How to loop a powerpoint presentation

@Marshall_G08
February 20, 2020, 10:24am EDT

Slideshows are sometimes used to display images at events, such as weddings or trade shows. Whatever the occasion might be, you’ll want to loop your PowerPoint presentation so your guests aren’t staring at a blank screen. Here’s how it’s done.

Set Up Your Slideshow to Be Looped

First, open your PowerPoint presentation in which you would like to loop. Once open, navigate to the “Set Up” group of the “Slide Show” tab and then select the “Set Up Slide Show” button.

The “Set Up Show” window will appear. In the “Show options” group, check the box next to “Loop Continuously until Esc.” Once selected, click “OK” in the bottom-right corner of the window.

Now, when you play your slideshow, it will end only when you press the “Esc” key instead of when you’ve finished the last slide.

One caveat: With the way we currently have it set up, the slideshow will proceed only when someone clicks the mouse button. That’s fine if there will be a speaker present at all times. Otherwise, you’ll need to set up automatic slide transitions.

Apply Automatic Slide Transitions

Head back to the “Set Up Show” window by selecting “Set Up Slide Show” in the “Set Up” group of the “Slide Show” tab.

There are a couple of options you need to select, but one important note is that you must first select “Using Timings, If Present” under the “Advance Slides” group.

The next option we select will lock a few things in place (which is why you need to select “Using Timings, If Present” first).

Under the “Show Type” group, select “Browsed at a Kiosk (Full Screen).” The “Loop Continuously until Esc” option will be enabled automatically if you haven’t already turned it on, and the option you’ve selected under “Advance Slides” will remain unchanged.

Select “OK” when ready to proceed.

Without the “Browsed at a Kiosk” option enabled, the automatic slide progressions would be disabled if someone were to press the Back key. With it enabled, the Forward and Back keys are locked, allowing the slideshow to automatically progress unattended without fear of someone breaking it.

Now it’s time to set the timings of the slides. Head over to the “Transitions” tab. In the “Timing” group, check the box next to “After” and set the timing at which you’d like each slide to progress. Note that it doesn’t matter if the box next to “On Mouse Click” is checked or not—it won’t work.

After that, select the “Apply to All” option in the same group.

Now, when you play your slideshow, it will continuously loop without interruption. To exit the slideshow, press the “Esc” button.

Have you ever wanted your PowerPoint file to keep on looping and showing the slides over and over? Maybe it’s set up on display for visitors and you want to keep it repeating. In today’s tutorial, let’s learn how to loop a PowerPoint presentation.

We also have a helpful compliment to this tutorial. Download our FREE eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations. Grab it now before you read on.

How to Loop Your PowerPoint Presentations (Quickly)

Note: Watch this short tutorial screencast or follow the quick steps below, that compliment this video.

1. Select Your PowerPoint Slides to Loop

You can make PowerPoint run on a continuous loop easily. I’ll click on the Transitions tab here on PowerPoint’s ribbon and make sure all of my slides are selected here on the left side.

Select your slides to loop using Transitions in PowerPoint.

2. Set Timing of PowerPoint Presentation Loop

Let’s start off by selecting how much time we want each slide to show. Let’s tick the After box here and I’ll put in 2 seconds, just to test the feature out. Now the slides will advance on their own, each after two seconds. Let’s turn on the loop feature now.

Set loop timing for after each PowerPoint slide.

3. Set Up the Slide Show Loop in PowerPoint

I’ll click the Slide Show tab on the ribbon, and then click Set Up Slide Show. The option that we need to turn on is Loop continuously until ‘Esc’. Let’s go ahead and press OK to turn that feature on. Let’s check to make sure this is all working.

Set up your PowerPoint Slideshow to loop continuously.

Finishing Up!

I’ll click on the first slide in my presentation, and then start the presentation in the lower right corner. After a couple of seconds, it goes to the next slide, then the next slide, and then back to the beginning. So you can see this is working perfectly. The loop feature works great to keep your presentation rolling continuously.

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Learn how to loop a PowerPoint in 3 easy steps! Usually, once you’re finished with your presentation, PowerPoint goes back to the slide editor. But if you want your presentation to go back to the start, this quick tutorial will show you how to loop any PowerPoint presentation and set it to run automatically.

Why Learn How to Loop a PowerPoint

It can be very awkward to have your audience looking at the black screen after going through all your slides. Or even worse, at the slide editor. If you’re planning on going back on some of your previous points, learning how to loop your PowerPoint presentation can be a useful tool. Sure, you can go back using the Back key. But this way can make it easier and more polished, especially if you have a long presentation with many slides.

Learning how to loop a PowerPoint can also be extremely useful for those making a pictured-based presentation. Slides don’t necessarily have to have a lot of information on them. PowerPoint can also be used just to present images and examples or to provide a background for the speaker. Looping your presentation will make sure that you’re never left with an empty screen.

