PowerPoint is an excellent presentation tool for creating slides that present information in a visual manner. Users can easily create slides with text and images, and the software makes it simple to transition from slide to slide, which is great for keeping your audience engaged as you walk them through your content.

To make your presentations even more engaging and captivating, you can use animations within your slides. An animation is an image or video that moves or changes to portray a concept in a more exciting way. You can use animations for many different purposes within your presentations, including:

Getting Started with Animations in PowerPoint

To get started with creating PowerPoint animations, you need to have at least one slide in your presentation. Then, you can begin adding animations to your other slides. It’s best to start simple and work your way up to more complicated animations.

Animations can be distracting, so you want to use them sparingly and make sure that they add to the message of your presentation rather than distracting from it. Once you have your first slide with animations in place, you can begin adding animations to other slides. Creating a New Animation: This is done right within the slide layout panel. Next, you can add an animation to your presentation by clicking the “Add an Animation” button.

This will open the Animation panel, which lets you choose from a variety of pre-made animations or click the “Create New Animation” button to create a new one from scratch. Adding an Animation to an Existing Slide: To add an animation to an existing slide, click the “Add an Animation” button for that slide in the Animation panel. Next, find the animation you’d like to add and double-click it to select it.

When you select an animation, it will appear in the “Animation” text box at the bottom of the slide. Click inside the “Animation” text box and type the name you would like to use for that slide. Use Keynote’s Video Slides for Animations: One nifty feature of Keynote is its ability to create video-enabled presentation slides. Video presentation slides can be created using a combination of images, text, and video files. All you have to do is select “Video” as the source type for your slide in the slide layout panel.

Then, add images, text, and other visuals to create your slide. Once you have your slide ready, you can insert a Keynote video into your slide by clicking the “Add a Video” button. When you add a video to your slide, it will appear in the playback area with its controls visible. Use the controls to adjust the play speed, pause the playback, and mute the sound. Create Standard Bouncing Ball Animations: Standard bouncing ball animations are great for showing how objects move from one location to another.

You can incorporate these animations into your slides to show the movement of your content, such as when a slide transitions to the next or an object moves from one location to another. To create a bouncing ball animation, add an image or video to your slide and position it where you want the ball to appear. Next, select “Animation” as the animation type in the slide layout panel. This will add an animation icon to the bottom of your slide. Turning Pages and Scrolling Textures: Turning pages and scrolling text effects are similar to bouncing ball animations in that they show how objects move from one location to another.

However, with these effects, the images and videos on your slides flip or scroll from side to side or up and down. This can be a great way to add variety to your presentations, showing how your content and images move in various ways. To create turning pages and scrolling textures, add images, text, or video to your slides and then select “Animation” as the animation type. These are also suitable for adding variety to your presentations.

Create a New Animation

Now that you have an understanding of the basics, it’s time to create your first animation. You can do this by creating a new animation from scratch or by editing an existing one. To create a new animation from scratch, click the “Create New Animation” button in the Animation panel. This opens the Create New Animation panel, where you can choose between creating a new animation based on a custom template or using an existing animation.

Add an Animation to an Existing Slide

Now that you have a visual representation of how to create animations, it’s time to put what you’ve learned into action. To add an animation to an existing slide, click the “Add an Animation” button for that slide in the Animation panel. Next, find the animation you’d like to add and double-click it to select it. When you select an animation, it will appear in the “Animation” text box at the bottom of the slide. Click inside the “Animation” text box and type the name you would like to use for that slide.

Use Keynote’s Video Slides for Animations

One nifty feature of Keynote is its ability to create video-enabled presentation slides. Video presentation slides can be created using a combination of images, text, and video files. All you have to do is select “Video” as the source type for your slide in the slide layout panel.

Then, add images, text, and other visuals to create your slide. Once you have your slide ready, you can insert a Keynote video into your slide by clicking the “Add a Video” button. When you add a video to your slide, it will appear in the playback area with its controls visible. Use the controls to adjust the play speed, pause the playback, and mute the sound.

Create Standard Bouncing Ball Animations

Standard bouncing ball animations are great for showing how objects move from one location to another. You can incorporate these animations into your slides to show the movement of your content, such as when a slide transitions to the next or an object moves from one location to another.

To create a bouncing ball animation, add an image or video to your slide and position it where the ball should appear. Next, select “Animation” as the animation type in the slide layout panel. This will add an animation icon to the bottom of your slide.

Turning Pages and Scrolling Textures Turning pages and scrolling textures are similar to bouncing ball animations in that they show how objects move from one location to another. However, with these effects, the images and videos on your slides flip or scroll from side to side or up and down. This can be a great way to add variety to your presentations, showing how your content and images move in various ways. To create turning pages and scrolling textures, add images, text, or video to your slides and then select “Animation” as the animation type.

Conclusion

PowerPoint has the ability in creating PowerPoint animations that present information in a visual manner. Animations can be used to spice up your content, and they are a great way to keep your audience engaged as you walk them through your content. Now that you have a better understanding of how to use animations in PowerPoint, try incorporating some of the techniques discussed in this article into your presentations and see how they add to the message.