PowerPoint in the Classroom

with Jim Jingle UNIT 5
Adding Motion

  • Slippery Slides
  • Twirling Transitions
  • Active Animations
  • Smooth Slide Shows
  • Cool for School


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Slippery Slides


Another question for ya. What if I need to change the order of my slides? For example, let's go back to that presentation on music bands. Suppose I want to change the order from alphabetical to chronological? If these were real slides, I'd lay them out on the carpet and sort them out. I bet you can't do that on a computer.


Actually, you can. It's called Slide Sorter View, and it's designed for viewing a lot of slides at once, and easily changing the order. And unlike laying your slides out on the carpet, there's no danger of your dog chewing up your slide of Ginger Spice.


Ooh, I hate when that happens!


Switching to Slide Sorter View
When you go to Slide Sorter View, you see miniatures of all the slides in the presentation, complete with text and graphics. This view is useful for rearranging slides, and for adding transitions to slides.

Slide Sorter View

There are two ways to switch to Slide Sorter View:

Click the Slide Sorter View button in the lower left corner of the PowerPoint window.

Slide Sorter View button

Or, you can click the View menu, then click Slide Sorter.

Slide View Menu


Okay, you've shown us how to view the slides in Slide Sorter View. How about the sorting part?


I was just getting to that...


Moving slides around
The Slide Sorter View is the easiest place to rearrange the order of your slides.

Let's say you have four slides in your presentation, and you decide that Slide 2 should really appear after Slide 3. Here's what you do to move the slides around:

    1. Click Slide 2 and hold down the mouse button. A small gray rectangle appears on the pointer.

Gray Rectangle

    2. Drag the pointer to the slide's new position after Slide 3. A vertical line should appear after Slide 3.

Switching Slides
Switching Slides

    3. Release the mouse button. Slide 2 should now be positioned after Slide 3.


Twirling Transitions


I hear you've gotten involved in special effects. Tell us about that...


Will do. Let's say you're doing a slide show. Everyone expects one slide to just click to another. But with my transition effect, you can make slides dissolve into one another. It looks very high tech.


That, my friend, is cool.


And I do all my own stunts, by the way.


Adding a Transition
A transition is a special effect used to introduce a slide during a slide show.

The following steps will show you how to add a transition to a slide.

    1. In Slide Sorter View, click the slide you want to add the transition to.

    2. Click the Slide Show menu, then click Slide Transition. A Slide Transition dialog box will appear.

Selecting a transition

    3. In the Effect list box, click Checkerboard Across.

    4. Click the Medium option button to select a speed for the transition.

Selecting a transition

    5. Click the Apply button. A slide transition icon appears under the slide's left corner, indicating that the transition has been applied.

Transition Icon

If you want the same transition to apply to all the slides in your presentation, click the Apply to All button in the Slide Transition dialog box.


Those transitions are absolutely zany, edge-of-your-seat excitement. I bet Spielberg is scratching his head on how you pulled that off.


Well, a lot of it is practice. Plus, I check to make sure the transition effect worked. Here's how...


Checking a transition
In Slide Sorter View, click the slide transition icon. The transition effect you applied should be displayed.


Well, those transitions are pretty neat. With all the things you've invented, one day they may even invent a slide show that runs by itself! Ha ha ha.


They have. That's one of my abilities.


That's impossible. I was making a joke.


Let's say you're doing a presentation on "Coordination". With an automatic slideshow, you can speak the presentation, have your slides advance automatically, and leave your hands free for juggling, for example. It's very handy. Pun intended.


Timing a transition
If you want your slide show to run automatically, you must add timing to the slides. When you add timing to a slide, you specify the number of seconds to remain on each slide.

Here's how you add timing to your slides:

    1. Select the slide you want to add a timing to by clicking it.

    2. In Slide Sorter View, click the Slide Show menu, and then click Slide Transition. The Slide Transition dialog box will appear.

    3. Under Advance, click the check box next to Automatically After.

Automatic Transitions

    4. In the seconds box, type the number of seconds to remain on the slide. For example, 5 seconds.

    5. Click the Apply button.

When you run your slide show, the slide that you have applied the timing to will only remain on screen for five seconds.



