The Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning

Praxis

Volume 10   Issue  4 September  2006
 
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Praxis is a publication by the Center for Advancement of Teaching and Learning, Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA

Editor: Pat Morrison
Designer: Nozomi Yokoo

619-644-7747

catl@gcccd.net

http://www.grossmont.net/catl
 

PowerPoint Animations Tips
PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 have made major advances in the field of animation capabilities—unlike earlier versions, which offered only entry animations, the new versions allow entry, emphasis, exit and motion path animations—all of which can be fine-tuned to play using a basic timeline. Such a plethora of options does ensure that PowerPoint has one of the best animation engines—ironically, this also means that anyone can include animated elements in PowerPoint presentations even if they are not required, relevant or suitable.

In this article, we’ll first create a simple presentation that uses animation triggers that showcase the new capabilities of PowerPoint 2002 and 2003. We’ll follow that with creating a countdown timer that would work in all versions of PowerPoint since PowerPoint 97.

Trigger Animations

You'll need two images to illustrate the trigger animations—I've used images downloaded from Microsoft Office Online's Clipart section.

  1. Create a new presentation (Ctrl + N) and insert a blank slide.
  2. Insert two images of the same size within this slide - choose Insert | Picture | From File. Keep both of them in different areas of the slide.


     
  3. Right-click one of them and choose Custom Animation from the resultant menu. This will activate the Custom Animation task pane.


     
  4. Click the 'Add Effect' button and then choose an Entrance animation. I've chosen the Appear animation since that provides the most optimum clickover effect.


     
  5. By default, PowerPoint chooses "On Click' for the Start options. That's what we want so don't alter that.


     
  6. Below that option, you'll find the name of your image in a listing of animations. Besides the name, you'll find an arrow that reveals a drop-down menu on being clicked. Choose the Timing option in that menu.


     
  7. This will open the Timing tab of the animation dialog box. Click the 'Triggers' button so that more options are visible. Choose the second option that reads 'Start effect on click of:' and choose the name of the second image we inserted within the slide. Click OK.


     
  8. Place both the images one on top of the other (that's why we chose images of the same size) and play the presentation. Clicking on the visible image should show us the other image. If that doesn't work, right click the image that's visible and choose Order | Send To Back (or Send Backward multiple times depending on how many objects you have onscreen).


     
  9. Save your presentation.

Countdown Timers

  1. Create a new presentation (Ctrl + N) and insert a blank slide. Or insert a blank slide in an existing presentation.
  2. Insert a text-box and type the number '1' or '01' or '001' depending on how many digits you want your counter to display. Change the text alignment to center, change the font size to something large like 200 and resize the text box so that all digits are placed on the same line. Change your font style as required and position the text box right in the center of the slide, using guides or grids to position as required.
  3. Choose Slide Show | Slide Transition—this will activate the Slide Transition task pane in PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 (or open the Transition dialog box in older versions).


     
  4. Choose a simple transition—for this example, I chose the Box Out transition effect. You can also choose the 'No transition' option if you prefer. I've also set the Speed to Fast and opted to automatically advance slide after 10 seconds. You might want to choose a shorter or longer time delay for the transition.


     
  5. Choose View | Slide Sorter and click the formatted timer slide. Choose Edit | Copy (or Ctrl + C). Then choose Edit | Paste (or Ctrl + V) to paste an identical slide. Paste as many times as required until you end up with the number of slides you want your countdown to contain.


     
  6. Within each of the consecutive slides, you'll want to edit the countdown number in reverse order so that the last slide contains the number '1'.


     
  7. We just finished creating a countdown timer—you might want to experiment with slide backgrounds, transitions, animations, font color and style, etc. to create a unique look. You might even want to experiment with digit styles or include seconds within the slides (for example 01:00) - also you may want to add some text to each countdown slide like "minutes/seconds remaining" or similar.

 

 

        

More Tips for PowerPoint!

Sound and Movie Solutions

Problem
You create a presentation that includes linked images, sounds or movies. Everything looks perfect, so you email the presentation to someone else, burn a CD of it or just move it to a different folder on your own computer. Now nothing works right - Powerpoint displays a missing graphic icon instead of your pictures, and it won't play your sounds and movies.

 

Quick Fix for WAV Sounds

  • Choose Tools, Options and go to the General tab
  • Set the value next to "Link sounds with file size greater than" to 50000 kb
  • Click OK
  • If you've already added sounds to your presentation, you'll need to locate and delete them then re-insert them (use Insert, Movies and Sounds, Sound from File...)
  • The sounds you re-insert this way and any sounds (with file sizes less than 50000kb or about 50mb) will be embedded into your PPT file, not linked. Your PPT file will be larger this way, but the sounds won't get lost.

