Slide show and animation automation.

Dear Dick Timmerman,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A. 

Based on your description, I understand that you want some animations on each slide to run automatically, others to wait for a click, and then, after the last click (when all objects disappear), the next slide should start automatically.

PowerPoint uses two separate control mechanisms:

Animation timing controls how objects appear, move, or disappear within a slide. Each animation can start On Click, With Previous, or After Previous. Slide transition timing controls when the slide moves to the next one. You can set it to happen On Mouse Click or After [time].

When you enable “Use Timings” globally, PowerPoint follows the timing settings for transitions and animations, which can override your click-based animations if not configured correctly. That’s why your current setup causes all animations to run automatically.

To get the behavior you want, you can do the following:

1. Turn off automatic slide advance
   • Go to Transitions > Advance Slide.
   • Uncheck After and leave On Mouse Click checked.
   • Also make sure Slide Show > Use Timings is turned off. This ensures the slide will only move when you click.
2. Control animations with Animation Pane
   • Open Animations > Animation Pane.
   • For animations that should run automatically, set Start: After Previous.
   • For animations that should pause for your input, set Start: On Click.
   • Arrange the order so click-based animations appear last.
   • If you want everything to disappear before moving on, add Exit effects:
   • First exit > Start: On Click (this is your “clear” click).
   • Remaining exits > Start: After Previous for a smooth teardown.
3. Advance to the next slide when ready

• After the exit sequence finishes, click once more to move to the next slide.
  • Because “After” is off, PowerPoint will wait for you, no unwanted auto-run.

By disabling all timing-based transitions and using only “On Click” for slide changes, you keep full control. The Animation Pane lets you mix automatic and click-based animations without losing your pauses.

If you ever want the next slide to move immediately after the last click without a second click, you can either Set Transitions > After to a very short time (like 0.01s) so the slide advances right after the exit animations finish, or

I hope this information helps point you in the right direction. If you run into any issues while trying the steps, or if something still doesn’t feel quite right, please don’t hesitate to reach out again. I’ll do my best to support you however I can.  

Looking forward to hearing back from you with any updates or additional details. 

Warm regards, 

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Hi Dick Timmerman,

Thank you so much for your patience while I looked into this.

Based on all the information I’ve gathered, PowerPoint currently does not have a built-in feature or setting that allows a slide to automatically advance immediately after the last animation finishes while still supporting animations that wait for a click. This is because PowerPoint separates animation triggers (On Click, After Previous, With Previous) from slide transitions, and when an animation is set to On Click, the system will always wait for user input.

I explored several approaches, including using VBA macros to calculate the total animation duration and schedule an automatic slide advance. While these solutions work for slides where all animations run automatically, they do not fully achieve the desired behavior when On Click animations are involved, you still need to click to proceed.

I believe this is an advanced scenario that could be very valuable for many users. For that reason, I strongly recommend submitting feedback directly to Microsoft through the Feedback Portal or via the Help >Feedback option in PowerPoint. Microsoft actively monitors user suggestions, and many improvements have come from community feedback. If you decide to post your idea, please feel free to share the link here so others can vote and support it.

Please understand that moderators do not have the ability to influence product development directly, but I fully support your suggestion. If the information above helps clarify the situation, kindly consider marking this as an answer so it can stand out and assist others facing the same challenge.

Thank you again for raising this thoughtful question, it’s a great idea that could make PowerPoint even better.