In short, it’s a nice detail to make your presentation look more clean and polished. So, are you ready to learn how to loop a PowerPoint presentation?

How to Loop a PowerPoint Presentation

Luckily, learning how to loop a PowerPoint is very easy! Just follow these 3 steps:

1. Open your presentation and go to the Slide Show tab.

2. Select the Set Up Slide Show option for the Set-Up Options window to appear.

3. In this window, go to the “Show options group” and tick the Loop continuously until ‘Esc’ (the first option). Don’t forget to click OK to apply the new set-up!

And that’s all! Try putting your presentation on Slide Show mode. You’ll see that your presentation keeps going on until you press the ESC key in your keyboard.

How To Make a Self-Running PowerPoint Presentation

If you’re making a PowerPoint presentation to be used only as a background, then this information might be useful too. Usually, PowerPoint presentations only advance to the next slide when a mouse click occurs. But you can set your presentation to run automatically. This way, you don’t have to keep worrying about moving to the next slide since your presentation will do it on itself!

This is a great option for presentations that are only images on a loop, like in a Pecha Kucha presentation. You will be able to focus much better on what you have to say rather than in clicking on your slides to avoid boring your audience with only one picture.

1. Go to the Transitions tab.

2. In the “Timing” group (in the far right), tick the After option. In the timer on its side, enter how much time you want between slide and slide.

3. Select the Apply To All option so every slide follows the same set-up.

If you want different times for each slide, you can also customize it like so. You just have to go one at a time changing how much time you want to spend on each slide and ignore the last step. Don’t forget to practice before your presentation! Only then you’ll know if the times you set for each slide are right. Good luck!

Created: Monday, August 23, 2004, posted by Geetesh Bajaj at 2:42 pm

Updated: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 10:29 am

Note: This technique was last tested using PowerPoint 2003–yes, this is a very old post!

Also, this seems to work in PowerPoint 2007 as well, but fails in PowerPoint 2010 and higher because the sound stops playing when you step into a custom show.

This technique assumes you know how to loop sound across slides in PowerPoint.

When you loop the presentation using the options in Slide Show | Set Up Show, you’ll find that the music starts again on the first slide whenever the presentation is looping. To overcome this problem, here is a solution:

1. First of all make sure all your slides are set with automatic transition timings. If your first slide has a sound inserted and set to play across slides, remove the music clip. You can select the sound icon, and press the Delete key.
2. Now place your cursor before the first slide in the Slides pane, or in Slide Sorter view. Then insert a new “kick-off” slide at the beginning of the presentation. This is the slide where you will start your music.
3. Next, mark all slides from your second slide through the last slide to be a custom show. Do note that all these slides already have automated timings to advance slides. Make sure Slide 1 does not have automated timing to advance slide.
4. Add a sound clip to the first slide, and set it to play across slides.
5. Add an Action Button (or hyperlink) to the first “kick off” slide. Bring up the Action Settings dialog box, and not the Hyperlink dialof box, and link to your custom show. Slide 1 should now have two items; the sound file and an action button or hyperlink to start the custom show.
6. Set up the slide show to loop until ESC using automated timings and showing all slides.
7. Save it as a .PPS or .PPSX (recommended).

PowerPoint MVP Glenna Shaw helped with this answer.

Plus, there’s a sample file for this technique that you can download from Glenna’s site. The sample is called Loop Sounds.

When you run the slideshow, Slide 1 will start the music and you’ll need to click on the Action Object or Hyperlink to start the custom show. From that point on, the presentation should loop through Slide 2 to the Last Slide without resetting the music (unless you have some other sound stop it between Slide 2 and the Last Slide). If you saved it as a PowerPoint Show (PPS or PPSX), the whole thing will close neatly when you press Esc.

PowerPoint has some incredible animation tools. Incredibly frustrating, that is. One thing that’s eluded PowerPoint animators for years has been a way to loop an animation sequence on a slide. Friends, I’m happy to announce that the wait is over. I’ve learned of a way to cheat the system!

The problem with looping animations in PPT

A looped sequence is a repeating sequence. For example, a looping animation would go through Effect #1, then Effect #2, then Effect #3, then go back to Effect #1 and keep going until you tell it to stop. It seems like it would be super-simple to set something like this up in PowerPoint. Trust me, without knowing the trick I’m about to teach you, it’s a huge pain in the tuchus.

You see, the animation timeline in PowerPoint is stupid. It only travels from left to right, ever forward. There’s no way to isolate a set of animations, group them, and cause them to loop. So to create the illusion of looping, you’d have to repeat the animation sequence however many times you want it to loop. It can be a real drag, especially if you have a number of complicated animations, exact positioning, etc.

