Animations and Transitions

Chapter 9 argued for restraint with text and bullet density. Motion deserves exactly the same scrutiny — animations and transitions are genuinely useful tools that are just as easy to overuse as bullet points, and for the same underlying reason: anything competing for the audience's attention makes the actual content harder to follow, not easier.

Animations vs. Transitions: Two Different Things

An animation applies motion to one element within a single slide — a bullet point flying in, a chart bar growing into place. A transition is the effect used when moving from one slide to the next — a fade, a wipe, a push. Different scope entirely: animations live inside a slide, transitions live between slides.

The Three Animation Categories

The Animations tab groups every effect into three colour-coded categories:

• Entrance (green) — how an element first appears: Fade In, Fly In, Appear.
• Emphasis (yellow) — draws attention to something already visible: Pulse, a colour change, a brief grow/shrink.
• Exit (red) — how an element leaves: Fade Out, Fly Out, Disappear.

Applying and Sequencing Animations

Select an element, then pick an effect from the Animations tab. Multiple animations on one slide play in a numbered order, shown as small numbered tags beside each animated element. The Animation Pane (Animations → Animation Pane) lists every animation on the current slide in that same order, letting you drag to reorder them or adjust each one's own timing directly.

Start Triggers: On Click, With Previous, After Previous

Every animation has a start trigger controlling when it plays:

• On Click — waits for the presenter to click before playing, putting pacing directly under the presenter's control.
• With Previous — plays automatically, at the same moment as whatever animation came before it.
• After Previous — plays automatically, immediately once the previous animation finishes, with no click needed.

Transitions Between Slides

The Transitions tab applies an effect to the change between the current slide and the next, with its own Effect Options (direction, variant) and Duration (speed). Advance Slide offers the same underlying choice an animation's start trigger does: "On Mouse Click" (presenter-controlled) versus "After" a set delay (fully automatic, useful for a self-running kiosk-style presentation with nobody clicking through it).

Using Animation to Reveal a Bullet List Progressively

One genuinely useful case: setting each bullet point's own Entrance animation to On Click, so bullets appear one at a time as the presenter actually discusses each one, rather than the whole list appearing at once and the audience reading ahead of whatever's currently being said. This directly reinforces Chapter 9's "don't let the slide compete with the speaker" principle — used this way, animation is solving a genuine attention problem, not decorating the slide.

Hands-On Exercises