Create Countdown In Powerpoint

[Argenta Sugden]

Youcan add an animated on-screen timer or progress bar to make your presentation more interesting. For example, you might want to include a timed quiz at the end of a training with a countdown display. You can use the animation features in PowerPoint to create many different kinds of timers.

To create text boxes, on the Insert tab, in Text group, click Text box, and draw the text box on your slide. Then add the number. You can copy and paste to duplicate and then edit the new boxes.

Click Animations > Animation Pane to show the Animation Pane. The numbering of the rectangles can be a little confusing because PowerPoint is accounting for other objects on the slide. Look at the number to the right, which shows the text in the rectangle.

You want only the first rectangle with the number 5 to start on a click, and you want it to stay on screen for one second before it disappears. You want the other boxes to then each wait one second before disappearing automatically, one by one.

We will be learning how to create a countdown timer in Microsoft PowerPoint using VBA Macros. You don't have to sit and tediously create separate text boxes for each number and animate them. Let me show you how to use PowerPoint in a smarter manner.

The following video tutorial goes into the details of the VBA Code of the Countdown Timer. It also shows how we can have the Countdown Timer span across multiple slides of the presentation. We can also trigger an action to occur when the time is up.

A conditional loop is present to update the text within the countdown shape. The condition is that the loop must continue until Now() becomes greater than time. To continue the example, as the current time ticks from 00:00:00 to 00:00:30 the loop occurs, however, once it is 00:00:31, the loop stops as the current time has become greater than our set future time.

Once the current time surpasses the future time, we can trigger a MsgBox pop-up to notify us that the countdown is over. This is possible with an if-then condition present within the Do Loop. Instead of a message box, you can also redirect the presentation to a certain slide or play a sound effect.

If you want to change the countdown value directly in Slide Show Mode without touching the VBA Code, we can add an ActiveX Element Textbox named TextBox1 in our slide. We can type the number of seconds we would want the countdown to occur within it. This input is going to be the value of the variable count. We can read the input using the following code:

In order to embed the same countdown timer throughout multiple PowerPoint Slides: if there is a timer for 30 seconds and we go to the next slide after 10 seconds, the timer in the slide should resume the countdown from 20.

We can also increase or decrease the countdown timer while in PowerPoint Slide Show Mode. This feature is commonly used by teachers playing PowerPoint Games in their classroom. For example, while playing a timed quiz game, the time limit can be decreased on click of a wrong answer. Similarly, the countdown timer can also be increased.

Initially, we need to declare the variable time above all the sub-routines. This will allow us to reference the same variable within various other sub-routines: AddTime or SubtractTime. Since we are declaring it once, we do not have to declare it once more within the sub-routines.

When the Pause Button is clicked, the timer freezes and the remaining time is calculated using the DateDiff Function. When the countdown timer is resumed, the future time is updated by adding the remaining time to Now().

The text within the shape is the difference between the current time (which keeps increasing) and time1 (constant: the time at which the code was run), and hence as the difference keeps widening, the count up occurs. The loop continues until the current time becomes greater than time2.

You can create a custom countdown timer in PowerPoint by adding to on-screen shapes an exit animation with a set time to complete the animation. You can use one shape if you want, but if you use multiple shapes for the timer, you'll need to set each animation to begin in order once the last animation is finished. Note that the longest duration you can set for a single animation is 59 seconds.

First, open the PowerPoint presentation you'd like to add the timer to, and then insert the shapes of your choice (Insert > Shape). You can insert as many or as few shapes as necessary. In this example, we'll insert five rectangles with rounded edges.

Once you've got the shapes set, add a number to them by double-clicking the shape and typing the number. The numbers can represent minutes or seconds. If you want the duration of the timer to be 5 minutes, then you can add 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 in the boxes and set each animation duration to 59 seconds.

Next, add an exit animation to each shape. You'll need to add the animation in the order you want each animation to disappear. To add an animation, click the shape to select it, go to the "Navigations" tab, and then choose an exit animation. Exit animations are red.