Active Animations


You mentioned animation earlier. Are you talking Walt Disney? Scooby Doo? Please, fill us in. Your talents seem to know no bounds.


Well thank you, Sue. Just as you can import any image, you can import any animation.


But what if you're in a hurry? What if you don't have time to make your own animation? I'll be able to do my own animation when pigs fly.


Is that a challenge? With my library of animation effects, you can do all sorts of things easily. For example, I'm going to help you make a pig fly.


Adding your own artwork
When you animate an object, you add special visual or sound effects to it.

The following steps will show you how to animate a cartoon image while working in Slide View.

    1. Click the Slide View button to go to Slide View.

    2. On the slide, click the cartoon image to select it.

    3. On the Formatting Toolbar, click the Animation Effects button. The Animation Effects Toolbar will appear.

Animation Effects Toolbar

    4. On the Animation Effects Toolbar, click the Flying Effect button. The flying effect is now added to the image.

Flying Effect button

Animated image
Animated image


Another thing I can do is animate text. This is a great thing to do with titles and credits. For example, you can make text appear as if it is being typed letter by letter by a typewriter.


This is just blowing my mind. It looks like the title sequence from a movie or something!


Animating Text
Try adding the typewriter effect to text on your slide.

    1. In Slide View, select the text you want to animate by clicking it.

    2. On the Animation Effects Toolbar, click the Typewriter Text Effect button. The typewriter text effect is now added to the text.

Typewriter Effect button

Typing Titles
Typing Titles


Can you also animate charts?


You know it. This is really an effective tool. Let's say you're doing a chart on how the ozone layer has been depleted in the past 100 years. You can have the chart start in 1900, and reveal the depletion year by year. By the time you reach the present year, revealing depletion at it's worst, people will really understand your point.


Wow! What an impact. That ozone is heavy stuff. Does that mean I can't use hair spray?


Let's save that for another show. For today, let me show you how to animate the chart, instead.


Animating a chart
You can make charts more interesting by animating them. In a Slide Show, an unanimated chart appears onscreen all at once. When you animate a chart, the chart appears "bit by bit". You specify the way the elements of the chart will appear in the Custom Animation dialog box.

Try animating a chart so that the elements of the chart are introduced onscreen by category.

    1. In Slide View, click the chart you want to animate.

    2. On the Animation Effects Toolbar, click the Custom Animation button. The Custom Animation dialog box will appear.

Custom Animation button

    3. In the Introduce chart elements drop-down list, click by Category.

Introducing Chart elements

    4. Click OK. The Custom Animation box closes and the animation effect is applied to the chart.


Let's say I create this really cool sequence where my banner flies in, then my charts, then some text, then a flying pig. What happens if I want to change the order? What if I want the pig to fly in first?


Hey, you're the director and you get to make those choices. With PowerPoint you have complete control over animation order.


Changing animation order
Normally, the object that is animated first appears first, but you can rearrange the order. Here's what you do:

    1. Click the object you want to change. For example, the flying pig.

    2. On the Animation Effects Toolbar, click the drop-down list and select the number 1.

Animated image


Okay, I've reordered the animation. Now, how can I preview it to make sure it works right?


Previewing an animation
PowerPoint lets you preview animation settings for your current slide without running the entire slide show.

    1. In Slide View, go to the slide you want to preview.

    2. Click the Slide Show menu, then click Animation Preview.

Previewing an animation

A slide miniature appears in the upper right corner. It shows the full animation effects of the slide.

Minature Preview Slide


Smooth Slide Shows


Next question. When you finish your first draft of a presentation, what do you do next? Do you vacation in Europe? Do you start other presentations?


Not yet. First, I like to view the whole presentation in slide show form. This way, I can look at all the graphics, animation, effects, and so on--to get a good idea of how the presentation feels. Now is the time to tweak the presentation. It's what we in the entertainment biz call "screening the rough cut".


Watching the Slide Show
In a Slide Show, all the slides of your presentation are displayed in sequence. The Slide Show is controlled either automatically or manually.

You can preview the presentation you are working on at anytime by clicking the Slide Show button. If you have applied timings to all the slides in your show, the Slide Show runs automatically.

If you haven't applied timings to the slides, you must advance the slides manually.

