Technology Training

PowerPoint 2007: Adding animations

Animate the text or objects in your presentation to give them sound effects or visual effects, including movement. You can use animation to focus on important points, to control the flow of information, and to increase viewer interest in your presentation. You can use the built-in animation effects, or you can create your own custom effects. You can apply animation effects to individual slides, to the slide master or to custom slide layouts.

• Apply a built-in animation effect to text or objects
• Create and apply a custom animation effect to text or objects
• Test your animation effect

Apply a built-in animation effect to text or an object

1. Select the text or object that you want to animate.
2. On the Animations tab, in the Animations group, select the animation effect that you want from the Animate list.

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Create and apply a custom animation effect to text or objects

You can create custom animations in the Custom Animation task pane. The Custom Animation task pane shows important information about an animation effect, including the type of effect, the order of multiple effects in relation to each other, and a portion of the text of the effect.

Icons indicate the timing of the animation effect in relation to the other events on the slide. Choices include the following: Start On Click (mouse icon, shown here): The animation effect begins when you click the slide. Start With Previous (no icon): The animation effect begins at the same time as the previous effect in the list starts playing (that is, one click executes two or more animation effects). Start After Previous (clock icon): The animation effect begins immediately after the previous effect in the list finishes playing (that is, no additional click is required to make the next animation effect start).  Select an item in the list to see the menu icon (down arrow), and then click the icon to reveal the menu.  Numbers indicate the order in which animation effects play. Numbers also correspond to the labels associated with animated items in Normal view with the Custom Animation task pane displayed.  Icons represent the type of animation effect. In this example, it is an Emphasis effect.

Animated items are noted on the slide by a non-printing numbered tag. This tag corresponds to the effects in the Custom Animation list, and the tag is displayed to the side of the text or object. The tag appears only in Normal view with the Custom Animation task pane displayed.

To apply a custom animation effect,

1. Select the text or object that you want to animate.
2. On the Animations tab, in the Animations group, click Custom Animation.
3. In the Custom Animation task pane, click Add Effect, and then do one or more of the following:
   • To make the text or object enter with an effect, point to Entrance, and then click an effect.
   • To add an effect, such as a spin effect, to text or an object that is already visible on the slide, point to Emphasis, and then click an effect.
   • To add an effect that makes text or an object leave the slide at some point, point to Exit, and then click an effect.
   • To add an effect that makes text or an object move in a specified pattern, point to Motion Paths, and then click a path.
4. To specify how the effect is applied to your text or object, right-click the custom animation effect in the Custom Animation list, and then click Effect Options on the shortcut menu.
5. Do one of the following:
   • To specify settings for text, on the Effect, Timing, and Text Animation tabs, click the options that you want to use to animate the text.
   • To specify settings for an object, on the Effect and Timing tabs, click the options that you want to use to animate the object

   Note: Effects appear in the Custom Animation list in the order that you add them.

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Test your animation effect

After you add one or more animation effects, to validate that they work, do the following:

• At the bottom of the Custom Animation task pane, click Play.

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