Tag: PowerPoint animation

3 Ways Animation Can Make or Break Your Presentation

animation

PowerPoint animation

presentation design

presentation tips

Mar 29, 2017

Ever since the birth of Microsoft PowerPoint, presentations have taken a turn for the better: user-friendly interface, easy-to-use buttons, and simple settings to name a few, rendering the whole task of creating presentations simpler and less time-consuming. Best of all is how the software gives you extras and bonuses to liven up to your slides with a few clicks and adjustments.Like the other elements of a visual aid, and especially with PowerPoint, animations can mean the difference between bland slides and zesty ones. Proper use of transitions can arrest attention and provide suspense. Effects can highlight and emphasize points. Motion paths in action can guide viewers’ eyes to where they should be looking next. There are many upsides to using animations.However, as with any upside, there are bound to be repercussions—two sides of the same coin, if you will. In this case, there are cons to using animation, ones that have a lasting impact even after your talk.Animations make or break your PowerPoint. They can be the wowing element or the disappointment that makes your audience members shake their heads. Before you pepper your slides with too many special effects, ask yourself the three following questions:

PowePoint Presentation Animation: Important or Whimsical

Important or Whimsical

Do you have a point to emphasize or a concept you wish to illustrate beyond just showing an image? Or do you want your text to sparkle or your object zoom in and out? Perhaps you want a “breaking glass” effect every time you go to the next slide?If you answered affirmatively on the first question, then you know how to use animation to your advantage. Using it when and because it’s necessary is the first step to acknowledging the fact that it’s more than just for dramatic flair. When employed correctly, it makes certain points stand out among the rest of your content.If you’re of the last two questions, though, then it’s time to rethink how you approach animation. Any excess for no reason is detrimental not just to your slide but also to your whole presentation. You risk looking amateurish when you try to retain your audience’s attention with special effects instead of wowing them with your message, content, and/or design.

PowePoint Presentation Animation: Arrest or Divert Attention

Arrest or Divert Attention

New PowerPoint users tend to be excessive on the animations. But just because they think it’s great doesn’t mean their audiences will do too. The worst-case scenario is that you turn off your viewers with the sheer number of animations and stop listening.This point is very much aligned with the one above, only this one tends to encompass a more focused area: does it draw and retain attention on the objects that need to be emphasized? If yes, then the animation served its function. If it doesn’t, then consider changing the animation settings or, as is often recommended, simply avoid it.In relation to animations on your presentations, the speaker, to whom the audience should pay attention, bears the greater weight when the special effects work or not. Your presentation is not a crutch, so if it draws away the audience’s attention from you, then your talk is compromised. The message is not effectively communicated. They’re reading—or reeling or wondering why you used that transition or fade effect—when they should be listening. In that short period, their attention drifted; their focus changed. The best way to avoid that is simplifying the prevailing thought of your animation use.

PowePoint Presentation Animation: Enhancement or Distraction

Enhancement or Distraction

Overall, the main question you want to answer before putting animations on your slides is, “Will my animations enhance the audience’s experience or distract them from the main point?” If every element you have becomes a waiting game for you and your audience, then your slides, if not your whole visual aid, take away from the whole experience—and possibly diminish it. They can’t concentrate on your message, and they may feel they just wasted their time.On the other hand, if you used animations smartly and properly, carefully planning what effects to put on major points and objects and properly executing the appropriate animation, then your audience will more likely remember your talk because it’s memorable. It informed them and sparked their genuine interest.All in all, PowerPoint animations are powerful tools; like any other, depending on the speaker (or the presentation design agency), it can be used in a good way or a bad way. If the animations work well in conjunction with the other elements of your slides—the perfect harmonization of your content, design, effects, and skills as a speaker—then you’ve got on your hands a powerful visual aid. You educate people more efficiently and more effectively. And that’s one of the best goals a public speaker could have.

Resources:

Cournoyer, Brendan. “PowerPoint Animation Tips: Dos and Don’ts for Business Presentations.” Brainshark. March 7, 2012. www.brainshark.com/ideas-blog/2012/March/powerpoint-animation-tips-for-business-presentationsNewbold, Curtis. “Top 12 Most Annoying PowerPoint Presentation Mistakes.” The Visual Communication Guy. September 24, 2013. www.thevisualcommunicationguy.com/2013/09/24/top-12-most-annoying-powerpoint-presentation-mistakesNoar, Adam. “10 Essential PowerPoint Hacks for More Exciting Presentations.” PresentationPanda.com. July 4, 2016. www.presentationpanda.com/blog/essential-powerpoint-hacksRussell, Wendy. “PowerPoint Presentations – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” ThoughtCo. February 18, 2016. www.thoughtco.com/powerpoint-presentations-good-and-bad-2767094Sartain, JD. “PowerPoint Animation Tips: Don’t Be That Person Whose Slides Are Deathly Boring.” PCWorld. February 10, 2015. www.pcworld.com/article/2859249/powerpoint-animation-tips-dont-be-that-person-whose-slides-are-deathly-boring.htmlVanderlee, Carly. “The Seven Deadly Sins of PowerPoint.” Bridgeable. August 20, 2014. www.bridgeable.com/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-powerpoint“Animation–Help or Entertainment?” Training Zone. August 23, 2001. www.trainingzone.co.uk/develop/talent/animation-help-or-entertainment

