Animate or make words appear one line at a time
Applies ToPowerPoint for Microsoft 365 PowerPoint for the web PowerPoint 2024 PowerPoint 2024 for Mac PowerPoint 2021 PowerPoint 2021 for Mac PowerPoint 2019 PowerPoint 2019 for Mac PowerPoint 2016

An animation effect option called By Paragraph lets you make list items appear one at a time. This type of animation is sometimes called a build slide. 

Make text appear one line at a time

  1. On the slide, select the box that contains your text.

  2. Select the Animations tab, and then pick an animation, such as Appear, Fade In, or Fly In.

    Choose an animation from the gallery

    For some animations, such as Fly In, select Effects Options, as you’ll need to pick a direction for the bullets to fly in from, such as bottom, top, left, or right.

  3. Select Effect Options, and then select By Paragraph to make the paragraphs of text appear one at a time. (The other option, All at Once, makes all the lines of text appear at the same time.)

    Click Effect Options

    PowerPoint immediately previews the animation for you.

By default, when you present in Slide Show, each paragraph appears in response to a click. That way, you control when each paragraph appears. You can modify this setting by using the Start, Duration, and Delay controls on the far right end of the Animation tab of the ribbon.

Make text appear one letter at a time

You can also create a "typing" visual effect by making characters in a paragraph appear one at a time.

  1. On the slide, select the box that contains your text.

  2. Select the Animations tab, and then select the Add Animation drop-down menu to select an animation, such as Appear.

    Choose an animation from the gallery

  3. Select the Animations tab, and then select Animation pane.

    Click Animation Pane

    The Animation Pane opens on the right side of the PowerPoint window.

  4. In the Animation Pane, select the arrow next to your animation, and select Effect Options.

  5. In the dialog box, on the Effect tab under Enhancements, select the arrow next to Animate text, and select By letter. Then you can change the delay time in the seconds delay between letters box.

    On the Effect tab, click By letter

    PowerPoint immediately previews the animation for you so that you can see the timing as the characters appear individually. You can repeat the preview by selecting the animation in the Animation Pane and selecting Play Selected.

See Also

Create a build slide

Change, remove or turn off animation effects

Make text appear one line at a time

  1. On the slide, select the box that contains your text.

  2. Select the Animations tab, and then pick an animation, such as Appear, Dissolve in, or Fly In.

    Choose an animation

    For some animations, such as Fly In, select Effects Options on the Animation tab to pick a direction for the bullets to fly in from, such as bottom, top, left, or right.

  3. Select Effect Options again, and then select By Paragraph to make the paragraphs of text appear one at a time. (The other option, All at Once, animates all lines of text in a placeholder or text box at the same time.)

    Select the By Paragraph option

    PowerPoint immediately previews the animation for you.

By default, when you present in Slide Show, each paragraph appears in response to a click. That way, you control when each paragraph appears. You may also modify this setting by using the Start, Duration, and Delay options in theAnimation pane.

Make text appear one letter at a time

You can also create a "typing" visual effect by making characters in a paragraph appear one at a time.

  1. On the slide, select the box that contains your text.

  2. On the Animations tab, select the Add Animation drop-down menu, and select an animation, such as Appear, Fade In, or Fly In.

    Choose an animation

  3. Select the Animations tab, and then select Animation Pane.

    Click Animation Pane

    (In PowerPoint for Mac 2011: On the View menu, select Custom Animation).

    The Animation Pane opens on the right side of the PowerPoint window.

    The Animation Pane has effect options, timing options and text-effect options
  4. In the Animation Pane, select the animation effect you want to modify, and then select the arrow next to Text Animations.

  5. In the Animate text box, select By letter.

    Select the By Letter option

    The default delay value for the time between letters appearing is 0.5 seconds, but you can change that by selecting the arrow next to Timing, and then choosing a new value in the Delay box.

    PowerPoint immediately previews the animation for you so that you can see the timing as the characters appear individually. You can repeat the preview by selecting the animation in the Animation Pane and selecting Play Selected.

Animate text in a shape

Now let's add Fly in and Spin animations to the text.

  1. Select the shape text and select the Animations tab.

  2. Select Fly in in Entrance Effects.

    Choose Fly in on the animations tab
  3. Select the text again and select Spin in Emphasis Effects. The Animations property pane now looks like this:

    Set animation options in the properties pane
  4. (Optional) In the Animations property pane, select each animation step and adjust the Effects options and Timing settings as required. Learn more.

  5. To preview the animation, select the first animation and select Play From.

See Also

Animate a word on a slide

Change or remove animation effects

Make text appear one line at a time

  1. On the slide, select the box that contains your text.

  2. Select the Animations tab, and then pick an animation, such as Appear, Fade In, or Fly In.

    Choose an animation from the gallery

    For some animations, such as Fly In, select Effects Options, as you’ll need to pick a direction for the bullets to fly in from, such as bottom, top, left, or right.

  3. Select Effect Options, and then select By Paragraph to make the paragraphs of text appear one at a time. (The other option, All at Once, makes all the lines of text appear at the same time.)

    Click Effect Options

  4. To preview the animation, on the View tab of the ribbon, in the Start Slide Show group, select From Current Slide, and then select to see each paragraph of text appear one at a time.

    Start Slide Show from the current slide.

By default, when you present in Slide Show, each paragraph appears in response to a click. That way, you control when each paragraph appears.

See Also

Animate a picture on your slide

Animation effects available in PowerPoint for the web

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