Setting Slide Transitions
Setting slide transitions is one of the most common PowerPoint animation effects. You can set slide transitions that apply to the entire presentation or just to the current slide. PowerPoint offers a variety of transition options, including the capability to fade, dissolve, wipe, or even display items as a newsflash.
Within each of these main categories, you have other directional choices. For example, you can wipe up, down, left, or right. It's best to use a limited number of slide transition effects for your slideshow unless you have a good reason for applying several. Too many transitions can make your presentation confusing and inconsistent, detracting from your original purpose and message.
You can set slide transitions in either Normal view or Slide Sorter view. Follow these steps:
Choose Slide Show, Slide Transition. The Slide Transition task pane appears, shown in Figure 15.1.
Figure 15.1. You can specify how you want to move from one slide to another slide during a presentation.
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If you already have a task pane open, you can click the down arrow at the top of the pane and select the Slide Transitions task pane from the menu that appears.
Select the slide or slides to which you want to apply the transition in either Normal view or Slide Sorter view.
From the Apply to Selected Slides list, select the transition you want to apply.
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Verify that the AutoPreview check box is selected so that you can preview your transitions as you apply them. Depending on your screen resolution and whether your PowerPoint window is maximized, this check box may be hidden from view. If it is, pause your mouse over the small arrow at the bottom of the task pane, and the pane will scroll up so that you can see the hidden fields.
Choose a transition speed of Slow, Medium, or Fast, depending on how quickly you want the transition to occur in a slideshow.
To add sound effects to your transition, select from the Sound drop-down list. To add a sound other than one of the default WAV files, select Other Sound from the drop-down list to open the Add Sound dialog box. You can choose another sound. If you want the sound to continue playing until the presentation encounters another sound file, click the Loop Until Next Sound check box.
Can't hear your sound files? See the “Troubleshooting” section near the end of this chapter.
Select the On Mouse Click check box to advance to the next slide when you click the mouse or press a key such as the spacebar, Enter, Page Up, or Page Down. This is selected by default.
If you would rather have PowerPoint automatically change to the next slide after a specified amount of time, select the Automatically After check box and enter a specific time in the field beside it. Any timings you've already added to your slideshow appear in this box automatically.
Click the Apply to All Slides button to apply the transitions to all slides in your presentation.
Click the Play button to preview the selected transitions within your current view (or preview it again if you selected the AutoPreview check box); click the Slide Show button to start a slideshow.
→ To learn more about running slideshows, see Chapter 9, “Presenting a Slideshow.”