The answer? Bookmarks.

I’m a member of the Presentation Guild. One of the many benefits I enjoy as a member is access to the forum pages, where the best presentation designers share their ideas and inspirations. One of the Alpha Nerds, Jamie Garroch, developed an ingenious method of creating looping animations within PowerPoint by using something I’d never been aware existed: bookmarks.

A bookmark can be added to a video or audio file. Like bookmarks IRL, you can use these to mark interesting parts of the media. You can also use them to…wait for it…trigger animations! And the way to do it is to use bookmarks on an audio file you create that’s the same length as your desired animation loop.

How to create looping animations

Don’t be put off by the number of steps below. As with anything, writing out instructions takes much longer than actually doing it. If you’d rather learn by watching me do it, then watch this video.

You can download the PowerPoint file to see how it’s constructed.

Step 1: Create your animations

Create the animations you want on your slide. Wherever you want a bookmark to trigger an animation, select Start On Click. Use animation tools like After Previous, With Previous, Duration, Delay, etc., as you normally would.

Step 2: Make the audio file

1. Under Media on the Insert tab, click Audio then Record audio.
2. Click on the red dot (record) and remain silent for the length of your recording. The recording length is determined by how long you want the looping animation to be. When finished, click on the square (stop).
3. Click on the audio file. Under Audio Options on the Playback tab, select Volume then select Mute. Also select Hide During Show, Start Automatically, and Loop Until Stopped.

Step 3: Add bookmarks

1. Click on the audio clip.
2. In the audio controls below the clip, click Play.
3. When you reach the point where you want to make a bookmark, click Pause.
4. Under Audio Tools, on the Playback tab, in the Bookmarks group, click Add Bookmark. Note that these bookmarks cannot be changed, only deleted and remade, so choose wisely!
5. Make as many bookmarks as you have Start On Click animations.

Step 4: Use bookmarks to trigger animations

1. In the Animation Pane, move your audio file to the top.
2. Select the first animation that starts on click, then select On play…Recorded Sound – Bookmark 1 under Triggers.
3. In the Animation Pane, move all of the animations that follow up until the next Start On Click animation to be after the triggered animation.
4. Repeat steps 1–3 for as many Start On Click animations you have.

Step 5: Breaking the animation cycle

To get the animation cycle to stop and advance to the next slide, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Transitions tab in the Ribbon.
2. In the Timing section of the Transitions tab, deselect On Mouse Click
3. Select After and set the amount of time you want to stay on the slide.

–>

How to, PowerPoint animation, Cheating Death by PowerPoint, Death by PowerPoint, Laura Foley, Laura M. Foley, Laura M. Foley Design, looping, looping animation, powerpoint

Want your PowerPoint presentation to loop continuously ? Thus it can run unattended in a booth or kiosk, you do even need a live presenter. This is common when you are creating a display in a store, or for a trade show or convention. In this post, let’s learn how to keep on showing the slides over and over.

1. Open your PPT presentation and go to Transitions tab. Choose one you prefer in the Transition to This Slide group.

2. In Timing group, uncheck the box of On Mouse Click (It means to wait until a mouse click to move to the next slide), and enter the value in the box of After. (It means to move the next slide after a certain number of seconds).

3. Then go to Slide Show tab, find Set Up group and click Set Up Slide Show.

4. The Set Up Show dialog box will display, choose the Show type according to your actual needs. While under Show options, check the box of Loop continuously until ‘Esc’. What’s more, you can select to loop all slide or just some specified of them, which you can customize the page numbers. Do not forget to click OK to save the settings.

PowerPoint presentations are often used in conference kiosks, convention booths and at other marketing events. Looping a presentation ensures that it continues playing, beginning to end, automatically. This is particularly useful for companies that need to set up a slideshow to run without assistance.

Some use cases include:

• Product display
• General announcements
• Informational kiosk
• Location map

Read on to learn how to loop a PowerPoint presentation on a PC and a Mac.

PC Office 2010, 2013, 2016

To loop a PowerPoint presentation so that it plays continuously, do the following:

1.В В В В Click on the Slide Show tab.

2.В В В В Click Set Up Slide Show. A window with options will pop up.

3.В В В В Click Loop continuously until ‘Esc’

Note: If you want the speaker/individual to maintain control over the presentation, clicking between slides, choose the Presented by a speaker or Browsed by an individual option under Show Type. Clicking Browsed at a kiosk automatically checks the Loop continuously until ‘Esc’ box.

Mac Office 2016 & 2011

To create a loop on a PowerPoint presentation, do the following:

• Click on the Slide Show tab.
• Click Set Up Slide Show.
• Under Show type, pick one of the following:
  • To loop the slideshow but allow users to maintain control over advancing the slides, select Browsed by an individual.
  • To loop the slide show until the Esc button is pressed, select Browsed at a kiosk.

