Adding Animation to a PowerPoint Presentation

Animation gives special effects to a slide element, such as how to appear or disappear.  Custom Animation is an advanced feature of animation that deals with all the elements of the slide.  You can have various element of your slide appear or disappear at different times.  You can also choose only to animate one element of your slide.  The elements in the slide refer to the title text, text, clip art, movie, graphic object, or sound.  All these elements can be coordinated to give a dynamic presentation.  One word of advice: do not over animate.  Remember if you are adding animations it is to enhance the presentation, not distract the participants from your goals and objectives or your content.  

To add animations:

• From the Slide Show Menu, choose Custom Animation.
• The Task Pane will show the Custom Animation options.
• Try adding Effects to your Title
  • The Effects in custom animation control how each element enters the slide and exits the slide. 
• Experiment with several of the options.  I have identified one option below.
• Such as Add Effect options, choose Entrance then Crawl In
• From the Direction options, choose From Left
• In the Speed options, choose Very Slow.
• Let’s add Order and Timing.
  • The order and timing in custom animation controls the sequence of the elements’ entrance to the slide and exit from the slide, and the method of such events—by clicking the mouse or automatic timing.
• Motion Paths
  • Motion Paths allow you to custom design your own path for an object or text.
• Click the object you want to animate.
• From the Task Pane choose Add Effect, then Motion Paths, then Draw Custom Path, and then Curve. 
  • Of course instead of Curve, you can choose a different one.  Also, you can use the predefined paths instead of drawing one yourself.
• To draw a path with the Curve tool
  • Click the object
  • Draw a curved shape with the drawing tool
  • To finish the curved shape, double click where you want the last point to appear. 
• Be sure and set your Speed for the Motion Path.

Adding Slide Transition

Slide Transition is a visual and/or sound effect added when advancing from one slide to another.

To add a slide transition:

• Choose Slide Transition from the Slide Show menu.
• Choose and Effect and Speed.
• Choose whether to apply the transition to the current slide only or to all the slides.
  • To apply to the current slide only, don’t do anything.  Just choose the transition. 
  • To apply to all the slides, click Apply to All Slides.
• Keep On mouse click for Advance.
• You can choose Sound effect only very sparingly.  (Imagine how distracting it would be, if every slide had a clapping sound.)
• View the presentation to see the transition effect.