Why You Should Improve Your PowerPoint with Animation

animation

PowerPoint animation

PowerPoint Morph

powerpoint presentation

Rick Enrico

SlideGenius

Aug 15, 2016

Improving your PowerPoint with animation can significantly enhance audience engagement, clarify complex concepts, and provide a polished and professional touch to your presentation. Here’s why you should consider incorporating animations into your PowerPoint:

1. Grabbing and Sustaining Attention

  • Why it matters: Animations can help capture and maintain your audience’s attention. In today’s fast-paced environment, people’s attention spans are short, and subtle animations provide visual stimuli that can keep the audience engaged.
  • How to apply: Use animations to highlight key points, emphasize transitions between sections, or introduce a new idea without overwhelming the audience. For example, having bullet points appear one at a time can guide focus and prevent information overload.

2. Enhancing Information Flow and Clarity

  • Why it matters: Animations can aid in structuring your presentation and clarifying complex processes. Instead of overwhelming the audience with too much information at once, animations allow you to control the flow of information, revealing it in digestible steps.
  • How to apply: For complex topics, use animations to break down processes step by step. For example, animated diagrams can show how different components of a system interact over time, helping the audience better grasp the material.

3. Fostering Audience Engagement

  • Why it matters: Audience engagement increases when animations are used effectively. Dynamic transitions, movements, and subtle motion can add energy to your presentation, keeping the audience interested and interactive.
  • How to apply: Incorporate motion paths or entrance effects for key data or visuals to direct attention where you need it. Make sure the animation is purposeful and not overly flashy—animations should support, not distract from, your message.

4. Highlighting Key Information

  • Why it matters: Animations are a great tool for emphasizing important information. By controlling what the audience sees and when they see it, you ensure that critical points are not missed.
  • How to apply: Use highlighting animations, such as zooming in on a key statistic or fading in a critical point, to ensure that the audience focuses on the information you want to emphasize at the right time.

5. Creating a Professional and Polished Look

  • Why it matters: Well-designed animations can give your presentation a professional and polished look, signaling that you’ve put extra effort into your preparation. This reflects well on you and your brand.
  • How to apply: Keep animations subtle and consistent. Stick to one or two types of animations to maintain a clean and cohesive aesthetic. For instance, use a simple fade or appear animation for text and images, rather than over-the-top effects.

Conclusion

Animations in PowerPoint can enhance audience engagement, clarify information, and add a professional touch when used strategically. The key is to ensure that animations are relevant, purposeful, and don’t overshadow the content. When done right, they make your presentation more impactful, memorable, and engaging.

On the Other Slide: 3 PowerPoint Hacks to Improve Your Deck

animation

business presentation

images

Powerpoint

PowerPoint animation

PowerPoint hacks

Rick Enrico

SlideGenius

streamlined pitch

visual communication

Jan 20, 2016

PowerPoint may be a user-friendly tool, but its functions go beyond templated slide designs and bullet-point lists. You don’t have to stick to plain slides and clunky graphics. Instead, why not improve your deck and create a design that’s suited for your presentation?Here are some PowerPoint hacks to help you do just that:

1. Be Creative with Your Images

It’s no secret that the leading cause of Death by PowerPoint, or complete audience boredom, is a slide overloaded with too much information.Replace blocks of text with images or keywords you can expound on. This leaves you free to talk more and keeps the audience’s attention fixed on you. However, some presenters use this as an excuse to insert random images in their slides in an uninspired layout.Make your deck more interesting by being creative with your use of images. Instead of copy-pasting a stock image to the middle of your deck, why not crop and edit it first? Crop images to your desired size by dragging the crop handles that will appear around your picture once you format it. Creatively incorporating and tweaking images to perfectly fit your deck lets you illustrate the essence of your core message without boring your audience.

