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Adding animated GIFs to your presentation slides makes them more powerful and memorable and increases audience engagement. Embedding multimedia content is one of the latest trends in presentation design. You can use readily available free GIFs from one of the GIF websites, or create your own, for example using your mobile phone camera and a free app, such as GIPHY. Select the slide that you want to add the animated GIF to.

In this article, I'll show you 4 methods how to add a GIF to your PowerPoint presentation and how to crop them (change their shape) to any shape you wish.

How to add a GIF to a PowerPoint slide?

There are a few ways you can add a GIF to your PowerPoint slide. Depending on your computer system (Windows / Mac) and the PowerPoint version you are using, the first 2 methods may not work very well, but they are very quick and definitely worth trying first.

Method 1 – drag and drop

You can drag and drop files with .gif extension directly on the slide where you want to add it.

Or you can drag and drop any GIF from a website such as Giphy.

Method 2 – copy and paste

Copy and paste the file with .gif extension on your slide (Ctrl+C – Ctrl+V) or right-click on an online GIF, select "copy image" and paste it on your slide.

Method 3 – insert online pictures

In this method, you'll be able to browse online GIFs directly from PowerPoint and add them to your slides.

  • Select the slide that you want to add the animated GIF to.
  • On Home tab of the ribbon, under Insert, click Pictures > Online Pictures.
  • In the Online Pictures search field type the keyword you are looking for and "GIF", for example:  "cat gif". Not all of the search results will be animated GIFs, but there is a good chance that some of the first ones will. To check if any of the suggested online pictures is a GIF, look at the file name by hovering your cursor over the picture title (see below).

Method 4 – insert picture from file

To use this method, you will need to have:

  • Your GIF saved on your PC in a file with .gif extension
  • PowerPoint presentation created and open on the slide where the GIF will be added

To insert the GIF into your presentation slide:

  • Select the slide that you want to add the animated GIF to.
  • On Home tab of the ribbon, under Insert, click Pictures > Picture from File.
  • Navigate to the location of the animated GIF you want to add
  • Select the file, and then
  • Click Insert.

The GIF inserted into your slide will appear static. It is absolutely normal. The animation will only be visible during the presentation. To test your GIF enter the Slide Show mode.

How to crop a GIF to any shape in PowerPoint?

To crop your GIF into any shape:

  • Select the slide where you inserted your GIF
  • On Home tab of the ribbon, under Insert, click Shape and choose the shape you wish your GIF to have.

Use only filled shapes, no lines or shape outlines.

  • Draw the Shape above your GIF.

To maintain the aspect ratio of your shape, eg. draw a perfect circle, hold the Shift button while drawing.

The fill and outline colours of your shape don't matter, they won't be visible at the end, but you may want to make them semi-transparent to better position the shape above your GIF.

  • To change the shape transparency, select the Shape, click on Shape Format -> Shape Fill -> More Fill Colours and change the Shape Fill colour opacity to 80%
  • Now you can see through your shape and make final adjustments to its size and position.
  • To crop your GIF, select first the GIF, hold Shift and select your shape.

It's important that you have both GIF and Shape selected, but the GIF needs to be selected first (it won't work otherwise)

  • Click Shape Format, then Merge Shapes -> Intersect
  • Your GIF should be cropped.

At this point, the cropped GIF will appear static. It is absolutely normal. The animation will only be visible during the presentation. To test your GIF enter the Slide Show mode.

When not use GIFs in your presentation?

Before we finish, I would like to share with you a few thoughts on when you may want to stay away from GIFs.

First of all, you don't want to have GIFs on too many slides and in all your presentations. Prioritise where it makes the most sense to add them, and don't exaggerate.

Funny GIFs may not be appropriate for all your presentations and meetings. You may want to think twice if you are presenting to a very formal and unknown audience. Not everybody has the same sense of humour and some topics may be sensitive.