Preview and set the time text properties

There are five basic steps to create an animation through time.
They are:
1) Create Keyframes and a Time Track
2) Set the Time Track Properties
3) Set the Keyframe interval and time units
4) Preview and set the Time Text properties
5) Play the animation.

In this segment you'll preview a time slice and set the time text properties.

Your animation is now set up. You can jump to slices of the animation on the Time View tab. Click the Time View tab and click below the time line, near the left edge, to view the data in the year 1800.

The space between each tick mark on the track line represents each 10-year period. After the second tick mark, the time slice displayed will change from 1800 to 1810. Note the animation time (from 0.000 to 1.000) at the bottom of the Time View display. All tracks operate within this animation time. You can see that the majority of the population at that time lived in the northeastern USA.

The time text shows the time of the slice you're currently viewing. Click the Select Elements tool on the Tools toolbar and double-click the time text in the display. Click Change Symbol, on the Text tab, and make the text larger and bold.

Click the text in the display and move it to a location where it can be seen more clearly, then click away from the text to remove the blue dashed outline.

Click below the time line, near the right edge, to view the data in the year 1990.

If you were to close the Animation Manager at this point, the time text would be removed and the layer would go back to its original state. The current definition query set to show the time slice for 1990 would be removed. This is because, by default, the Restore state after preview check box on the Time View tab is checked by default.

If you want the currently displayed time slice and the symbology and position of the time text to be retained in the display after the Animation Manager is closed, uncheck the box to Restore state after preview. If you need to restore the state of your data after the animation has played, you can set the default symbology for the time text via the Draw toolbar instead.