PowerPoint’s animation features are built for linear presentations, and that includes not being able to loop animation sequences. Meanwhile, video and interactive apps make the ability to loop a sequence of animated elements easy. Of course, within PowerPoint, we can make individual animations repeat a set number of times or loop until the end of a slide, but this does not lend itself to making a sequence of animated elements loop.  

That said, there’s a clever workaround that allows a PowerPoint animation sequence to be looped. The hack involves using a silent audio track! 

The issue is that PowerPoint does not have a way to restart an animation sequence. But an audio file, set to loop, with a clever use of trigger animations based on bookmarks set on the audio track is the hack. It’s a bit of work to set up this hack, but it allows you to achieve what PowerPoint is missing! 

Here’s a breakdown of the process:  

Create your animation sequence: add animations to all the elements along with animation timings (eg. to create pauses), using any combination of “With Previous” and “After Previous” animations, and animation duration settings for each animation. The key is to this hack is starting the animation sequence with an “On Click” animation. Multiple animation sequences can be set up on the same slide, each just needs to start with an “On Click” animation.  Here is our example slide with 3, “On-Click” animations and several “With Previous” animations.

The TLC Creative team uses a generic, blank audio file we created outside of PowerPoint, but let’s go through an “all PowerPoint” workflow to create an audio file to use to trigger the animation sequence. Go to Insert >> Audio >> Record Audio.  

Click record (red dot) and remain silent, recording the length you want the looping animation to be (note: the audio length needs to be a little longer in duration than the animation loop timing). Click the square to stop.

The recorded audio is automatically added to the slide. Set the audio to “Loop until Stopped” in the Playback tab. Also select Start: “Automatically”, Volume: “Mute”, and “Hide During Show” (or move off the slide so the speaker icon is not seen).  

Now we will add bookmarks. These bookmarks are added to the audio file (this works with a video file as well if needed) and are the key feature in making an animation sequence loop. 

1. Select the audio (the audio icon on your slide).   

2. Go to the “Playback” tab. 

3. Click “Add Bookmark” – you will see a yellow circle appear on the audio playback timeline. As you add additional bookmarks, previously added bookmarks will turn white. 

You want to add the bookmark(s) based on when each animation sequence needs to start.  

TIP: Once you add a bookmark, you cannot move it. So, plan ahead, then simply pause the audio at the points you want to add a bookmark and click “Add Bookmark.” And if you go back to edit your bookmarks and don’t see them, simply click anywhere in the audio timeline bar itself. 

Because our sample slide has 3 animation sequences, we added 3 bookmarks to the audio timeline. 

TIP: Remember to MUTE the audio in the audio settings (we are using the audio file as an animation timer, not to be heard). 

To join your bookmarks to the animation sequences, use Animation Triggers:

1. Open the Animation Pane

2. Confirm the audio clip is at the top of the animation sequence (eg. the first animation on the slide) 

3. FOR EACH “On Click” animation sequence, right-click on the “On Click” animation and select “Timing”

4. In the popup menu, go to the “Timing” tab 

5. Click the “Triggers” button to expand and see the options (1) 

6. Choose “Start effect on play of” (2) 

7. In the drop-down select the audio file and corresponding bookmark (3)

NOTE: This post isn’t about trigger animations. But, when you add a trigger animation, that element will move to the end of the sequence in the animation pane (it’s a pain!). You will need to manually move the additional parts of the animation sequences to align behind their corresponding triggers.  

TIP: Add triggers one by one and in order, moving the additional animation elements to follow each trigger as you go. 

Once you are happy with the timing and everything is animating in sequence, be sure to play the slide in show mode to verify a clean repeat. If there is too much time between the end of the last animation and the restart of the first animation, you can trim the end of the audio file to adjust. 

For our example slide, this process was repeated 3 times to set the 3 trigger animations. The slide animation is now a single loop of the 3 animation sequences, animating in time with the audio file…and because the audio file is set to loop until the end of the slide, the 3 animation sequences will continue to animate in a loop until you move on to the next slide.

Done! As the audio file “plays” (remember, there is no audio heard from the audio file, it is being used as our animation sequence timer) the bookmarks trigger the start of each animation sequence. And because PowerPoint can loop a single element (the audio file), the slide animation sequences will trigger exactly as needed, indefinitely! 

To test the looping animation, run the slideshow and verify that the animation sequence loops as expected with the audio. 

Here is the animation sequence without using the audio trigger hack. It won’t loop: 

Here is the animation sequence using the audio trigger hack. The animation sequences now loop: 

Yes, this can be a tedious process. However, by setting up an animation sequence, adding a muted audio file set to loop, adding bookmarks to the audio, and then setting triggers to start the animations, dynamic looping animation sequences can be added to slides! 

-Amber and the TLC Creative Design team