With just a few clicks you can add interesting transition effects to the slides in your presentation.
Transition effects, or transitions as they are often called, are the movements you see
when one slide changes to another in Slide Show view.
You may be wondering how transitions are different than animations.
Although, the slides are animated as you move from one slide to another, the term animation
in PowerPoint, refers to the movements of text and objects on the slide, while transitions
refers to the movement of the slide as it changes to another slide.
Let's go ahead and take a look at the available slide transitions.
To view these, select the Animations tab on the Ribbon.
In the Transition to this Slide group you can see icons of several transitions.
Right now there is No Transition applied to the slide, so that option is selected.
As we hover over an icon, we'll see a live preview of the transition on the slide.
You can scroll through the list one row at a time or click the drop-down arrow to see
the complete list of transitions available. You can see we have some fade and dissolve
options, and many different Wipe options. If we scroll down we can see some other transitions
such as Push and Cover, Stripes and Bars, and Random.
Some of these are simple, while some others are definitely more noticeable.
Right now we are in Normal View. On the Slides tab in the task pane on the
left I can see that slides 1, 2, 3 and 6 have animated text or objects on the slide.
I know this because all slides with animation have a little star Play Animations icon that
plays animations and transitions. If I click the star the animation on the slide
will play, but no transition since I haven't applied one yet.
Let's go ahead and add a transition. If you'd prefer to work in Slide Sorter view
you can, but I personally prefer to stay in Normal view.
To apply a slide transition to all slides, just select a slide and then select the Animations
tab. Click the transition you want to apply and
now that slide has the transition applied. Right now you can't see that anything has
changed because this slide already had animation but click the star animation icon and you
will see how your slide will appear in your presentation.
You can see the Dissolve transition and then any animation you set previously.
To apply this transition to all slides, click Apply to All.
Now I can click each star Play Animations icon and see that the Dissolve transition
has been applied to all the slides. Also, the icon appeared beneath the other
slides that didn't already have animation. If we look at our slides in Slide Sorter view,
we can see the star Play Animations icon beneath each slide.
You can also set the slide transition speed. The default speed for Dissolve is Fast.
To change this, just select an option from the Transition Speed drop-down menu.
I'll select Slow so you can see the difference. The new speed is only applied to the selected
slide, but you can click Apply to All. You can set the speed when you apply a transition,
or you can do it afterwards, like we just did.
So, right now each slide has the Dissolve transition at a slow speed.
To change the transition and transition speed for all slides, just select a slide, click
a transition, change the transition speed if you wish and then click Apply to All.
Now, all the slides have the Fade Smoothly Transition at a slow speed.
Sometimes you may want to apply a different transition to a specific slide.
For example, on slide 4, I want to use a different transition that will help draw attention to
our chart data. To do this, just select a slide, click the
transition you want to apply, and change the default speed, if you wish.
Here...I like this wipe transition. On slide 6 I might like to apply the Wipe
Down transition. You can apply a different transition on each
slide, if you wish, but be careful - you could end up with a presentation like this.
I think I'll just leave my transitions like they are right now.
You do have one more important transition option and that is transition sound.
If you click the Transition Sound drop-down menu you will see a long list of options.
Each of these sounds can be applied to one or more of your slide transitions.
To add a transition sound to a slide, just select the slide and click the Transition
Sound drop-down menu. Right now, there is no sound applied to the
transition, but you have many options such as applause, a camera, a laser, and more.
Let's see, it might be kind of funny to add the sound of a cash register to slide 6, so
I'll select Cash Register from the menu. Now, if I select slide 5, and click Slide
Show view, I can see how this transition sound will appear in my presentation.
If I want to apply the sound to all the transitions, I can click Apply to All.
It's a funny sound, but I don't think it is very professional in this instance.
While I think sound can be effective in presentations, you'll want to use it carefully.
I'm just going to choose No Sound from the menu.
If you decide you want to remove some of the slide transitions from your presentation,
just select the slide with the transition you want to remove.
Select the Animations tab and click No Transition. Repeat this process for each slide that you
want to modify. If you want to remove all the slide transitions
just repeat the same steps and then click Apply to All.
You also have some decisions to make about how you will advance to the next slide in
your presentation. In the Transition to this Slide group on the
Animations tab you'll see a section of the group that deals with how to Advance the Slide.
By default, On Mouse Click is selected. This means that to advance, or move to, the
next slide you will have to click the mouse, or press a key on the keyboard to display
the next slide. Let's take a look at this in Slide Sorter
view. If you know how much time you will need on
each slide, you can enter that here directly into the field or by using the arrows.
PowerPoint will use this information and advance to the next slide after the amount of time
you enter. I really caution people about using this during
a live presentation unless you have really rehearsed.
Now that we've discussed transition effects, sounds, speed, as well as how to advance to
the next slide, spend some time applying transitions to your PowerPoint presentation to see what
a difference a transition can make!