There are dozens and dozens of options, so you have to practice a lot before you become comfortable in using all the different functions.

In the panel shown above, there are two actions. The one on top is a very limited set of animations, in case you're doing a very simple animation and you want to do it quickly. Usually you will not use this one.

The much better choice is to click the bottom "Custom Animation" button. This will reveal the Custom Animation task pane:

With this, you can create many forms of animations.

Basic Animation Types

First, you should understand the basic types of animations:

• Entrance: this will create an animation where your object first enters the slide.
• Emphasis: while on the slide, your object may do some animation that is not an entrance or an exit.
• Exit: your object can leave the slide.
• Motion Paths: set your object to move in a specific direction or manner.

The "Emphasis" effects are important, because they can be combined with the other animation types so that a single object can do two or more things at one time. However, the other types cannot be joined in a single object--you cannot, for example, have a single object do an entrance animation and an exit animation at the same time. If you try, then only the second of the two will work, and the first will just not happen.

The Entrance Animation

Let's begin with an "Entrance" animation.

If you select "Entrance," then you get a list of choices. You will probably want to click "More Effects..." because it gives you a choice of several dozen different animations, in a diolog box:

The effects include Basic, Subtle, Moderate, and "Exciting." Try all of them out--they will preview when you click on one of them (so long as the "Preview Effect" box is checked). In the end, choose one and click "OK."

You will see two changes: first, an animation number label will appear by the object, and second, the animation will appear in the Custom Animation list.

The label will show you that an animation exists, and which order it is (first, second, third, etc.).

The animation also appears as a bar in the list--the one with the name "Oval 3," at the bottom of the second image above.

Let's take another look at the Custom Animation task pane now:

Notice that the "Add Effect" button has now become the "Change" button; that's because you have selected the animation in the list, and so you can change to a different effect if you want.

Below that are three menus to modify the animation.

The "Modify" Menus

Also notice the "Modify" menus--in this case, "Start," Direction," and "Speed." (Note that "Direction" is a contextual menu, and often changes to another type.)

The Start menu allows you to control the timing of the animation. The three choices are:

• On Click: During the slide show, you have to click the mouse button (or hit the right-arrow key) in order to make the animation go.
• With Previous: This makes the animation happen at the exact same time as the previous animation. If there is not previous animation, then the animation will start automatically when the slide appears. You can have a "with previous" animation happen with any animation on any object.
• After Previous: This makes the animation start automatically after the previous animation, not at the same time. In other words, the second animation waits for the first to finish, then it starts.

The With Previous action is the most powerful; you can have tw different kinds of combinations:

1. First, you can combine several different animation in one object, so that one object does several things at the same time:

In the above example, I started with a "Fly in" Entrance effect, and added two Emphasis effects--"Complimentary Color" (makes the object change to several different colors) and "Vertical Highlight" (makes the object stretch vertically for a moment). Because I set the least two to happen "with previous," they joined with the "entrance effect" (#1)--notice that is the only one that has a number.

1. Second, you can combine animations of different objects, so that all the objects do different things at the same time:

In the picture above left, I have created four circles with four different Entrance Effects. In the picture on the right, I made the last three effects come "with previous," so now they will all happen at the same time as #1.

I did not set the first animation to ahppen "with previous," because that would make it happen automatically when the slide appears. In my case, I want to make them all start when I click the mouse button. However, you might want to have them start automatically--it depends on what you need in the slide show.

Next in the Modify menus is "Direction":

In this case, I have chosen a "Fly In" animation, so I am allowed to choose which direct the object comes from.

However, this is not allowed with all animations. If fact, sometimes the menu changes to another setting, like with Motion Paths below:

In other cases, the menu is simply "grayed out" and you cannot do anything.

FInally, there is the "Speed" menu, which allows you to control how fast or slow the animation is:

Animation Options

You can also click on any animation in the list, to see another set of options:

The first three options are the same as you can do in the "Start" animation menu.

The next two, "Effect Options" and "Timing" will bring up the same dialog box, and allow you to set even more animation options.

In the "Effect" tab of the dialog box, you can set the "Direction" or "Path" (it changes from case to case), just like in the second of the "Modify" menus.

However, you can also add a sound to an animation--and this is what a lot of people like to do. You can choose the sound by clicking on the "Sound" menu:

You can choose a sound from the menu, or you can choose "Other Sound..." and select a file on your computer. However, only ".wav" files can play with animations.

The little yellow "speaker" button at right does not preview the animation--instead, it lets you set the volume level for that one sound.

The "Timing" tab of the "Effect Options" dialog box allows you to control the timing of the animation:

Here, you can set the animation so it will happen automatically, after any delay you choose. For example, you can have the animation start when you click, or you can delay the animation so that it starts 2 seconds after you click. You can also have the animation start after another animation, and set a time delay. For example, the first animation would start, then PowerPoint would wait 4 seconds (for example), and then the next animation would start.

Setting the "Repeat" option will cause the animation to happen more than one time.

Motion Paths

Finally, I will demonstrate Motion Paths:

If you select Motion Paths, you will see the different types. "More Motion Paths" will let you choose from a wide variety of movements.

If I select "Diagonal Up Right" for my object, this will appear:

My object will animate from the starting point to the new location, show by the arrow.

You can also make a Custom Path, shown here:

If I choose the "Scribble" selection, a pen cursor will appear, and I can draw any path I like--for example:

The object will follow this path.

NOTE: you can add motion paths to more motion paths, setting up a chain of motions. Here is a chain of 4 paths.

When you do this, each path will start at the original location of the object. To make the path more smooth, just click-and-drag the motion path so that the starting point matches the ending point of the last motion path.

The End... Or Is It?

WHEW! That's a lot of stuff to remember. But it also is very powerful, allowing you to do almost any kind of animation that you can imagine. There are a few more features, but this is more than you need for this class.

Remember: the transition will appear at the beginning of the selected slide. In other words, if you select slide #2 and add a transition, the transition will appear between slide #1 and slide #2. Automatically, the transition only will effect the slide you have chosen, and not any other slides.

Just to the right of the transition choices, you can set:

• Transition Sound: choose a pre-set sound, or choose "Other Sound..." to select a file on your disk. As with animations, only ".wav" files will work here.
• Transition Speed: set how quickly the transition happens.
• Apply to All: make the transition you chose for this slide appear on all slides.

Finally, on the right side, you can choose to "Advance [the] Slide"--in other words, after the transition ends, how long should PowerPoint wait before automatically advancing to the next slide.

I would advise you not to use the "Advance Slide" feature; just use a mouse click, which is the normal setting. Why? Because people rarely give a perfect performance; if you take too short or too long a time to speak about the slide, it may continue to the next slide too quickly (causing you to panic and speed up your speaking too much) or too slowly (causing an embarrassing pause in your presentation).