Countdown Timer in Powerpoint
I found myself struggling to create a simple, efficient countdown timer in PowerPoint and finally found a solution to share with you.
My situation is for a training course. I want to give the students 5 minutes to work on an exercise. Rather than making separate slides and have each one run for 60 seconds, I wanted to consolidate text (or graphics) on one slide and display each for the appropriate amount of time. The catch to all this is I want the “5″ to go away when the “4″ appears. Having this all one on slide makes it easy to reuse the slide for other exercises later in the training, rather than copying six (one for each minute and one to say “TIME!”) several times.
Here’s the procedure using PowerPoint (2003/2007) custom animations. First, create your individual graphics, WordArt, or text and place them on the screen where you wish. For my example, I chose simple WordArt that says “5″, “4″, “3″, “2″, “1″, and “TIME”.
Next, create a custom animation. In PowerPoint 2007, clickon the “Animation” tab of the ribbon and locate “Custom Animation” on the left. Select your first graphic (5) and choose “Add Effect”> “Entrance”. We’ll keep this simple for now and select “Appear” for all our standard method of a graphic showing up on the screen. In the custom animation box (right), you should see a green star next to your graphic label (Rectangle 5) in my case. Highlight that label and use the drop down list to choose “Start with Previous”. The number to the left of the label will now say “0″ indicating it is not predicated on any other events than the slide starting.
Now, select your next graphic (4) and “Add Effect”> “Entrance”> “Appear”. Change Right click on that and say “Start After Previous”. Right click again and choose “Timing”. Set the value of “Delay” to 60 (seconds). That makes the “4″ appear 60 seconds after the “5″, but the “5″ is still on the screen.
The next step is to select the “5 graphic” again and add an exit effect with “Add Effect”> “Exit”> “Disappear”. Change this to “Start After Previous” also – with no timing options.
Now it simply becomes an iterative process. Make the “3 graphic” appear 60 seconds after the 5 disappears and get rid of the “4 graphic”. Keep going until you get to the end where “TIME” appears and “1″ disappears.
The choice of graphics, effects and such is up to you. Using “Start with Previous” (with delay) and “Start After Previous” are the keys to making this work well.
