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You may already be familiar with the diagramming tool on the Drawing toolbar in PowerPoint, which helps you create and format a variety of common diagrams. As with text and other objects, you can also add animation effects to your diagrams. These effects enable you to direct focus to different pieces of a diagram during a slide show, control the flow of information, and add interest to the presentation itself.

This article will walk you through adding animation effects to diagrams you have created with the diagramming tool in PowerPoint. For more information about diagrams or animations and timing, see Microsoft Office PowerPoint Help.

Using custom animation on a diagram

You can set up the animated diagrams to play as part of a slide animation sequence (where other items on the slide are animated as well), or it can be the only animation on that slide. As you apply animation effects to items (such as diagrams) on a slide, they are reflected in the list in the Custom Animation task pane. The Custom Animation task pane allows you to see, at a glance, important information about the animation effects on a slide, including the type of animation effect and the order of the animations in relation to each other.

In this example of an animated pyramid diagram, notice that the animation effect listed for the diagram is actually a list within the list of animation effects (shown here expanded). You can expand the list and adjust timings and effect options for each piece of the diagram, and then collapse the list when you are finished.

Animate the diagram as a whole

After you have created your diagram, you can apply an entrance, emphasis, exit, or motion path effect to it, just like you animate any other object. This type of effect keeps the diagram as one object throughout the whole sequence.

To animate the diagram as a whole

Animate pieces of a diagram

You can add enhancements to an effect to control how a diagram is revealed. For instance, you might want to set a pyramid diagram to animate, section by section, from the bottom up. In PowerPoint, you have several options that let you control the elements of a diagram like this. Set these options after you have applied an animation to the diagram as a whole.

To animate the elements of a diagram

 Note   You can further control how a diagram is revealed by taking advantage of different animation effect options (Effect Options dialog box, Effect tab). In the example shown in this section, the pyramid diagram, which has the Fly in entrance effect applied, includes the Effect setting for the for direction (From Bottom) as well as the Group Diagram setting for Up. For more information about setting timing and effect options, see Microsoft Office PowerPoint Help.