 

Quick Fix for MP3 Sounds
MP3s are generally much smaller than WAVs but can't be embedded. Luckily, there are a few tricks up the virtual sleeves:

 

Thanks to PowerPoint MVPs Jean-Pierre Forestier and Enric Mañas for this method of using CDex (download it here and install it first). Then:

  • Use Options (Opciones, etc.) to set your preferred language.
  • Choose Convert, Add a RIFF-WAV header(s) to MP2 o MP3 file(s)
  • Select the file you want to convert
  • Click "Convert"...

 

By adding this RIFF-WAV header, we obtain a WAV file that's the same size as the original mp3.

 

Once you've used CDEX to "WAVify" your MP3s you can insert them using the Quick Fix for WAV Sounds instructions above and they'll be embedded, not linked. And if they're not linked, the links can't break.

 

There are other utilities that perform similar functions. PowerPoint MVP Michael Koerner reports http://www.studiodust.com/riffmp3.html will also do the job.

 

Michael also notes that this trick may not work in all versions of PowerPoint under all operating systems. For example, it doesn't work in PowerPoint 2002 under Windows 98 but works fine under Windows XP.

 

Quick Fix for Movies and Other Sound Types
For each non-WAV sound or movie in your presentation

  • Delete the sound or movie from your presenation
  • Copy the sound or movie file to the same folder as your presentation's been saved to
  • Re-insert the sound or movie (Insert, Movies and Sounds, ... From File)
  • Save your presentation

 

If this doesn't solve your problem, or your presentation contains so many links that these "quick fixes" would be too slow, read on.

 

Why images, movies and sounds go bad
There are two main reasons why images, movies and sounds might work on your computer but not on others:

  • Broken links
  • Missing CODECs
  • Viewer Bugs

 

If you use a Mac, read this page and the linked pages for some important Mac-specific info.

 

Before we delve into the murky muddle of multimedia, let's look at linked images. They're fairly straightforward.

 

Images
Avoid linking images if possible. If you already have linked images in your presentation, PC users can use the free demo version of PPTools FixLinks Pro to fix image links or embed the images so they won't break when the PPT file and images are moved to another computer.

 

Read more about it on The PPTools Site or download it at http://get.pptools.com

 

Movies and Sounds
Movies are always linked in PowerPoint. So are all sounds but WAVs.

 

WAV sounds are linked if they're above the maximum embedding size you specify in Tools, Options. But not always. See below.

 

To avoid linking problems:

  • Pick (or create) the folder you want to store your presentation and movies/sounds in. Save your presentation to that folder.
  • Copy sound and movie files to the same folder.
  • Insert the sounds and movies into your presentation from that folder.
  • When you move the PPT file to another computer, be sure to move all the movie and sound files too. As long as you put them in the same folder as the PPT file, the links will usually not break.

 

By following these steps, you force PowerPoint to create "pathless links" -- links that point to just the linked file name, not the path. When PPT sees these, it looks for the linked file in the current folder, which is almost always the one where the PPT file itself lives. Result: the links don't break.

 

It won't work to copy the sounds/movies to the folder with the PPT file after you've inserted them.

 

If you've already added sounds and movies, either delete them then reinsert them from the folder where the PPT file lives or (if you use a PC) check out PPTools FixLinks Pro, which will de-path the links in your presentation automatically.

 

PPTools FixLinks Pro converts your links from fully pathed ones (for example links that point to C:\My Documents\Images\MyPhoto.JPG ) to pathless/relative links ( MyPhoto.JPG only, no path or drive).

 

When PowerPoint runs into one of these pathless links, it looks for the linked file in the current operating system path, just as it does with links to files you've inserted following the instructions above.

 

Note: this is NOT necessarily the same as the location of the current PowerPoint file, though it often is. In order for your links to work, you need to understand where PowerPoint will look for them, even if you've ensured that they're relative. Here's what we've learned about it:

 

When you: PowerPoint sets current path to:
Start PowerPoint; choose File, Open; choose a PPT or PPS file Same folder as PPT/PPS file
Start PowerPoint; choose Open An Existing Presentation Same folder as PowerPoint's main EXE file or ???
Start PowerPoint; choose file from Most Recently Used list Same folder as PowerPoint's main EXE file or ???
Doubleclick a PPT/PPS in Explorer Same folder as PPT/PPS file
Start a PPT/PPS from command prompt Current drive/folder
Start a PPT/PPS from a shortcut Shortcut's Start-In folder, if set; otherwise, the same folder as the shortcut file

 

Hints, Tips, Tricks, etc.

Follow these steps to insert a new slide into the presentation:

  • In the Outline window, select the slide you want the new slide to appear after by clicking the slide's number.
  • Select Insert|New Slide from the menu bar or click the new slide button on the standard toolbar.
  • Choose the page layout from the window and press OK.
Pat Morrison