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Friday, 5 July 2019

Duplicate or triplicate animations in PowerPoint

I have a PowerPoint deck that has been causing me no end of grief, as it appears to need two to three times the number of anticipated clicks to move each slide on.

After many futile searches yielding no practical solutions, I finally realised that I needed to put on my thinking cap and solve this myself. I either recreated all the slides, or I had to track down what was going on. I chose to try and track down the issue.

What I had done was to use an old set of PowerPoint slides from another presenter. Whenever I added animation to a slide I would end up with either two - and sometimes three - additional layers of clicks to move the slide on. If the slide needed ten clicks to go through the animation, I would need to do another ten - or twenty - 'empty' clicks before the slide would transition to the next one. Nothing else happened on the slide that I could see with the 'empty' clicks, but there was no going forward until those clicks were behind us.

I also couldn't see any additional animations in the animation pane.

Whatever was going on, it was not visible in the current slide deck. So I wondered if the issue might lie in the Slide Master view from that earlier set of slides.

In going to the Slide Master view (View | Slide Master) I went to the Animation ribbon, and clicked on the Animation Pane. However, although I could see an item in the Animation Pane, I was unable to select and delete it. I right-clicked, I left-clicked, I hovered and I used the delete button. Nothing. Grr.

And then I cracked it. With the Animation Pane showing, select the Master text Styles box on the normal slide. Then go to the Slide Master ribbon. Click on the item showing in the Animation Pan, and drop the little black arrow at the end. Select "View Slide Master". Now you will see the hidden mouse clicks on the slide in the Animation Pane. Select that cursed little animation line, and delete it. Enjoy the great satisfaction that its disappearance brings :-D

All those additional clicks magically disappear from the presenter mode.

I love it when a plan comes together!


Sam

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