Datasheet
Animations and transitions
Animations and transitions fulfill an important objective: introducing several
elements one at a time in a logical fashion to make it easier for the audience
to understand a concept. Keep these guidelines in mind when using anima-
tions and transitions:
⻬ Animation is best used for a purpose. An example would be using anima-
tion to illustrate a process or a result of an action.
If you use animation without a purpose, your presentation might end up
looking like an assortment of objects that appear and exit without any
relevance.
⻬ Transitions can be either subdued or flashy depending on the flow of
ideas being presented. In either case, they need to aid the
flow of the
presentation rather than disrupt it.
Animations and transitions are covered in Chapter 12.
Interactivity, flow, and navigation
Amazingly, interactivity, flow, and navigation are the most neglected parts of
many PowerPoint presentations. These concepts are easy to overlook
because, unlike a picture, they aren’t visible:
⻬ Interactivity, in its basic form, is the use of hyperlinks within a presenta-
tion to link to
• Other slides in a presentation
• Other documents outside a presentation (such as Word files)
⻬ Flow is the spread of ideas that evolves from one slide to the next. Flows
can be smooth or abrupt.
⻬ Navigation aids interactivity. It is the way your presentation is set up to
provide one-click access for the user to view other slides in the correct
order.
Navigation is mostly taken care of by using the PowerPoint Action
Buttons, but you can link from any PowerPoint object to move from one
slide to the next.
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Chapter 1: PowerPointing with the Best of Them
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