Creating Custom Animations

The Custom Animation task pane offers more advanced animation options, such as the capability to set order and timings or to animate certain parts of a slide. You also use this task pane to set animation effects for charts, diagrams, organization charts, and media clips. If animation schemes don't provide the flexibility you need, try custom animation.

Note that if you've already applied an animation scheme to a slide, these animation events will appear in the Custom Animation list on the Custom Animation task pane. For example, the Grow and Exit animation scheme appears as five separate animation events on this task pane. You can either delete these animations and start over with custom animation by clicking the Remove button on the task pane or add more enhancements to your animation schemes.

→ To learn more about animation schemes, see “Setting Special Animation Effects” later in this chapter.

To apply a custom animation to a selected text or object, follow these steps:

→ To learn more about running slideshows, see Chapter 9.

Each animation event you add appears in the Custom Animation list in the order you enter it. The icon that precedes it tells you the type of animation it is and corresponds to the icons that precede the choices on the Add Effect menu (Entrance, Emphasis, and so forth). Pause the mouse over the animation in the list to display more information, such as the start option and effect type. If you have multiple animations in this list, the list is numbered and the numbers also appear on your slide to show where the animations are located. These numbers don't appear in print or during a slideshow, however. Figure 15.5 illustrates a list of animation options.

Setting Special Animation Effects

The Custom Animation task pane also offers the option to add more animation effects, set timings, reorder animation events, and animate parts of diagrams, organization charts, media clips, or other charts you've added to your slides.

Setting Additional Effects

To add effects to an animation event in the Custom Animation list—such as directional, sound, text, and color enhancements—click the down arrow to the right of an animation in the list and choose Effect Options from the menu that appears. A dialog box opens with the Effect tab selected (see Figure 15.6).

The name and content of the dialog box depend on the type of animation event you're customizing. For example, if you choose the Box entrance effect, the Box dialog box appears. We'll look at the Box dialog box to explore the range of customizations you can make, but remember that depending on the effect you choose, this dialog box could have different fields or tabs.

The Effect tab on the Box dialog box has the following options:

• Direction Specify a direction for the selected animation, such as In, Out, Horizontal, or Vertical.

• Sound Select a sound effect from the drop-down list. If you don't want to include a sound, choose No Sound, which is the default option. For additional options, choose Other Sound to open the Add Sound dialog box.

• Volume Click the Volume button to raise or lower the volume level of the sound effect. You can also choose to mute the effect here.

• After Animation Specify how to end your animation in this drop-down list, such as displaying the object in a new color or hiding it after animation. Options include

  • Standard colors buttons Enables you to apply a color from the default palette, which changes the object's color after animation.

  • More Colors Displays the Colors dialog box in which you can choose from a variety of other color options.

    → To learn more about the Colors dialog box, see “Specifying Colors” in Chapter 14, “Creating and Formatting Objects.”

  • Don't Dim Continues to display a static image of the object after animation.

  • Hide After Animation Hides the object after animation.

  • Hide on Next Mouse Click Hides the object when you click the mouse.

• Animate Text From the drop-down list, choose a method for introducing text: All at Once (the default), By Word, or By Letter.

• % Delay Between Words If you choose the By Word or By Letter option, you can indicate the percentage of delay between introducing those characters.

Setting Timings

To set exact timing effects for your custom animations, click the down arrow next to an animation in the Custom Animation list and choose Timing from the menu that appears. A dialog box opens with the Timing tab selected, as shown in Figure 15.7.

Remember that the name of this dialog box reflects the type of animation effect whose timing you want to customize. On the Timing tab, you can set the following options:

• Start Specify whether you want to start the animation On Click, With Previous (simultaneous with the previous animation in the list), or After Previous (after the previous animation in the list).

• Delay Enter the delay in seconds.

• Speed Select a speed level, from very slow to very fast.

• Repeat Indicate how many times you want the animation to repeat. Options include none; two, three, four, five, or ten times; until the next click; or until the next slide.

• Rewind when Done Playing Select this check box if you want to rewind (return to its original position) the animation when you're done playing it.

• Triggers Click the Triggers button to display two additional fields on this tab: Animate as Part of Click Sequence and Start Effect on Click Of. You can choose one of these triggers, but not both. In PowerPoint, you'll use a trigger to start an animation.

  • Animate as Part of Click Sequence Select this radio button to animate as part of the click sequence in the Custom Animation list.

  • Start Effect on Click Of Select the specific animation to target this trigger from the drop-down list, such as a title or text.

You can also display the Advanced Timeline, which enables you to further customize timings by dragging the timeline's scrollbar. To open this timeline, right-click the Custom Animation list and choose Show Advanced Timeline. Figure 15.8 illustrates this timeline.

To close the timeline, right-click again and choose Hide Advanced Timeline.

Animating Charts

You can add more effects to a chart to which you've applied a custom animation. To do so, click the down arrow next to the chart in the Custom Animation list and choose Effect Options from the menu. Figure 15.9 illustrates the dialog box that appears (remember that the dialog box name will reflect the type of effect you've applied, such as Box or Spin, and not the fact that you're animating a chart).

Click the Chart Animation tab and, from the Group Chart drop-down list, indicate how you want to introduce the chart elements. Options include As One Object, By Series, By Category, By Element in Series, and By Element in Category.

→ To learn how to create a chart, see Chapter 11, “Working with Charts.”

Animating Diagrams

Animating parts of diagrams or organization charts is another animation customization you can apply. To do so, click the down arrow next to the diagram in the Custom Animation list and choose Effect Options from the menu. Figure 15.10 illustrates the dialog box that appears with the Diagram Animation tab selected.

From the Group Diagram drop-down list, choose the way you want to introduce the diagram onto the slide: As One Object; All At Once; Each Branch, Shape by Shape; Each Level, Shape by Shape; or Level by Level.

Animating Media Clips

You can also customize animations to media clips such as a sound or video file. For example, to customize a sound clip animation, click the down arrow next to the clip in the Custom Animation list and choose Effect Options from the menu. Figure 15.11 illustrates the Play Sound dialog box that appears with the Effect tab selected. The Effect tab includes choices for starting and stopping the playing of the media clip.

Reordering Animations

The animations in the Custom Animation list appears in the order you enter them, but you can change this order if you like. To specify the order in which to animate multiple objects on a single slide, select the object you want to reorder and click either the up or down Re-Order button. Dragging an animation to another location in the list is another way to reorder the animation events in the Custom Animation list.

Modifying Animations

After you apply custom animations to a slide, you may decide that you want to modify them. For example, you might want to change the type of effect you applied from Box to Diamond or from Grow/Shrink to Spin. To do so, select the animation in the Custom Animation list on the Custom Animation task pane and click the Change button. From here, you can select a new custom animation to apply.

Deleting Animations

To delete a custom animation, select it in the Custom Animation list on the Custom Animation task pane and click the Remove button. To delete all animations, select the first animation in the list, press the Shift key, select the last animation in the list, and then click the Remove button.

If you make a mistake and want to restore your deletions, click the Undo Custom Animation button on the Standard toolbar.