PowerPoint offers a couple of options for previewing an animation effect on a slide in Normal view. There is a Preview button on the Animation toolbar that plays all the effects on a slide, and the Custom Animation task pane offers a Play button to play the individual animations on the animation list. There is also a Slide Show button in this task pane to quickly go into Slide Show view.

Preview an Animation

1. With a slide containing animations displayed, click the Animations tab.

2. Click the Preview button.

3. Click the Custom Animation button.

4. Click the Play button to play the applied animations in sequence.

5. To view the animation in Slide Show view, click the Slide Show button at the bottom of the Custom Animation task pane.

6. To stop the preview from running, click the Stop button at any time.

   

Try This!

If you click the Play button in the Custom Animation task pane to preview the animations, a little timer bar appears at the bottom of the list. You can use this to tally up the seconds it takes for all your animations to play.

Tip

You can select the AutoPreview check box at the bottom of the Custom Animation task pane if you want to see a preview of each animation when you apply it to an object.