How to Insert GIF into PowerPoint? 3 Easy Ways
(Note: This tutorial on how to insert GIF into PowerPoint is suitable for PowerPoint 2013 and later versions including Office 365)
When making a presentation, demonstrating slides that have only the details and data to the audience makes the presentation a little bland. There needs to be some sort of element to break the ice and grab the attention of the user.
One way to engage the audience is by using a variety of media formats ranging from images to videos. In addition, GIFs also help people by making them lend an ear.
In this article, I will tell you how to insert GIF into PowerPoint easily.
You’ll Learn:
Watch this short video to know more about How to Insert GIF into PowerPoint
What Is a GIF and Why Are GIFs Important?
Before we see how to insert GIF into PowerPoint, let us quickly see what a GIF is and why it is important for a presentation.
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. They consist of animated or static images for a few seconds. Sure, JPGs and PNGs are great ways to grab the user’s attention. But, GIFs make your presentation a little more special.
They can be used to deliver a message, make the audience understand the context, pique their interest, or even just for comical touch which cannot be delivered by static images. They are also smaller in size and easily compatible with the presentation better than a video.
GIFs have become immensely popular with the internet meme culture and Gen-Z. They have become a way for people to understand, relate to, and connect with a certain niche.
How to Insert GIF into PowerPoint?
Using the ‘This Device’ Option
To add a GIF, first open PowerPoint. You can add the GIF anywhere you want. If you want to add the GIF to a new slide, navigate to Home and click on New Slide. Or, right-click on the slides pane and select New Slide.
You can then add the title and the subtitle of your choice. If they seem unnecessary, delete the text boxes by clicking on them and pressing the Delete key. In this case, let us add the title and delete the subtitle.
To insert a GIF, navigate to Insert. Under the Images section, click on the dropdown from Pictures. This shows you three ways you can insert GIFs into PowerPoint slides.
First, I will show you how to insert GIFs using the This Device option. Using this option, you can add GIFs that exist on your local hard disk drives or from your cloud. This option is mostly used to add personalized data.
Note: Websites like Tenor, Giphy, Reddit, Imgur, and Tumblr have a vast repository of GIFs for commercial purposes.
Clicking on This Device opens a new dialog box. Navigate to the storage path or location of the GIF and select it. Click Open.
This inserts the GIF in the center of the slide.
When you insert GIFs into PowerPoint slides, sometimes they might be static or not moving. To check whether the GIF is working, it is always better to preview the slide. (Sematext) Once you have added the GIF, you can use the slideshow option to preview the GIF.
To check using a slideshow, navigate to the Slideshow main menu. Select the options to either start the slideshow From Beginning or play From Current Slide. Or, you can just click on the slideshow icon in the right bottom near the zoom icon or press the function key F5.
From Stock Images
One way to add GIFs is from your local storage device or your cloud storage. In some cases, you can directly insert the GIFs from the stock image library or add online images. However, you need an active internet connection while inserting GIFs into PowerPoint.
Clicking on Stock Images from the Picture dropdown opens up a new dialog box.
Navigate to Videos, and select the GIF you want to add to the slide. You can also use the search bar by typing any keyword and searching for the GIFs.
It takes a couple of seconds to download the media and the GIF is inserted into the slide.
Online Pictures
This option is also used to insert GIFs into PowerPoint slides. The Online Pictures option opens up a dialog box where you can search and choose any GIFs. The search is powered by the Bing search engine and it shows you suggestions based on your keyword. Select the GIF you want to add to PowerPoint and click on Insert.
This inserts the GIF in the center of the slide along with a couple of Design Ideas on the right side to customize the GIF.
Note: While using or downloading GIFs from websites, it is always better to enable Creative Commons or use stock images to download to prevent any copyright issues.
Customizing a GIF
After you add a GIF in PowerPoint, you can easily customize the GIF to your preferences. Let us know how to customize a GIF in detail.
Move or Resize a GIF
When you add any GIF, it only populates in the center of the slide. However, you can move or resize any GIF by using the borderline and anchor points respectively when you click on a GIF. Just click and drag them to move or resize the GIF.
Picture Format Options
You can also make additional changes to the GIF using the Picture Format option in the main menu ribbon. This option is only available when you click on the GIF.
Under the Adjust section, you’ll find options to change the color, adjust the transparency, compress the image, and reset the image size to the original format.
Under the option from the Picture Styles section, you can change the border color, add effects, and change the layout of the GIF.
Adding the Alt Text to the GIFs helps people understand what the images mean when faced with loading issues. You can also align, rotate, and resize the GIF using the options in the Arrange and Size section.
Note: All the customization and alterations only pertain to the appearance or the outer part of the GIF. The animated GIF always stays intact no matter what option you choose.
Closing Thoughts
Using dynamic GIFs portrays more information and grasps the user’s attention more than static images and long-form video formats.
In this article, we saw how to insert GIF into PowerPoint in 3 simple ways. You can either insert GIFs in PowerPoint from your device, from stock images, or from the internet. Once added, you can easily customize the GIF to your preferences to suit your purpose.
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Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!
