may want to hide an object before its animation:

Reduce visual clutter – Hiding objects can declutter busy slides so you can better focus on building animations. This is especially helpful for complex animations with motion paths.

Control reveal order – Hiding objects allows you to precisely control the order in which elements appear on your slide through their animations.
Improve flow – Revealing objects in sequence creates better flow and helps the audience focus. For example, hiding hospital pins on a map until hotel pins have animated keeps things clean.

How to Hide an Object Before Its Animation

Hiding an object before animation in PowerPoint only takes a few simple steps:

Open your presentation and navigate to the slide with the object(s) you want to hide.
Select the object(s) you want to hide initially.
On the Animations tab, click Add Animation and select any of the Exit animations like Disappear or Fade from the menu.

In the Animation Pane, click the Move Earlier button to make this new Exit animation come before any other animations applied to the object.

The object will now be hidden before any other animations begin. A number 1 will appear next to the Exit animation, indicating it comes first, while a number 2 will mark your original animation.

To make the original animation begin automatically after the object is hidden, just set its start setting to “After Previous” in the Timing group on the Animations tab.

Advanced Hiding Before Animation Tips

Beyond those basics, there are a few handy pro tips for hiding objects before animations:

Rename objects in the Selection Pane so hidden objects are easy to spot when editing animations.
Group objects first before applying hiding animations to keep things organized.

Use hiding not just for exits but also entrances to precisely sequence reveals.
Adjust animation durations so objects are hidden precisely when you want them to be.
Reorder animations at any time to tweak your reveal sequencing.

Sample Animations Using Hiding

Here are just a couple examples of animations where hiding objects before playing other animations is very effective:

Map Animations: Hide some map elements before animating others onto the slide so there is less visual clutter. For example, hide hospital pins first, then make hotel pins fly in.

Chart/Graph Animations: Hide the whole chart first, then make columns/bars fly in one by one to build it sequentially. Removes distraction so the audience can focus on each data point.

The key is identifying where hiding objects can declutter busy slides and draw attention to the most important elements. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

Next Steps for PowerPoint Animations

With the ability to easily hide objects before animation in PowerPoint, you can take your animated presentations to the next level. A few suggestions for what to explore next:

Add triggers to make animations start on click for interactive presentations

Animate text to make points appear line by line for emphasis
Use motion paths to make objects follow custom routes across slides
Learn animation combinations to chain awesome effects like flies + fades

The more you work with animations and hiding objects in PowerPoint, the more creative your presentations will become!

I hope this overview gives you ideas for hiding objects before animation in your next PowerPoint presentation. Let me know if you have any other questions!