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Question:

In PowerPoint, is it possible to keep the connection between a shape and connector while animating the shape?

For example, if you were to do the following: - Draw two box shapes on your slide - Connect them using a straight connector - Apply a motion path animation to one of the boxesThe resulting animation would show the box sliding across the screen as the connector lets go of the handle and remains stationary.Is it possible to force it to maintain the link?I can't find an elegant solution and neither Google nor Microsoft are helping eitherI'm using 2003Cheers,D'Arcy

Answer:

I'm unclear on your question - when I do this, the box moves and the connector stays exactly where it was. Do you actually want the connector to grow and stay attached to the box that moves (that makes the most sense)? Time to do a cheater animation. First, it might be easier to NOT use a connector - just draw a line. Then draw a second line from where that line ends to somewhere in the middle of where the box will move to. Send the loose line to the back. Note: you may have to zoom WAY in to be able to align the 2 lines perfectly. For the animation, do the motion path on the box and do a wipe on the loose line in the same direction the box is moving. Set it to go with previous. It ends up looking like the line is moving/growing along with the box moving over. If you are moving the box at an angle, it might look perfect, but if it is going straight to the side or up/down - it should work great. You might need to tweak timing a bit. EDIT: I was afraid of that ;D There is no good way to do what you want to do. Unfortunately, when using Grow/Shrink on a line, it not only grows the length, it grows the line weight, so doing a small spin with a grow on the line doesn't work. The best I could come up with (and it doesn't look as crappy as I would expect) is to have the starting line in position (up/down) and add a second line in the final (diagonal) position. Set the animation so that line 1 fades out with the start of the box moving (probably for the same animation length as the box - but you might want to make a little shorter) and line 2 fades in maybe 0.2 seconds later and ends at the same time as the box animation ends. I suspect you've tried this and didn't love it, but I'm 99% sure it's the best you'll do with PowerPoint.

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