How to Animate Bullet Points in LibreOffice Impress

This guide demonstrates how to create animated bullet points and object reveals in LibreOffice Impress to enhance your presentations. You will learn the exact steps to reveal list items individually on click, apply entrance animations to standalone objects, and adjust timing options to control the flow of your slides effectively.

How to Create Animated Bullet Points

Animating bullet points allows you to reveal list items one at a time during a presentation, keeping your audience focused on the current topic.

  1. Select the Bulleted List: Click inside the text box containing your bullet points and highlight the text, or select the border of the text frame.
  2. Open the Animation Panel: Click the Animation icon (the star icon) in the right-hand sidebar. If the sidebar is hidden, enable it by going to View > Animation.
  3. Add an Effect: Click the Add Effect (+) button at the top of the Animation pane.
  4. Choose an Entrance Animation: Under the Category dropdown, select Entrance. Choose an effect such as Appear, Fade In, or Fly In.
  5. Set Paragraph-Level Animation:
    • Click the Effect Options button (the icon displaying a wrench/document next to the effect property dropdowns).
    • Navigate to the Text Animation tab.
    • In the Group text dropdown, select By 1st level paragraphs (or the appropriate outline level).
    • Check the box for In reverse order only if you want the items to appear from bottom to top.
  6. Configure the Trigger: Set the Start dropdown to On click so each bullet point appears when you press the spacebar, enter key, or click the mouse.

How to Create Object Reveals

You can apply entrance animations to individual shapes, images, charts, or text boxes to reveal them dynamically.

  1. Select the Object: Click directly on the image, shape, or element you want to reveal.
  2. Add an Animation: In the Animation sidebar, click the Add Effect (+) button.
  3. Select an Effect: In the Category section, choose Entrance, then select your preferred animation style (such as Wipe, Zoom, or Dissolve).
  4. Adjust Direction and Duration:
    • Use the Direction dropdown to control where the object enters from.
    • Adjust the Duration slider to speed up or slow down the animation.
  5. Set the Trigger Event:
    • On click: Reveals the object when you manually trigger it.
    • With previous: Reveals the object at the exact same time as the preceding animation.
    • After previous: Automatically reveals the object immediately after the preceding animation finishes.

Managing and Reordering Animations