Types of Animation in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows

Now that we have discussed what animation is? (and where you should draw the limits as far as animation goes), let us get started showing you how you can work with animation in PowerPoint.

PowerPoint uses the term Custom Animation for animation added to slide objects. For most practical purposes, the terms "custom animation" and "animation" can be regarded the same.

All animation in PowerPoint can be divided into four types:

1. Entrance
2. Emphasis
3. Exit
4. Motion Path

In addition, you also have the concept of trigger animations, where an action on one object triggers an animation on another object. Hence the name Trigger animation. We'll cover Trigger animations in another tutorial. For now, let us now tell you more about the entry, emphasis, exit, and motion path animations.

A. Entrance

Animations are used to introduce a slide object within a slide.

B. Emphasis

Animations are used to animate slide objects that are already present on a slide.

C. Exit

Animations are used to animate slide objects off a slide.

D. Motion Path

Animations are used to move slide objects already on a slide on a set path.

These sample presentations show every animation effect available in PowerPoint for entrance, emphasis, exit, and motion path animations.

What's important to realize is that the same slide object can have all four animation types added to it and set to play one after the other. This sort of sequencing is controlled by animation events such as On Click, With Previous, and After Previous. We'll explain these animation events in detail in a subsequent tutorial. Another concept that you need to know is how to control the speed of an animation. This will be explained too.

But first you should know how to add an animation to a slide object. We'll show you how to do that in the next tutorial in this series.