After you set the first animation, select the next shape, give it an animation, and then set the duration. However, for this one, you'll also need to adjust when the animation starts. For a seamless countdown, you'll want to select "After Previous." This means the animation will start when the previous animation is finished.

The Office Add-ins window will appear. There are multiple countdown timer add-ins you can choose from, but we'll be using "Breaktime" in this example. Search for "Breaktime" and then click the red "Add" button to the right.

When you add the add-in, the timer will appear on the current slide of your presentation. If you want to add the timer to a different slide, navigate to the slide and then click Insert > My Add-ins > Breaktime.

That's all there is to it. Timers serve an important purpose, but depending on what you're hoping to accomplish, you may also want to consider adding a progress bar or even a clock to your presentation.

I have to do a presentation soon and it has to be around 15 minutes. To keep track of time (and not look at my watch all the time) I'd like to add a countdown of 15 minutes to my powerpoint presentation for my viewers and myself.

You can do this with PowerPoint. Create 15 slides with text on each slide, like: "15:00", "14:00", "13:00". Go to the "Transitions" tab and below "Advance slide" check "After" and set it to 1 minute. Press "Apply to all" to apply the time setting for all the slides. So basically you have now a presentation with 15 slides that will change after 1 minute. The only thing left is to save it as a .wmv file (video). Go to File->Save As..-> and select to save as .wmv .

Hi Guys, I need urgent help.

I need to create a countdown with a reset button, where if I press the reset button, the timer resets itself and then starts again when I press the start button in the articulate storyline.

In my project, when I am pressing the reset button, it's not starting again, even after I changed the properties to "reset to initial stage"

Can anyone help?

To solve your problem you simply need to create an additional trigger to reset the Timer variable when Button 1 is pressed on the final slide. This trigger must come above the trigger that then jumps the user back to the first slide:

I am creating a dashboard that has to do with deadlines. There are multiple tasks with separate due dates and whenever I click on a single task, I would love a countdown timer to show up catered to that specific due date. Is there any way I can create this? I am willing to try anything.

I have looked at that but I have to manually input the date I want to countdown to and it does not change from task to task. I am hoping for one that changes depending on the task deadline that I click on my dashboard.

The article shows you how to use VBA to create a Count Down Timer Addin for Powerpoint and all the knowledge related to such a task. In the next article (Part 2), I am going to show you how to use C# to make a VSTO addin for the same counter down timer.

The original idea of count down timer came from a YouTube tutorial by Karina Adcock. She shared a very neat solution in her video ("How to make a countdown timer in Powerpoint using VBA?"). Thanks to Karina for her great sharing.

After testing, you will find that the "revision 1" won't work, because the below statement "Application.ActiveWindow.View.Slide.SlideNumber" will exit the subroutine immediately. Hence, I go for revision 2 as shown below:

Text Effect: We use Wordart to Enhance the Visual Effect of the Timer, the Text Effect is stored in the oShape.TextEffect.PresetTextEffect property. There are 40 Text Effects for Wordart. To help a user select the right effect, we need to show how it may look like for each selection.

Now we know the Registry key related to registration and un-registration of an PPT Addin, to make sure such operation will be effective immediately, we have to exit PPT application and restart it again, hence we will need the delay-execution technology again. Below are actual codes for the "Register & Un-register" task:

As a presenter, I find it essential to actively engage my audience. There are moments when I want them to be mindful of the time, and I can seamlessly incorporate a PowerPoint timer into my presentation to achieve this. Doing so allows me to create a sense of urgency, keep the flow organized, and ensure that my content aligns with the allotted time.

Click on your rectangle and click on the Animations tab. If you've added text, hold down the Control key and click on the text box. This selects both shape and text and ensures that they will animate together.

On the Animations tab, find the Timing section on the right side. In the Duration section, you can adjust the timing using the up and down arrows. Or you can type in a custom value.

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