E-mail this pagePowerPoint: Setting Animations and Transitions
Animations--effects that make text and other screen items move, appear, and disappear--can, at the best of times, significantly enhance a presentation and focus the audience's attention on the point or points you'd like them to be focusing on. Unfortunately, it's also an inherent quality of animations that they can render an otherwise sober presentation silly, disrupting the presentation's pace and distracting the audience.
The best way to ensure that your animations are helpful rather than harmful is to set them, insofar as is possible, at the template level in the slide master. A few animations, such as those that might be required for individual images that do not appear on every slide will still have to be set on a one-at-a-time basis, but by setting the majority of your animations at the template level, you can ensure that your audience doesn't become bewildered by an inconsistent barrage of differing transitions and motions.
To set the animations at the level of the Slide Master , first make sure that you're looking at the slide master--if you're not, select View|Master|Slide Master from the main PowerPoint program menu.
Next, right-click over the space allocated for a bulleted list to introduce a context menu, and from this select Custom Animation .
You'll then see a substantial Custom Animation dialog appear (see below).
In the upper left side of this dialog, you'll find a listing of five fields marked Text1 through Text5 . Clicking on any one of these highlights, in the adjacent preview window, the particular field that has been selected. As a rule, you should only set animations for Text2 , the field that represents the bulleted list.
The task of setting the animations for the Text2 field is relatively easy, although you will have a variety of options to pick from: begin by putting a checkmark into the checkbox beside Text2 . This specifies that an animation will be applied.
In the left-most field beneath the heading Entry animation and sound , select the animation that should be used to introduce bulleted items: you've got quite a range to pick from, but you'll find that the simplest ones (Appear or Dissolve ) are probably the least distracting and least likely to interfere with the pacing of your presentation. Some animations allow you to specify the direction of the animation (ie. Fly in from the left ) in the adjoining field. To preview an animation you've selected, you can click on the preview button on the upper right part of the dialog window.
Don't set an animation sound. Please don't. Please, please, please don't. Animation sounds are always distracting and usually irritating.
It is, however, a good idea to set the value in the After Animation field to represent a color that's a faded version of the color you are using for your text. Doing so will have the effect of making the current bullet always display slightly more brightly than items that you've already addressed. This can significantly aid your audience in focusing their attention on the current subject matter.
On the lower right side of the screen, you'll also want to make a few changes: it makes good sense to have the text introduced all at once, so you can leave that default intact. On the other hand, it is sometimes helpful to have bulleted items appear one at a time (or grouped according to their respective levels), towards which end you should set the Grouped by value to represent that level of indentation that you would like the groups to appear in. For instance, setting this to 3rd would specify that every first and second level bullet would require a separate keystroke to be introduced, but that all third, fourth, and fifth-level bullets would appear in their respective groups, all at once.
Since most presentations can effectively be given using the 5th level grouping, that is a logical choice, but it really does come down to a matter of taste and organization.
Set the Group by value as you see fit, and then click the OK button to close the Custom Animations dialog.
Note: Custom animation effects can also be applied to charts and multimedia components like sounds and videos. To set animation effects for these elements, you must right-click on one of the charts or media items as you are creating the presentation, and then select the Custom Animation option from the context menu. The animation effects for these elements cannot be set at the slide master level. Default animations for individual images or clip art in your presentation cannot be set at the slide master level either: right-click on the image/clip art item, select Custom Animation from the menu, and set the properties specifically for the individual image or clip art item in question.