2. Enhance Design with Animation

Depending on how you use them, animation and transition can make or break your presentation.Some presenters have been criticized for their excessive use of slide transitions and animations. For example, business presentations may require no more than a simple wipe. Overdoing it with a dramatic transition like Fracture or Dissolve may lessen your professional credibility.Fortunately, Microsoft’s presented a solution to that problem and released one of PowerPoint’s latest features, Morph. The add-in allows users to create seamless and impressive animations that can also be used as a slide transition.The Morph option can be found under Transitions, and it lets you animate your desired slide element, which can be in the form of objects, text, or images.Unlike the previous animation options for PowerPoint, this transition type requires you to draw out a work path for the object you want to animate. You can just drag the slide element in the direction you want it to go. When you view your presentation, the object will move on its own without needing a prompt, like a mouse click. This frees your hands and lets you further use body language to emphasize key points and connect with the audience instead of having to focus on operating a clicker.

3. Have Your Pitch in Mind

Everything on your deck should contribute to your pitch.That said, the greatest PowerPoint hack is to always keep your pitch in mind when you’re crafting your slides. Extraneous elements will only distract the audience from your main point. Before adding anything, think about why you’re putting it there and whether it will enhance your spiel.Keep an outline of your content to remind you of your slide order. Highlight key terms you want to emphasize in your visual aid so you’ll know what to include and what can be saved for verbal elaboration.Decide whether you should plug in your data as text or whether you can improve on it by presenting it creatively. For example, diagrams, charts, and other visual representations may make hard information more palatable to your audience.Content, delivery, and visuals should all go hand-in-hand, so don’t leave out one for the other. Make sure you develop each of these elements equally for an overall winning presentation.

The Takeaway: Take Advantage of PowerPoint’s Features

PowerPoint is a constantly growing software, rich with new features. Improvements in the presentation tool make it possible to improve your deck without too much hassle. To summarize:

  1. Be creative with your deck design and experiment with image layout and position. Crop and edit pictures before putting them on your slides so that they can work together with your overall design to get your message across.
  2. Make use of PowerPoint’s latest features, particularly Morph for animation, to make your deck more attractive and interactive.
  3. At the same time, always align your deck with your pitch. Good design used inappropriately can still lead to a confusing presentation.

Craft a winning deck with these PowerPoint hacks, or contact our SlideGenius experts today for a free quote!

References:

“PowerPoint 2013: Formatting Pictures.” GCF Learn Free. www.gcflearnfree.org/powerpoint2013/17″Using the Morph Transition in PowerPoint 2016.” Office Blogs. www.support.office.com/en-us/article/Using-the-Morph-transition-in-PowerPoint-2016-8dd1c7b2-b935-44f5-a74c-741d8d9244ea

PowerPoint Animation Trick: Photos from Colored to Black & White

PowerPoint animation

powerpoint tutorial

Aug 20, 2014

Animating a transition from colored to black-and-white photos in PowerPoint is a simple yet effective way to add a professional and visually engaging touch to your presentation. This technique can be used to emphasize changes, transitions, or to add dramatic effects to your images. While PowerPoint doesn’t have a built-in feature to directly animate this transition, you can create the effect using a combination of image formatting and animation tools.Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a colored-to-black-and-white photo transition in PowerPoint.

Step 1: Insert the Colored Photo

  1. Open PowerPoint and navigate to the slide where you want to insert the image.
  2. Go to the “Insert” Tab: Click on “Pictures” and choose either “This Device” or “Online Pictures” depending on where your image is stored.
  3. Select Your Image: Choose the colored photo you want to use and click “Insert” to add it to the slide.

Step 2: Duplicate the Image

To create the transition effect, you need two versions of the same image—one in color and one in black and white.

  1. Select the Image: Click on the inserted photo to select it.
  2. Duplicate the Image: Right-click the image and select “Copy” or press Ctrl + C. Then, right-click again and select “Paste” or press Ctrl + V to duplicate the image. You now have two identical colored photos on your slide.

Step 3: Convert One Image to Black and White

  1. Select the Second Image (the duplicate copy).
  2. Go to the “Format” Tab: Once the image is selected, navigate to the “Picture Format” tab on the ribbon.
  3. Apply a Black-and-White Filter:
    • Click on “Color” in the “Adjust” group.
    • Under the Recolor section, select “Grayscale” or “Black and White 50%” depending on the look you want. This will turn the second image into a black-and-white version.

Step 4: Align the Two Images

  1. Select Both Images: Hold down Shift and click on both the colored and black-and-white images.
  2. Align the Images: Go to the “Format” tab, click on “Align” and choose “Align Center” and “Align Middle” to make sure both images are perfectly aligned on top of each other.

Now that the images are aligned, you’re ready to create the transition.

Step 5: Add Animation for the Transition Effect

  1. Select the Black-and-White Image: Click on the black-and-white version of the image (the top layer).
  2. Go to the “Animations” Tab: In the ribbon, click on “Animations” to open the animation options.
  3. Choose a Disappear Animation:
    • Select the “Disappear” animation from the animation gallery. This will make the black-and-white image disappear during the slideshow, revealing the colored image underneath.
    • If you don’t see the “Disappear” animation, click on “Add Animation” to find it.

