34. Working with Animation and Transitions

PowerPoint offers numerous options for animating your slide content and enlivening your presentation. You can animate the transition from one slide to another or animate how text, shapes, SmartArt, charts, and other objects display on a slide.

If the default settings don’t meet your needs, you can also customize animations in a variety of ways using tools on the Animation pane, including special effects, timings, and more.

PowerPoint offers two main ways to animate and add motion to your presentation:

• Slide transitions—Determine how to change from one slide to the next in your presentation. By default, when you move from one slide to another, the next slide immediately appears. With transitions, for example, you can make the old slide fade away to reveal the new slide or make the new slide move down from the top of the screen to cover the old slide.

• Text and object animation—Animate PowerPoint objects, such as text or shapes, using directional effects similar to slide transitions. For example, you can use an animation to wipe title text into your presentation. You can also specify more sophisticated animation options, such as the order and timing of multiple animation objects in one slide.

To apply slide transitions, follow these steps:

1. On the Transitions tab, shown in Figure 34.1, choose one of the transitions that appears in the Transition to This Slide group.

FIGURE 34.1 Specify how you want to move from one slide to another slide during a presentation.

2. For more options, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the group and then choose one of the transitions from the gallery.

3. Click the Effect Options button to open a menu of effects that determine the direction your transition moves, such as from the top or from the bottom-right. Options vary based on the transition you select, and each includes an image that illustrates the direction.

4. To add a sound effect to your transition, select a sound from the Sound drop-down list. If you want to use a sound stored on your computer, choose Other Sound (at the bottom of the list) to open the Add Audio dialog box, select the sound to use, and click the Open button. If you want the sound to continue playing until the presentation encounters another sound file, select the Loop Until Next Sound option on the drop-down menu. See Chapter 33, “Working with Audio and Video,” for more sound options.

5. In the Duration field, select the amount of time in seconds (or fractions of seconds) you want the transition to take introducing each slide.

6. If you want to advance to the next slide when you click the mouse or press a key (such as the spacebar, Enter, Page Up, or Page Down), verify that the On Mouse Click check box is selected and then skip to step 8. This is the default setting.

7. If you would rather have PowerPoint automatically change to the next slide after a specified amount of time, select the After check box and enter a specific time, in minutes and seconds, in the field beside it. Any timings you’ve already added to your slide show display in this box.

8. To preview your transitions, click the Preview button on the left side of the Transitions tab.

9. Click the Apply to All button to apply the transitions to all slides in your presentation.

FIGURE 34.2 The Animations tab offers numerous options for adding motion to your slides.

To apply animations to objects, follow these steps:

1. Select the object or objects you want to animate. If you select more than one object, PowerPoint applies the animation to both objects at the same time. If you want the animations to occur in sequence, you must apply animation separately.

2. On the Animations tab, select the animation you want to apply from the Animation group. Several options appear on the Ribbon, but you can click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the group and choose an option from the gallery (see Figure 34.3).

FIGURE 34.3 Choose from a variety of animation effects in the gallery.

3. Click the Effect Options button to choose the direction to apply the animation. The options that appear here vary based on the animation you chose. For example, if you choose the Fly In animation, this list includes eight options, including From Bottom and From Right. If the animation you selected doesn’t offer effect options, you can’t select this button.

4. Click the Trigger button to specify what triggers this animation to start. Your choices include setting triggers based on the click of a specific object on the slide or on a bookmark.

5. Click the down arrow to the right of the Start button to specify when to start the animation: on a mouse click, with the previous animation, or after the previous animation.

6. Select a Delay setting, in seconds, between each animation. If you don’t want a delay, select 00.00 in this field. Otherwise, you can specify delays in increments of 0.25 seconds or enter a custom increment.

7. Select a Duration setting, in seconds, to determine how long the animation should last. The smallest duration you can choose is 00.01, which introduces, and ends, your animation almost instantly. Otherwise, you can specify durations in increments of 0.25 seconds or enter a custom increment. If you choose a long duration, be aware that this creates a slow motion effect.

8. Click the Preview button to preview your animation choices.

To open the pane (see Figure 34.4), click the Animation Pane button on the Animations tab.

FIGURE 34.4 Further enhance your animation effects on the Animation pane.

Each animation you applied from the Animations tab displays in the Animation pane in the order in which you applied it. The icon that precedes it tells you what kind of animation it is and corresponds to the icons that display in the Animation group on the Animations tab. The green bar that follows it indicates the duration of the animation. Pause the mouse over the animation in the list to display more information, such as the start option and effect type. If you have multiple animations in this list, the list is numbered, and the numbers also display on your slide to show where the animations are located. These numbers don’t display in print or during a slide show, however.

Select an animated object in the list, and click the down arrow to its right to open a menu of additional options, described in more detail later in this section.

Click the Play All button to preview your animation effects. If you selected an animation on the pane, the Play From button displays instead.

FIGURE 34.5 Continue to modify your custom animation with effect options.

The dialog box’s name and content depend on the kind of animation event you’re customizing. For example, if you choose the Appear entrance effect, the Appear dialog box opens.

FIGURE 34.6 Make additional timing modifications on the Timing tab.

Remember that the name of this dialog box reflects the type of animation effect whose timing you want to customize. On the Timing tab, you can specify when to start the animation, enter the delay in seconds, choose a duration, specify what triggers the animation, and more.

FIGURE 34.7 Animating a chart is another possibility.

Click the Chart Animation tab and, from the Group Chart drop-down list, indicate how you want to introduce the chart elements. Options include As One Object, By Series, By Category, By Element in Series, and By Element in Category.

See Chapter 32, “Working with Charts,” for more information about inserting charts in your presentation.

FIGURE 34.8 Emphasize specific words through text animation.

In the Group Text field, choose whether to animate as one object, all paragraphs at once, or by the level of paragraph (from 1st to 5th). You can also choose to animate text automatically after a certain number of seconds, animate an attached shape, or animate text in reverse order.

Depending on the type of text you animate, all these options might not be available. For example, let’s say you want to animate a text box that includes several lines of text or perhaps a bulleted list. By choosing to animate by first-level paragraph, you can display each line individually rather than allow your audience to see your entire list at once.

From the Group Graphic drop-down list, choose the way you want to introduce the graphic onto the slide. The choices depend on the kind of SmartArt graphic you animate.

To close the timeline, click the down arrow to the right of any object and then select Hide Advanced Timeline from the menu that displays. To display the timeline again, select Show Advanced Timeline from this same menu. (The wording of the menu option changes based on whether the timeline is visible.)

You can also reorder animations on the Animation pane by using the Reorder arrow buttons at the top of the pane. Another option is to drag an animation to another location in the pane.

To apply the animation from a selected object to another object, click the Animation Painter button and then select the new object. To apply animations to more than one object, double-click the Animation Painter button and then select the new objects.