Animate a set of objects as a group

The best way to animate multiple objects on a slide in the same way is to group them first. That way, you only have to apply your animation effect once. You select all the objects and apply the Group command. Here's a video demonstration:

42 seconds

Group a set of items and then apply an animation

SmartArt graphics and text boxes—including bullet lists—are already grouped, so you can animate them without these preparation steps.

1. Hold down the Ctrl key and click all the objects that you want to animate together.

   They don't have to be touching each other, and it's all right if they're mixed in with things that you don't want to animate. For example, in the mix of rectangles and triangles pictured below, all the rectangles are selected to be grouped.

2. Right-click the selected objects, and then click Group > Group.

   

   Figure: After these shapes are grouped, they animate together as one object

3. On the Animation tab, click on the animation effect that you want to apply to the group.

   When you play back the animation, the group will behave like one object.

More about grouping and animation

Another way to select a set of objects for grouping is to drag across them. It's called drawing a marquee. If the marquee misses some things that you want to include, hold down the Ctrl key and click them. If it includes some objects you don't want, do the same thing—hold down the Ctrl key and click the extra objects to unselect them. When you've selected all the objects you want, group them using the procedure above.

• Group or ungroup shapes, other objects, or pictures

• Animate text or objects

• Set the start time and speed of animation effects