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A self-running or looping PowerPoint presentation can be great for using in booths at conferences, displaying information on screens before a live event/presentation, or even to use in the waiting room of a business to showcase information.

The great thing is that if you can create a PowerPoint presentation, saving it for a looped playback is a breeze.

You can loop a PowerPoint in two different ways depending on playback method – as a PowerPoint or as a video file.

Here’s how you do it.

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Create a Loop in PowerPoint

Design your PowerPoint presentation to suit your content. You can loop any number of slides for playback, so don’t worry about a limitation here.

If you want specific types of transitions between slides, remember to apply them to each slide. You can also select all apply the same transition to each slide or apply the transition to one slide and then “Apply to All” using the checkbox in the toolbar.

Slide transitions are located in the Transitions menu.

With a loop presentation, you need to determine how long each slide will linger on the screen. It might be the same amount of time for each slide or can vary.

You can set this timing in the Transitions menu as well.

Uncheck the “On Mouse Click” button and set timing for slides in the “After” box.

Preview transitions and timings in Slide Slow mode to ensure that each slide stays on the screen long enough to be clearly understood. Slides with more text need to stay on the screen longer so that they can be read easily.

When in doubt, err on the slide of leaving a little more time than you think is necessary to ensure that all presentation viewers have time to digest information on the screen.

Save for PowerPoint Playback

If you plan to play the looped PowerPoint in a native file format, such as on a computer in PowerPoint, you want to set up the slide show loop in the Slide Show tab.

Click Set Up Slide Show, then make sure Loop Continuously Until ESC and Using Timings are checked. This will set the presentation to play in a loop with the timings you set in the previous step.

To play the presentation just go back to the Slide Show tab and Click Play from Start. It will run until you tap the ESC key.

Top Tip: You need to turn off screensavers or power save functions or they can kick in and override the presentation.

Save for Video Playback

The other option for playing a looped PowerPoint is to save the file in a video format. This is recommended if you plan to play it back on multiple screens, want to transport the file on a flash drive, or save to a website for easy viewing.

Once you have finished the design and set transitions and timing as in the step above, you can export the presentation to a video format.

Click File > Export. Select a video file format (MP4 or MOV). Choose a file name and location to save. Select an export quality – presentation, internet, or low quality. (This impacts file size and playback resolution.)

Make sure the timing box is selected to use your recorded timings and narrations and save.

When you open the file for playback, select the loop playback option in your video player to ensure the presentation will play continuously.

Conclusion

There are plenty of practical applications for playing a PowerPoint presentation in a loop. The key to making this work effectively is ensuring that each slide is on the screen long enough for each person to understand and exporting to a file type that will work in your presentation environment.

Don’t forget to take a look at our full PowerPoint templates guide, or our collection of the best PowerPoint templates for your next project!

PowerPoint Templates

Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) is the go-to choice for creating presentations. This series shares tips and ideas for working with PowerPoint, as well as beautiful PowerPoint templates and themes to make your presentations look stunning.

August 10, 2020 By Matt

Sometimes you will create a presentation in Powerpoint that is going to be shown someplace where it will be unattended.

This could be at a trade show, in an office, or anywhere else where there is a TV or computer screen.

Constantly having to restart that slideshow yourself is often impractical, and would be tedious even if you were physically able to attend to it.

Fortunately it’s possible to create a slideshow loop in Powerpoint so that the presentation will play continuously once it has concluded.

Our guide below will show you how to create a Powerpoint slideshow loop in Microsoft Powerpoint for Office 365.

How to Make a Powerpoint Slideshow Loop

The steps in this article were performed in the Microsoft Powerpoint for Office 365 version of the application, but will work in most other versions of the application as well.

Note that the presentation can loop on its own, but you may need to adjust any screensaver or hibernation settings on your computer so that the screen will remain on.

Step 1: Open your slideshow in Powerpoint.

Step 2: Click the Slide Show tab at the top of the window.

Step 3: Click the Set Up Slide Show button.

Step 4: Check the box to the left of Loop continuously until Esc, then click OK.

Step 5: Click your first slide in the column at the left side of the window, then hold down the Shift key, scroll down and click the last slide.

Step 6: Select the Transitions tab at the top of the window.

Step 7: Click the box to the left of On Mouse Click to remove the check mark, check the box to the left of After, then choose the amount of time to display each slide.

I have set my slideshow to display each slide for 5 seconds in the image above.

You can start your slideshow at any time by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard.

You can stop the slideshow by pressing the Esc key on your keyboard.

Find out how to change your slide size in Powerpoint if you need a different orientation or slide dimensions for your presentation.