PowerPoint 2010: Change the Picture, Keep the Animation

by AJ George

You've just completed a very slick PowerPoint presentation. On one slide you have an image fade in. After it fades in, it pulses for emphasis. After it pulses, text appears above. Then when you click the image, it hyperlinks to another slide. Everything looks and works great.

But then the client contacts you and says they'd like to swap the image with another. Trying to reconstruct all of the animations and actions, as well as ensuring they're in the proper order with everything else on the slide, could be a disaster for you (or, at the very least, a small headache).

There's good news. You can replace an image but keep all of the actions and effects used on the previous image. Here's how:

1. In PowerPoint, select the image you would like to change.
2. From the Ribbon, select Picture Tools Format > Adjust > Change Picture.

   

   (Note: You can also right-click the image and choose Change Picture.)

3. From the Insert Picture dialog box, you will be able to select the new picture.

You will notice that any formatting you had applied to the original image is now applied to the new image. Yay!

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About the author: AJ George is IconLogic's lead Technical Communicator and author of both "PowerPoint 2007: The Essentials" and "PowerPoint 2008 for the Macintosh: The Essentials."