Microsoft Graph API Powerpoint Viewer - Animations only work on the first pass.

Question

Our users (Teachers) are unable to replay animations through the slides on our platform once the animations have already been played. Is the expectation that the animations only play on the first pass? This appears to be a bug since users often go through slides multiple times.

Steps:

1. View Slides which contain animations.
2. Navigate through the slides which contain animations
3. Navigate back to slide 1
4. Navigate through the slides again

Expected Result:

Animations should replay.

Actual Result:

User is unable to view the animations and will have to refresh the page in order to get the animations to play again.

Answer 1

PowerPoint has always worked this way. The animations normally play only the first time.

To make them replay, add a dummy slide just before a slide that has animations. Make sure this slide has no animations. The slide does not need any content added to it.

Set an automatic transition on the dummy slide. On the Transitions tab, look for the Advance Slide group. Uncheck On Mouse Click, check After and set the time to 0:00.00.

Now when you go through the deck a second time, the auto transition will fire the animations on the following slide.

Answer 2

Dear Manpreet Komal,

Good day! Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum!

Based on your description, I understand that replaying slide animations should not normally require a page refresh. If the animations play correctly during the initial pass but do not replay when the user navigates back and reviews the slides again, this may indicate a limitation or issue within the PowerPoint rendering/viewer implementation being used rather than expected PowerPoint behavior.

To better understand the situation, could you please help confirm the following:

• Are you using the Microsoft Graph createLink / PowerPoint viewer experience, PowerPoint for the web, or another embedded viewing solution?
• Does the issue occur with all presentations or only specific files?
• Does the behavior reproduce in different browsers (Edge, Chrome, Firefox)?

According to my research:

• Microsoft Graph does not provide an API to control PowerPoint animations.
• It primarily manages files, access permissions, sharing links, metadata, file content, and so on.
• Slide and animation rendering is typically handled by PowerPoint for the Web or a Microsoft-side viewer.

As an initial test, please verify whether the same presentation exhibits the same behavior when opened directly in PowerPoint for the web. If the animations play correctly there but not in the embedded Graph viewer, this would help isolate the issue to the viewer component.

Kindly let me know when there are updates or if you need further assistance. Any updates you’re able to share would be really helpful.

I'm here and happy to help! Thank you for your kindness and patience!