Step 6: Adjust Animation Timing

  1. Open the Animation Pane: Go to the “Animations” tab and click on “Animation Pane” to see and control the timing of the animation.
  2. Set the Trigger for the Animation: If you want the transition to happen automatically, set the animation to start “With Previous” or “After Previous” under the “Start” dropdown in the Animation Pane.
    • If you prefer to trigger the transition with a click, select “On Click”.
  3. Set Duration: Adjust the Duration (usually between 0.5 to 1 second) to control the speed of the transition from black-and-white to colored.

Step 7: Preview the Animation

  1. Click “Slide Show” or press F5 to preview the transition.
  2. The black-and-white image will now disappear, revealing the colored version underneath, creating the effect of the image transitioning from grayscale to full color.

Optional: Add Fade or Dissolve Effect

For a smoother and more dramatic transition, you can add a Fade or Dissolve animation instead of just making the black-and-white image disappear abruptly.

  1. Select the Black-and-White Image again.
  2. Apply the “Fade” Animation: Instead of choosing “Disappear,” apply the “Fade” animation for a gradual transition from black-and-white to color.
  3. Set the Duration: Adjust the duration of the fade to 1–2 seconds for a smoother, more elegant transition.

Final Thoughts

Using PowerPoint’s animation tools to transition a photo from colored to black-and-white (or vice versa) adds visual interest to your presentation and can be a great way to emphasize changes or key points. By carefully aligning your images and adjusting animation timing, you can create a seamless and professional effect that enhances the overall impact of your presentation.

Animating Brilliance: Elevating Your Presentations with PowerPoint Magic

animation

PowerPoint animation

presentation

May 27, 2014

Children aren’t the only ones who have short attention spans. Many adults do, too, although this is due to a number of factors – a busy schedule, issues at work, etc. So if you’re presenting a PowerPoint to your team or potential business partners, you need to step up your game. One way to do this is by adding animation to your slides.PowerPoint animations are very useful for creating a more interesting presentation. It can keep your audience engaged as you deliver each of your points. If children with short attention span are easily entertained by animated cartoons, I’m quite positive that their adult counterparts will find PowerPoint animations enjoyable as well.If you’re ready to get started, here’s how you can take advantage of PowerPoint’s animation feature:

1. Use the available animations

The Add Animation gallery provides you with simple animations you can apply to the elements on your slide. Just click any of the items you want to animate, click on the Animation tab, and then click Add Animation. Below the wide range of basic animations that control the way the items move on your slides.powerpoint animationYou can use these basic animations to make your items enter, exit, appear, and disappear on the slides.

2. Set the triggers

Triggers allow you to link the animation to a different action. You can do this by creating bookmarks in the presentation, which then prompt an animation to start. Alternatively, you can set an action to start upon clicking your mouse. To set a trigger for an animation, click an item and then click Trigger, which you can find in the Advanced Animation group under the Animations tab.powerpoint animations

3. Automate sequences with Animation Painter

Before, with the older versions of Microsoft PowerPoint, you will have to spend hours just to get the animation working perfectly. But now, you can easily automate your animation sequences with the help of the Animation Painter.powerpoint animationWith the Animation Painter, simply click the element with the animation you like to copy and drag the pointer over the item on the slide to apply the animation settings. PowerPoint will take care of the rest.

4. Measure Entry and Exit Using Timeline

You can find the timeline at the bottom of the Animation Pane. This helps you gauge the entry and exit of the items on the slide. You can also use it to determine whether you want to adjust the time or order of events.animation2Each animation also displays the span of time through the time segment at the right of every animation entry. You may tweak the animations so that the action occurs at the exact time that you prefer. Just scroll along the timeline by clicking the small arrows at either end. You may also click the Seconds control if you want to Zoom In or Zoom Out and adjust the increments of time.

5. View Everything on the Animation Pane

As you work on the animation, you can see all the information and tools you use on the Animation Pane. To display the Animation Pane, click the Animation tab and select Animation Pane right in the Advanced Animation group. This feature lets you preview the animation, reorder animations, and see where they fall on the timeline.The important thing about using animations in your slides is to keep everything simple. PowerPoint offers a lot of features for animating any item on your slide but misusing them can confuse your audience, not to mention make your presentations look amateurish.

About SlideGenius SlideGenius.com is your business PPT guru. Based in San Diego, California, SlideGenius has helped more than 500 international clients enhance their presentations, including those of J.P. Morgan, Harley-Davidson, Pfizer, Verizon, and Reebok. Call us at 1.858.217.5144 and let SlideGenius help you with your presentation today!