Create Special Effects in PowerPointLiven up those PowerPoint presentations with a few simple animation tricks.
TipWorld staff, edited by Tricia Harding Adding animations to your PowerPoint slide show can perk up your presentation,
not to mention your audience members. Here are a few quick and easy tricks
for jazzing up those slides.
Right on TargetHere's an idea for a simple
and effective slide animation: Have an arrow move in from the left side of
the slide to strike a target at the right side. To draw a target (if you can't
find one you like in ClipArt), draw a series of ovals, each one larger than
the other. You don't have to draw them concentrically; you can take care of
that later. In fact, it will probably be easier to draw them side by side.
For each oval, select a fill color (the Fill Color button is the one that
resembles a bucket of paint being poured out).
Now press Ctrl-A to select all the ovals. Next,
choose Draw, Align or Distribute, Align Center and
then choose Draw, Align or Distribute, Align Middle. This
should create an object resembling a target. You'll need to click the largest
oval and choose Draw, Order, Send to Back. You'll
also have to click each oval and choose an order for it to make the target
look right. This procedure may be a bit tedious, but don't give up--it can
be done. When you're finished with this, choose Draw, Group
to turn the group of ovals into a single drawing.
Now all you have to do is draw the arrow. Click the AutoShapes button and
choose an arrow. Draw the arrow and place it at the bull's-eye. Right-click
the arrow and choose Custom Animation. When the
dialog box opens, click the arrow at the right side of the Entry Animation
list box and choose Fly from Left from the list.
Click OK, and now you can choose Slide Show, View Show
to see how your animation looks.Zoom ThisA zoom-out animation is also
very effective in PowerPoint slides. To try it, run PowerPoint and open a
blank slide. Choose Insert, Picture, ClipArt and
double-click a picture to insert it into the slide. Move the picture near
the top of the slide using the mouse. Right-click the picture and choose
Custom Animation. When the Custom Animation dialog box opens,
click the Effects tab. Click the arrow at the right side of the Entry Animation
list box to expand the list and then select Zoom Out From Screen
Bottom. Now, click the Timing tab and select the radio buttons
labeled Animate and On Mouse Click. Click OK to close the dialog box and save
your selections. To test the animation, choose
Slide Show, View Show. When the slide show opens, click the
mouse to see the animation. Now use the mouse to resize the ClipArt picture
and test the animation again. If it still works, increase the size a bit more.
Note, however, that you'll soon reach a size at which the animation will fail
and the picture will simply appear on the screen. (This isn't a big deal,
but we wanted to let you know about it before you start wondering why some
of your animation fails.)Making Those Charts MoveIf you have an
Excel chart that you've imported into a PowerPoint slide, you can animate
the chart components if you wish. (To import a chart, right-click the chart
in Excel, choose Copy, move to PowerPoint, and
select menucommand: Paste to paste it into your
slide.) In PowerPoint, select the chart and choose Draw, Ungroup.
Next, press Ctrl-A to select all
the components. Now hold down the [[keyboardkey: Shift]] key while you deselect
all the chart components that you want to animate. Once you've deselected
all the necessary components, release the Shift
key and choose Draw, Group.Now you
can right-click the chart and choose Custom Animation.
Click the Timing tab and select Animate. Select the components to animate
and then click the Effects tab. Select the effect you want for each component.
To see how your animation looks, click Preview. When you're finished, click
OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.In the BackgroundIn addition to animating
objects in PowerPoint slides, you may also want to animate the background.
If you change the background from one slide to the next, you can approximate
some of the techniques used in television commercials.Run PowerPoint,
open a slide show, and right-click the first slide. When the Background dialog
box opens, click the arrow at the right side of the Background Fill list box.
When the list expands, click More Colors and then click the Custom tab. Choose
a color and click OK. Back in the Background dialog box, click Apply.
Now, move to the next slide and repeat, this time choosing a different shade
of the same color. Continue for as many slides as needed. When you run the
slide show, the background will progressively change shades. Of course, the
more slides you use, the more subtle the change will be between them. 
