Adding Special Effects

If you use your PowerPoint presentation to create 35-millimeter slides or overhead transparencies , the only movement in your presentation will be the change from one slide to the next , and the only sound will probably be that of your own voice. If you use your presentation as an electronic slide show, you have the potential for introducing dynamic special effects such as animation effects or transitions . Animation effects are visual or sound effects that you apply to specific objects on a slide, such as a title. Transitions are visual or sound effects that you apply to an entire slide to help move the audience smoothly from one slide to another. You can also apply preset animation effects to the bulleted items on a slide to help keep the audience focused on a particular point.

In this topic, we ll briefly look at PowerPoint s built-in animation effects to give you a taste of how you can quickly add pizzazz to your presentations.

Adding Animation and Transitions

Let s add some special effects to the 1 Redmond BEAT presentation:

1. Turn off the Outlining toolbar.

2. If necessary, click the Slides tab in the overview pane.

   Because you want to add animation and transition effects to the entire presentation, you ll work with the slide masters rather than individual slides. (You can change the animation effects for just one slide by selecting it.)

3. On the View menu, click Master , and then click Slide Master .

4. With the first master (the one used for slides 2 through 8) displayed, click the arrow on the task pane s title bar, and then click Custom Animation in the drop-down list to display that task pane.

5. Click the master slide s title to select the title area.

6. In the task pane, click Add Effects , point to Entrance , and then click More Effects . Click the Dissolve in option from the Add Entrance Effect dialog box, and click OK .

7. Select the slide s object area, and this time apply the Fly in entrance effect.

8. Click the Direction box s down arrow, click From Right in the drop-down list, and then click OK .

   PowerPoint applies these animation effects to all titles and bulleted lists on slides 2 through 8 in the 1 Redmond BEAT presentation. Now you need to apply the same effects to slide 1, the title slide.

9. In the overview pane, select the second master (the one used for the title slide), and repeat steps 5 through 7, applying the same animation effects you used for the slide master.

10. Click Close Master View on the Slide Master View floating toolbar.

11. Click the Slide Sorter View button at the bottom of the overview pane to switch to Slide Sorter view, and then click Select All on the Edit menu to select all of the slides.

12. Click the Transition button, and then click the Blinds Vertical option in the Apply to selected slides list. In the Advance Slide area, select Automatically after .

    Selecting the Automatically after option tells PowerPoint to display each slide in order, without waiting for you to advance them manually.

Changing the animation order

As you animate areas or objects, they are assigned a number in the text box in the Custom Animation task pane. You can change the order of the animations by changing the assigned numbers. For example, you can select the object area, and click the Re-Order up and down arrows to change the order of the numbers to suit your preferences.

 

Creating a Custom Effect

If none of the built-in effects is quite what you want, you can always create a custom effect. You can also make adjustments to animations you have already applied to your slides. In addition to animating text, you can also animate graphics. Let s experiment:

1. Switch to slides view by clicking the Normal View button and making sure the Slides tab is displayed. Then display Slide 7 .

2. Click the recycling graphic to select it.

3. Click the Add Effect button in the Custom Animation task pane.

4. Point to Entrance , and then click More Effects at the bottom of the Entrance drop-down list.

5. In the Exciting area, click the Swivel option, and then click OK .

   On the displayed slide, each bullet is numbered so that you can modify each one individually. The Custom Animation tools in the task pane are now available, allowing you to modify the Swivel effect by controlling its speed, properties, order, and timing.

6. Click the Play button to see how the effects look.