Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 : Working with Animation and Transitions - Setting Slide Transitions

1. Understanding Animation and Transitions

Like most of PowerPoint’s capabilities, animation can be either simple or complex. It all depends on how creative and sophisticated you want to make your presentation. Animation can definitely enliven any presentation, but as with any special effect, be careful not to overdo it. Too much animation can actually detract from your presentation. Animation also increases presentation file size.

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

• 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 animation, 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.

2. Setting Slide Transitions

Setting slide transitions is one of the most common animation effects. You can apply a slide transition to the entire presentation or just to the current slide. PowerPoint offers a variety of transition options ranging from subtle to dynamic, including the capability to fade, wipe, reveal, or even introduce a slide with a honeycomb effect. If you aren’t familiar with these effects, you can try them out on your slides before applying them. Most transitions enable you to choose a direction as well. For example, you can wipe up, down, left, or right.

As with so many PowerPoint features, use restraint with slide transitions. For the most professional results, choose one transition to use for every slide in a presentation. Or if you want to highlight one or two particular slides, you can apply just the right transition to those, but don’t apply custom transitions to the remaining slides. Too many different transitions can make your presentation confusing and inconsistent, detracting from your message.

Setting Up Presentation Slide Transitions

To set up slide transitions, follow these steps:

1.	Select the slides to which you want to apply the transition in either Slide Sorter view or on the Slides tab of Normal view. To select all slides, press Ctrl+A.
2.	On the Transitions tab, choose one of the transitions that appears in the Transition to This Slide group.
3.	For more options, click the down arrow in the lower-right corner of the group, and choose one of the transitions from the Transitions gallery. Figure 1 illustrates this gallery. Figure 1. You can specify how you want to move from one slide to another slide during a presentation. [View full size image]
4.	Click the Effect Options button to open a gallery 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.
5.	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 from the drop-down 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. Use sounds sparingly on slide transitions. They can unintentionally generate laughter or even annoyance in your audience.
6.	Select the amount of time (in seconds) you want the transition to take introducing each slide in the Duration field.
7.	Select the On Mouse Click check box 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. This is selected by default.
8.	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.
9.	To preview your transitions, click the Preview button on the left side of the Transitions tab.
10.	Click the Apply to All button to apply the transitions to all slides in your presentation.