How to Add Sound and Movement to PowerPoint Slides

12/17/2015

Contents

This chapter from Microsoft Office 2016 Step by Step guides you through procedures related to animating text and pictures on slides, customizing animation effects, adding audio content to slides, adding video content to slides, and optimizing and compressing media.

A PowerPoint presentation might be designed to provide ancillary information for a live presentation, or to stand alone as an information source. Regardless of the method of delivery, a presentation has no value if it doesn’t keep the attention of the audience. An element that can make the difference between an adequate presentation and a great presentation is the judicious use of animated content, sound, and videos. By incorporating these dynamic effects, 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 PowerPoint 2016, 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 animations, sound, and videos to your slides, it is best to err on the conservative side. As you gain more experience, you’ll learn how to mix and match effects to get the results you want for a particular audience.

This chapter guides you through procedures related to animating text and pictures on slides, customizing animation effects, adding audio content to slides, adding video content to slides, and optimizing and compressing media.

Animate text and pictures on slides

In the context of PowerPoint, animation refers to the movement of an element on a slide. When used appropriately, animated slide elements can both capture the audience’s attention and effectively convey information. You can animate any individual objects on a slide, including text containers, pictures, and shapes. (You can’t animate objects that are part of the slide background or slide master, other than as part of the transition between slides.)

Thoughtfully designed animations can be very informative, particularly for audience members who are more receptive to visual input than to auditory input. Animations have the added benefit of providing a consistent message with or without a presenter to discuss or externally illustrate a process.

The elements of a multipart animation

You can configure four types of animations: the appearance, movement, emphasis, and disappearance of objects on the slide. There are multiple options within these four categories. The options are categorized as Basic, Subtle, Moderate, and Exciting (although you might have a different concept of “exciting” than the PowerPoint developer who categorized the effects). A few more animation effects are available for text than for other slide objects.

Here’s a breakdown of the animation effects that are available in PowerPoint 2016:

Entrance animations An object with an animated entrance is not visible when the slide first appears. (It is visible during the development process, but not when you present the slide show.) It then appears on the slide in the manner specified by the entrance effect. Some entrance effects are available in the Animation gallery. They’re illustrated in green, and their icons provide some idea of the movement associated with the effect.

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Have fun experimenting with the different effects

Clicking More Entrance Effects at the bottom of the Animation menu opens a dialog box that displays all the available entrance animations by category to help you choose an appropriate effect.

The entrance animation effects available for text
Emphasis animations These effects animate an object that is already visible on the slide to draw attention to it, without changing its location. The emphasis effects that are available in the Animation gallery are illustrated in yellow.

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Effects range from subtle to bold

Clicking More Emphasis Effects at the bottom of the Animation menu opens a dialog box that displays all the available emphasis animations by category.

The emphasis animations available for text and images
Motion Path animations These effects move an object along a path that you specify, over a period of time that you specify. A few simple motion paths are available from the Animation gallery, but a surprisingly large variety is available from the dialog box that opens when you click More Motion Paths at the bottom of the Animation menu.

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The motion path animations available for text
Exit animations These effects take an existing object through a process that results in the object no longer being visible on the slide. The exit effects that are available in the Animation gallery are illustrated in red.

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Choose an effect that suits the style of your presentation

Additional exit effects are available from the Change Exit Effect dialog box.

The exit animations available for text

Animations can be very simple, or very complex. Many animations have options that you can configure, such as the direction, speed, size, or color. For example, when you configure an entrance effect for a bulleted list, you can specify whether to have the entire list enter the slide at the same time, or to have only one bulleted item enter at a time. After you choose an effect, the applicable options are available on the Effect Options menu.

Some animations have options, and others don’t

You can apply multiple animation effects (for example, an entrance effect and an emphasis effect) to a single object. As you assign animations to slide objects, numbers appear on the objects to specify the order of the animation effects. The numbers are visible only when the Animation tab is active.