Let's take a look at how you can preview a Slide Show by advancing the slides manually.

Note: You can start a Slide Show from any view--Slide Sorter View, Slide View, etc.

    1. Click the Slide Show button in the lower left corner of the PowerPoint window. The first slide of the show will appear.

Slide Show button

    Note: The slide show will start from whatever slide you are viewing when you click the Slide Show button.


      2. To advance to the next slide of the show, click the left mouse button. The next slide will appear onscreen.

      3. Continue clicking the left mouse button until the show is complete.



Advnancing to the next slide tip


What if you want to tweak a part of the slide show that is in the middle? Does that mean you have to watch the beginning over again?


Not at all. Follow these steps...


Starting the Slide Show somewhere in the middle

    1. In Slide Sorter View, click the slide you want the Slide Show to start with. For example, Slide 5.

Slide Show button

    2. Click the Slide Show button.

The Slide Show begins with the slide you selected.


What if you're viewing a Slide Show and you decide you want to stop the show? Maybe the bell has rung, or maybe you want to start the Slide Show from the beginning again.





Yeah, because maybe your partner missed it the first time because he is always late. Hint, hint, Jim.

Stopping the Slide Show
PowerPoint lets you stop the slide show for any reason. Follow these steps...

    1. Move the pointer on the screen and wait for the button to appear in the lower, left- hand corner of the screen.

Controlling your Slide Show button

    2. Click the button, and then click End Show. The show stops.

Ending your Show



Stopping your slide show tip


cool for school

The Animation Kitchen

Charlie the Animation Chef has some hints on how to prepare tasty animations that will satisfy all ages. He's been creating delectable bits of eye-candy for many years and is ready to share his secrets. His animations add action and zest to any PowerPoint presentation - and are often good for giving out more information on processes such as photosynthesis, cell division and baking bread.

Here are Charlie's pointers for the animation kitchen:

Apply animations with a light hand
I remember the early days of my cooking career…when I still wore a Size Small chef hat. I was making dinner for my parents and - as many cooks have done - I went a bit too crazy with the garlic. You see, I really liked garlic, and I wanted my spaghetti sauce to be really garlicky! I suppose I was a bit overzealous… I added 15 cloves. After I'd proudly laid out the plates in front of my hungry mom and dad, I noticed their eyes watering with the first taste of my creation. I realized the sauce's garlic content was a bit out-of-hand. It was that "too much of a good thing" syndrome!

Just like any fine herb or spice, animations should be used sparingly. You don't want to make your audience dizzy with too many groovy, whirling images. Think carefully about what the animation tells your audience. One good, relevant animation is a lot more satisfying than four cool-looking ones that don't necessarily add concrete information to your presentation.

Consistency, Consistency, Consistency
When you create a meal, it's better to stick with a few basic flavors - too much variety may confuse your guests' taste buds. You don't want to serve cinnamon, oregano, dill and peppermint one after the other.

The same goes for animations: don't provide too many different varieties within the same presentation. If you use the same animation as a transition between each page, your audience will understand what is going on. They will see your transition animation and think, "Aha! There's that animation again. Now I know a new page is on the way." It could also be good to use your animations even more sparingly - for example, to introduce entirely new sections within the presentation.

Fail-proof animation recipes
Animations are very versatile. In time, you will learn how to use them in your own way - like cooking without a recipe. For now, I'll give you a couple of no-fail suggestions.

    1. To introduce before and after shots:

    Let's say you are doing a presentation on how to ice a cake. (One of my favorite things!) As the presenter, you introduce the image of a plain, un-iced cake before it slides into view from the left. That is, "Here is the plain cake - cooled and ready for the icing." The plain cake appears. Then - very dramatically - an image of the fancy finished cake slides into view from the left. You can then tell your audience, "See what you can learn to do? In this presentation, I'm going to show you how to make a beauty like this!"

    2. To introduce question and answer clips

In this case, imagine you are doing a presentation on how to avoid barbecue disasters. The following image and text slides into view from the left: A charcoal-black steak with the caption: "What's wrong with this steak?" Your answer slides into the bottom of the slide from the left. Then you can verbally give out pointers on how to avoid burning food over the flames. Any type of question and answer presentation will work well this way.