Is there a way to make Google Slides treat Animated GIFs as click-to-play instead of auto-play?

Question

When you embed an animated GIF in Google Slides (which unlike videos accept them without saving them as external files), it's being played the second you view or present your slideshow, even if they're on slide #100.

Even more so, if you apply slide animations on-click, the animated GIF plays hidden until you click it, meaning you never know which part will be shown by the time you click the GIF.

Is there any way to make the Animated GIF files only play when you actually want them to play?

Answer 1

The workaround is to use new slides for timing the start time of the gif.

As has been mentioned a "hidden" gif plays hidden until the trigger event of the animation starts, making it impossible to control with a "click" the start time of the gif.

However, gifs appear to be started at the first spawn of the slide. Therefore, if you create an exact copy of your original slide and place the gif there. You can use slide transitions to trigger the gif start time.

Answer 2

No. Consider to use a video instead to using an animated gif.

The above because Google Slides doesn't offer any way to control animated gifs but offers control to play a video.

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If you don't want to use a video, try the following:

1. Add a static version of the gif,
2. Over the static version, add the animated gif
3. Set an animation to show the the animated gif after certain action