Each number represents one animation

As you build an animated slide, you can add and animate individual elements, or you can add all the elements to the slide first, and then animate them. Regardless of the process you choose, position the objects on the slide as follows:

Entrance effects Position the object where you want it to end up after it enters the slide.
Emphasis effects Position the object where it will be before and after the effect.
Exit effects Position the object where it will be before it leaves the slide.

After all the elements are in place, animate them in the order you want the animations to occur. (If you’re animating multiple objects, it might be helpful to write out a description of the process before starting.) If you animate something out of order, don’t worry—you can reorder the animations from within the Animation Pane.

Animate this

Animations can greatly enrich presentation content. However, incorporating a “dazzling” array of animation effects into a presentation can be distracting or confusing to the audience. Ensure that the time you put into creating an animation has value to you and to your audience members.

Consider using animations to provide subliminal information—for example, in a multipart presentation, use one consistent entrance effect for the part opener titles to draw the attention of the audience members and cue them to a change of subject.

An excellent use of animation is to create “build slides” that add information in layers and essentially culminate in a review slide. Simple examples of build slides include:

A bulleted list that adds one item to the list at a time. For greater impact, display an image related to the current list item, and replace the image as each new list item appears.
A pie chart that displays each chart wedge individually, and finishes with the complete pie. Make this even more informative by displaying a detailed breakdown of the chart data for each category as you display its chart wedge.

You could achieve these effects by creating series of separate slides, but it’s much simpler to animate the list or chart object.

A more difficult but often worthwhile use of slide object animation is to provide a visual image of a process as you describe it. You can narrate the animation in person or, if you’re going to distribute the presentation electronically, you can record the narration and synchronize the animations with the relevant wording.

To animate an object on a slide

Display the slide in the Slide pane, and select the object that you want to animate, or its container. (For example, if you want to animate the entrance of a bulleted list, select the text box that contains the bulleted list.)
On the Animations tab, in the Animation group, click the More button to display the Animation menu and gallery.

TIP

If the menu expands to cover the slide content, you can drag the handle in the lower-right corner of the menu to resize it.

The Animation gallery and menu
Do either of the following:
- In the Animation gallery, click the icon that represents the animation you want to apply.
- On the Animation menu, click the More command for the type of animation you want to apply, and then in the Change Type Effect dialog box, click the animation you want.
PowerPoint displays a live preview of the selected animation effect and adds an animation number adjacent to the object. A star appears next to the slide thumbnail to indicate that the slide contains either an animation or a transition.

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In the Thumbnails pane, the star below the slide number indicates the presence of movement on the slide

To select an applied animation

On the slide or in the Animation Pane, click the animation number.

To display or hide the Animation Pane

On the Animations tab, in the Advanced Animation group, click the Animation Pane button.

To configure animation options

Apply the animation, or select a previously applied animation.
On the Animations tab, in the Animation group, click the Effect Options button. (If the button is unavailable, the animation has no configurable options.)

The Effect Options menu has one titled section for each option that you can configure.
On the Effect Options menu, click one option in each section.

To apply multiple animation effects to one object

Apply the first animation effect and configure any options.
Select the object (not the animation). The existing animation information is highlighted on the Animations tab and in the Animation Pane.
On the Animations tab, in the Advanced Animation group, click the Add Animation button. In the Add Animation gallery, click the additional animation you want to apply.

To copy a set of animation effects from one object to another object

Select the source object.
On the Animations tab, in the Advanced Animation group, click the Animation Painter button.
Point to the object you want to format. When a paintbrush appears to the right of the cursor, click the object to apply the formatting.

To preview animations

Do any of the following:
- To preview all animations on a slide in order, on the Animations tab, in the Preview group, click the Preview button.
- To preview a specific animation and those that follow, in the Animation Pane, click the first animation, and then click the Play From button.
- To preview one animation, select the animation on the slide and then, in the Animation Pane, click the Play Selected button.

To remove animation effects from slide objects

Do either of the following in the Animation Pane:
- To remove one animation, right-click the animation, and then click Remove.
- To remove all animations, click any animation, press Ctrl+A to select all the animations, and then press Delete.

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