Lesson 4: Pump Up the "Power" of Your Presentation
Animation and Media Features
While creating a basic PowerPoint presentation is fine and functional, it does not always provide the greatest impact. Animation effects can entertain the audience and help you to get your point across. One bit of caution with animation effects is to not use them too often. Several animated objects and sounds can bog down a presentation and mark you as amateur. It is best to have a tasteful amount of animation. Place animation only in parts where you wish to stress specific information. Remember, less can be more sometimes.
We’ve talked a little bit about slide transitions. Slide transitions are a type of animation. Now let’s look at several other components of your presentation that you can have fun animating. We are going to animate slide text and slide objects.
Open your presentation and find a slide that contains a good deal of text. Instead of having the entire text appear at the same time, we will set up animation effects that bring in the text piece by piece.
We will be using the “Animation Effects” toolbar. Verify that you can view it by opening the “View” menu, select “Toolbars” and make sure there is a check mark next to the “Animation Effects” toolbar.
How to animate slide text
You will see several icons on the “Animation Effects” toolbar that look like a typewriter, star, etc.. The specific effects to choose from include: Laser Text, Drive-In, Flying, Camera, Typewriter Text, Drop-In Text, and Flash Once. Some of these effects will have a sound associated with it. For example, the typewriter text effect sounds like an old fashioned typewriter.
There are two major icons to remember which are located at the top of the “Animation Effects” toolbar. If you hover your mouse over each one you’ll see that the first icon is called “Animate Title” and the second icon is “Animate Slide Text”. If you press down on “Animate Title” and then press down on a text effect you have created the animation effect for the title text only.
Then you can press down on the “Animate Slide Text” icon and press down on an animation effect below it. Test it out by running your slide show. Or you can click on the star and magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the toolbar. It will show you a mini version of your slide and the animation effects you have created.
How to animate slide objects
Let’s say you have a picture of a racecar in your presentation. It would be neat to have the picture “drive in”. In this case you would animate a slide object (the picture). Follow the same steps as slide text except just make sure to have the picture “active” when you click on an animation feature in the “Animation Effects” toolbar.
Media Features
We know how make text and objects appear animated on our screen, but what about movies and sound? What if you would like to have voice-overs during the presentation? Maybe you would like to click on a button and watch a short movie you created. You can do all of this and more with PowerPoint’s multimedia features.
We’re going to learn how to insert sound and movies. These are more advanced features so make sure you have mastered the basics first. Perhaps you have already seen presentations with sounds and movies.
How to add sounds to your presentation
Since we already are familiar with slide transitions, let’s first talk about adding a sound to a slide transition. Just open the “Slide Show” menu and select “Slide Transition”. On the right hand side you will see the pull down menu to choose a sound for the slide transition. Once again you can apply this sound to the current slide or all slides.
You can also add in sounds manually to any spot in your presentation. Open the “Insert” menu select “Movies and Sounds”. From there you can choose to open a sound from Clip Art, from a saved sound file or even record a sound of your own. When you run your presentation you simply click on the sound icon to play it. (Refer to step by step Chapter 12 for specific instructions.)
How to add a movie to your presentation
You would add a movie in the similar fashion as adding a sound. Open the “Insert” menu and select “Movies and Sounds”. You can open a movie from your Clip Art or from a saved movie file. Refer to (step by step Chapter 12 for specific instructions.)
