Adding Animation, Sound, and Movies to Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007

  • 1/3/2007
The difference between an adequate presentation and a great presentation often lies in the judicious use of multimedia. In this chapter from Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 Step by Step, learn to apply predefined animations, change some of the animation settings, change the way slides move on and off the screen during a slide show, insert a sound clip and a sound file and make various adjustments to their settings, and insert a movie file, preview the movie, and modify its behavior.

Chapter at a Glance

In this chapter, you will learn to:

The difference between an adequate presentation and a great presentation often lies in the judicious use of multimedia. By incorporating animation, sound, and movie clips, you can grab and keep the attention of your audience. You can emphasize key points, control the focus of the discussion, and entertain in ways that will make your message memorable.

With Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, you have so many opportunities to add pizzazz to your slides that it is easy to end up with a presentation that looks more like an amateur experiment than a professional slide show. When you first start adding multimedia to your slides, it is best to err on the conservative side, especially where animation is concerned. As you gain more experience, you will learn how to mix and match effects to get the results you want for a particular audience.

In this chapter, you will apply predefined animations to the title, bullet points, and a picture on a slide, see how to change some of the animation settings, and then change the way slides move on and off the screen during a slide show. You will insert a sound clip and a sound file and make various adjustments to their settings. Finally, you will insert a movie file, preview the movie, and modify its behavior.

Animating Slide Elements

With all the options available for creating engaging and lively presentations in PowerPoint 2007, you no longer have to settle for static presentations, especially if you are delivering the presentation from a computer. By applying various types of animations to the text and graphics on your slides, you can keep your audience focused and reinforce the message of your presentation. For example, you can animate text so that it appears on the screen one paragraph, word, or letter at a time; or you can animate objects, such as shapes or pictures.

To apply one of three common animation effects (Wipe, Fade, or Fly In) to text or an object on a slide, you click the element you want to animate and then select the effect from the Animate list in the Animations group on the Animations tab. In the case of bullet points, you can specify whether they should be animated as a set or one by one. To help you decide which effect to use, you can point to each in turn to see a live preview.

If you would rather create your own animation scheme, you can select the text or object you want to animate and click the Custom Animation button in the Animations group to display the Custom Animation task pane. In this task pane, you can quickly apply the following types of effects:

  • Entrance. You can animate the way that the element appears on the slide.

  • Emphasis. You can increase or decrease the importance of the element by changing its font, size, or style; by making it grow or shrink; or by making it spin.

  • Exit. You can animate the way that the element leaves the slide.

  • Motion Path. You can move the element around on the slide in various ways, such as diagonally to the upper-right corner or in a circular motion.

If none of the lists of predefined effects meets your needs, you can click More Effects at the bottom of each list to display galleries of professionally designed animations in four categories: Basic, Subtle, Moderate, and Exciting. You can see a live preview of each animation by pointing to it.

After you apply an animation effect, you can fine-tune its action. For example:

  • You can specify whether the animation should be accompanied by a sound.

  • You can dim or hide the element after the animation, or you can have it change to a specific color.

  • If the animation is applied to text, you can animate all the text at once or animate it word by word or letter by letter.

  • You can set the exact timing of the animation.

  • If a slide has more than one level of bullet points, you can animate different levels separately.

  • If an object has text, you can animate the object and the text together (the default) or separately, or you can animate one but not the other.

  • You can specify the order of appearance of text or objects.

In this exercise, you will apply predefined animations to the title, bullet points, and a picture on a slide. You will then change some of the animation settings.

  1. Display Slide 3 in Normal view, and then click the slide title.

  2. On the Animations tab, in the Animations group, click the Animate arrow, and in the list, point in turn to the Fade, Wipe, and Fly In options to see a live preview of each effect.

  3. In the list, click Fly In, and then if the Custom Animation task pane is not open on the right side of the program window, click the Custom Animation button.

    A square box containing the number 1 appears to the left of the title, indicating that this element will be the first one animated on this slide. On the Slides tab to the left, an animation icon (a shooting star) appears below the slide number to indicate the presence of some form of animation on the slide. To the right, the Custom Animation task pane provides option you can use to make adjustments to the animation.

  4. In the Custom Animation task pane, click Play.

    The title flies up from the bottom of the slide.

  5. On the slide, click anywhere in the bulleted list. Then in the Custom Animation task pane, click Add Effect, point to Entrance, and then click Checkerboard.

    PowerPoint applies the animation to the bulleted list and demonstrates the effect. Adjacent to each bullet point, a number in a box indicates the order in which the animations will take effect. Notice that the subpoints will appear at the same time as their “parent” bullet point. Corresponding numbers appear in the Custom Animation task pane next to icons indicating the animation trigger, the effect, and the affected text. You can display the full description of an animation by pointing to it in the list.

  6. On the slide, click the picture. Then in the Custom Animation task pane, click Add Effect, point to Entrance, and then click Fly In.

  7. With the picture still selected, in the Custom Animation task pane, click Add Effect, point to Emphasis, and then click More Effects.

    The Add Emphasis Effect dialog box opens.

  8. Move the dialog box to one side so that you can see the picture, and then click each option in turn, observing the effect on the picture. Finish by clicking Teeter under Moderate, and then clicking OK.

    On the slide, the numbers 6 and 7 now appear to the left of the picture.

  9. With animation 7 (the second animation of Picture 1) selected in the Custom Animation task pane, click the Re-Order Up button twice to place this animation in position 2.

    The original animation of Picture 1 now appears in position 7.

  10. Click animation 7 (the original animation of Picture 1), and then click the Re-Order Up button once to place the animation in position 3.

    On the slide, the numbers adjacent to the bullet points indicate that their animations will now occur after those of the picture.

  11. In the Custom Animation task pane, click the Expand Contents bar below the four animations.

    The animation list expands to show the other bullet points and subpoints in the list. (These were hidden because they have the same animation applied to them as the first bullet point.)

  12. In the animation list, click What’s in a name, click the arrow that appears, and then click Effect Options.

    The Checkerboard dialog box opens because you applied the Checkerboard effect to the bulleted list in step 6.

  13. In the Checkerboard dialog box, click the Text Animation tab.

    You can use the options on this tab to change the order of the animation.

  14. In the dialog box, click the Group text arrow, and in the list, click By 2nd level paragraphs. Then click OK.

    Both on the slide and in the Custom Animation task pane, the subpoints under What’s in a name now have consecutive numbers, indicating that they will appear one after the other.

  15. In the task pane, click Play, and watch as PowerPoint builds the slide.

  16. In the task pane, click animation 1, click Change, point to Entrance, and then click Checkerboard.

  17. In the task pane, with animation 1 still selected, under Modify: Checkerboard, click the Speed arrow, and then in the list, click Medium.

    PowerPoint demonstrates the new speed on the slide.

  18. With animation 1 still selected, click its arrow, and then click Effect Options.

    The Checkerboard dialog box opens.

  19. On the Effect tab, under Enhancements, click the Sound arrow, and in the list, click Voltage.

  20. Click the After animation arrow, and in the palette, click the orange box.

  21. Click the Animate text arrow, and in the list, click By letter. Then click OK.

    PowerPoint demonstrates the effects of your changes on the slide.

  22. At the bottom of the Custom Animation task pane, click Slide Show, and then click the mouse button after each element of Slide 3 appears, until all the elements are visible.

  23. Press the key to return to Normal view, and then close the Custom Animation task pane.