How To Add Animation to Google Slides

If you’ve embraced the Google universe of apps, you’re probably using Google Slides to create presentations. Slides is Google’s answer to Microsoft PowerPoint, and unless you’re a PowerPoint power user, Google Slides can likely meet your needs.We’ll show you how to add animation to Google Slides to bring some life to your presentation and increase audience engagement. 

There are two ways to add animation to Google Slides. You can add transitions between slides and animate individual elements on a slide. We’ll cover both methods. Note that to add or edit slide transitions or to animate elements, you must use Google Slides on a computer. So far, those features are not available on Android, iPhone or iPad.

How To Add Transitions in Google Slides

Just like PowerPoint, Google Slides has a transitions feature that lets you add a little animation when you move from one slide to the next.

If you want to add transitions between slides in your deck, follow these steps:

1. Open a presentation in Google Slides. If the presentation was originally created in PowerPoint, follow our guide on how to convert a PowerPoint presentation into Google Slides.
2. Select the slide to which you want to add a transition. The transition will affect how the slide you select appears in the slideshow. If you plan on applying the same transition to every slide in your presentation, select any slide to begin.

3. In the Slide menu, select Transition. Alternatively, select the Transition button in the toolbar. That will toggle the Motion panel on the right side of the page.

4. In the Motion panel’s Slide Transition section, select the kind of transition you want from the dropdown list. Options include Dissolve, Fade, Slide from right, Slide from left, Flip, Cube, and Gallery.

5. No matter which transition you choose, next you can specify the speed of the transition. Drag the slider left and right to change the speed of the transition animation.

6. Select the Apply to all slides button.

7. To see the transition in action, select the Play button. That will show you how the currently selected slide will look with that transition applied. If you want to preview your whole slideshow, select View > Slideshow or press Ctrl + F5.

You can tell if a transition or animation has been applied to a slide if you see the animation icon next to the slide in the slide list on the left if you’re in Filmstrip view or beneath the slide thumbnail if you’re in Grid view.

You can switch between Filmstrip view and Grid view by selecting the buttons in the toolbar at the bottom of the page.

How To Remove a Transition from a Google Slide

Removing a transition from a specific slide is simple.

1. If the Motion panel isn’t visible, select the Transition button in the toolbar to display it.

2. Select the slide that has the transition you want to remove.
3. In the dropdown list in the Slide Transition section of the Motion panel, select None.

When everything’s the way you like it, preview your slideshow by selecting View > Slideshow or pressing Ctrl + F5.

How To Add Google Slides Animations

You can also add animations to individual shapes and objects on a slide. That includes elements like bullet points, icons, graphics, text boxes, shapes, and tables. The important thing is to restrain yourself here. It’s tempting to add a lot of animations or features like music or videos, but the last thing you want is for your audience to be distracted by all the animations and miss the message of your presentation.

Most Google Slides animations belong to one of two categories—animations that make an element appear and animations that make an element disappear. Here’s the full list of Google Slides animations:

• Appear
• Disappear
• Fade in
• Fade out
• Fly in from left
• Fly in from right
• Fly in from bottom
• Fly in from top
• Fly out to left
• Fly out to right
• Fly out to bottom
• Fly out to top
• Zoom in
• Zoom out
• Spin

The process of adding an animation to an element is essentially the same no matter what kind of element you want to animate.

1. Select the element you want to animate.
2. In the View menu, select Motion to display the Motion panel.

3. In the Object Animations section of the Motion panel, select the Add animation button.

4. Two dropdown boxes will appear. In the first dropdown box, select the animation effect you want to apply to the element you selected in Step 1.

5. In the second dropdown box, select when you want that animation to begin. The options are: On click, After previous, and With previous. If you select On click, the animation will start playing when you click the mouse. If you select With previous, the animation will play at the same time as the previous animation, and if you select After previous, the animation will begin as soon as the previous animation completes.

6. Just like transitions, you can specify the speed of Google Slides animations. Drag the slider left and right to change the animation speed.

If you’d like to add another animation to the element you’ve selected, return to Step 2. And, as usual, to preview the animations, press the Play button in the Motion panel or preview the entire slideshow by selecting View > Slideshow or pressing Ctrl + F5.

How To Edit Existing Google Slides Animations

To edit an existing animation, begin by opening the Motion panel by selecting View > Motion or pressing Ctrl + Alt + Shift + B.

1. Select the slide that contains the animation you want to edit.
2. In the Object Animations section of the Motion panel, you can change, reorder, or delete an animation.
3. To reorder animations, drag an animation by the Move icon (six dots) to a new position.

4. To delete an animation, expand the animation you want to delete and select the trash can icon to the right of it.

As you can see, adding, changing, and deleting transitions and element animations in Google Sheets is simple. Use them wisely, and make your presentation as engaging as it can be.