Change Default Animation Settings to "After Previous"
Recently, I received the following question from a reader:
"I use custom animations a lot, and I find myself almost always wanting to change the start "on click" option to start "after previous". This is getting tiresome, so I was wondering if there is a way to change the default itself, from "on click" to "after previous" (if not for all new documents, which would be great, at least for a given presentation?)."
Answer:
I have not found a place in PowerPoint to change this default setting for the custom animations. But ... I did figure out a "work around" so that you could make the setting once in your presentation and then have that setting be carried over to the remainder of your slides.
Note - This method will only work for a new presentation, not one that has already been created.
Create the Default PowerPoint Animation(s)
- Start a new presentation.
- Insert a picture on the slide.
- Set the custom animation for that picture.
- Click on the border of the title placeholder for the slide, but do not bother to add any text. (Note - If you click inside the placeholder instead of on the border, PowerPoint expects you to add text.)
- Set the custom animation for the title placeholder -- in this example we want After Previous. These settings (for both the picture and the title placeholder) will become the default settings for objects in this presentation.
- In the Slides/Outline pane, right click on the thumbnail view of the slide and choose Copy from the shortcut menu.
- Right click in a blank area of the Slides/Outline pane and choose Paste from the shortcut menu. A duplicate thumbnail slide will appear.
- Continue to paste the original slide in the Slides/Outline pane as many times as you need for this presentation.