VBA PowerPoint Toggle or Disable Animation During Presentation - vba

Question

In short, the issue I'm running into is that when using VBA to change font size during a presentation, the slide runs all animations for that slide a second time. Changing other qualities, such as font color or shape fill, the slide does not animate a second time.
The longer version: I'm creating a tool in PowerPoint for my trainers to be able to build quizzes and computer-based trainings. I'm using a template shape for each state of the button (correct, incorrect or unanswered), and then have .pickup and .apply to change the formatting of the shapes on the question slides. At runtime, the slide builds based on the animations, the user clicks an option and the shapes format immediately. However, the font size also changes to mirror the template shape. When I temporarily store the font size and reapply it after .apply, at runtime, the slide animates, the user clicks an option and the slide runs the animations again (albeit correctly with the new formatting). The code works, but certain changes cause the slide to animate a second time (text, size), and some changes don't (shape color, text color). It's this second animation of the slide I need to avoid.
Windows 7 Professional;
PowerPoint 2016
Instead of using .pickup & .apply, one thought was to change qualities of everything but the font size, (the fill and line qualities), but for the fill, alone there are 20+ qualities, and that's before getting into number of gradient stops, shadows, etc. I need my developers to have the freedom of formatting the shape as they want that my code can quickly pull from.
.SlideShowSettings.ShowWithAnimation - setting to 'false' at the start of the code and 'true' yielded no change in results. (Attempt shown in code below.)
.SlideShowWindow.View.State - setting to 'paused' and 'running' also did not affect anything. (Attempt shown in code below.)
All objects on the slide are set to fade in automatically upon showing the slide. The simplified code here is set to run when a shape is clicked and shows what works and what doesn't work. I've commented lines in and out so I can try different things.
Sub ProcessResponse()
'These options do not prevent re-animation when in mid-presentation:
'ActivePresentation.SlideShowSettings.ShowWithAnimation = msoFalse
'ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.State = ppSlideShowPaused
'The following items do NOT cause the slide to run the animation again (desired result):
'Changing the object fill.
'ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(1).Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(50, 25, 100)
'Changing text color.
'ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Color.RGB = RGB(50, 25, 150)
'The following lines of code cause the slide to run the animation again (undesired result):
'Changing the font size.
ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Size = 40
'Changing the text.
'ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "Changed"
'Closing the above attempts.
'ActivePresentation.SlideShowSettings.ShowWithAnimation = msoTrue
'ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.State = ppSlideShowRunning
End Sub
Setup: Slide with animations (i.e., fade in) that run "after next". 3-4 shapes, each with the above code called when clicked.
During the slide show:
Expected - animations, user clicks shape, the changes are made, no further actions/animations.
Actual Result - animations, user clicks shape, animations (changes are included).
Thank you for any and all help and considerations. Your time is appreciated.