Animations & Transitions

This lesson will discuss the appropriate use of animations and slide transitions. 

Animations

When people give PowerPoint presentations, it's common to format the text so that one line or section shows at a time. In the animation settings, you can select whether the text appears "on click", when previous text, or a set time after the previous text. When using animations do not use timed animations. 

To see if the animations are timed or not, navigate to the Animations tab. In the timing menu, it will display the start settings. Make sure "On Click" is selected. If there are no animations on that slide, the animation ribbon will be greyed out. 

Try not to use fancy animations - this can be very distracting. In some cases, too much flashing or movement can induce seizures. 

Transitions

Transitions refer to the effects that can be enabled when advancing from one slide to another. The default setting is None. If someone enables transition effects they also have the ability to add sound and set timings for the transition as well as when to advance to the next slide. Again, it is best to keep transitions simple or not use them at all. Make sure your settings allow you to advance to the next slide on mouse click.