The Best PowerPoint Animation Shortcut (IMHO)

Animations often take a long time to think through and design, since they’re a creative labor of love (but well worth it, if you do them right!). However, you can actually save a lot of time on repetitive animations with the shortcut I discuss here.

Check out this video to find out what it is. A transcript is included as well below the video for your convenience.

The best PowerPoint shortcut for animations

How to use the Animation Painter shortcut

Let’s check out my favorite animation shortcut which is a shortcut for the Animation Painter found in versions 2010 and later which quickly copies animations from one object to another, sort of like the Format Painter.

But what’s really cool is that you can get it quickly by hitting Alt + Shift + C on your keyboard.

Animation Painter

ALT  + SHIFT + C

So, for example, let’s say I’m here in the Spicy Slide Pack in my easy flip effect video slides.

This is part of the intro sequence that flips these crazy smiley faces from one to another.

This sequence is done with a swivel in and swivel out at the same time on these objects. And let’s say I want to do the same effect with the apple and the orange here and have the apple flip and reveal the orange.

I could take the time to recreate these animations which wouldn’t be super hard but what’s even easier is using the animation painter which is normally found right up here.

But what’s even easier than that is using the shortcut so let’s do that right now.

We go down and click on the back Smiley then hit Alt + Shift + C, which brings up the Animation Painter as you can see on the cursor. Then I click on the apple and the animation is copied.

And this will work for all the animations that are on one object.

I then hit Escape to get rid of the Painter and reset it, then I go to the front smiley, select that, and then I hit the shortcut again, Alt + Shift + C, and then the painter again is there. And click on the orange.

That’s pretty much it.

Let’s just delete the first two animations here that correspond to the smileys.

And then if you line these up, this is what you get. Very cool.

And this was a really simple example, but for more complex animations, you can probably see how the animation painter shortcut to make life a whole lot easier so definitely check it out.

And that’s it.

So, remember Alt + Shift + C to get the Animation Painter to quickly transfer your animation from one place to another.

And of course, if you have a bunch of pre-made animations on what you want to practice with the Animation Painter, you can always check out the Spicy Slide Pack or any of the free resources under my videos.

What’s next?