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About this lesson
Creating builds and actions to add motion to your slide deck.
Exercise files
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Working with Builds and Actions .key8 MB Working with Builds and Actions .key
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Quick reference
Topic
Creating builds and actions to add motion to your slide deck.
When to use
Motion can help bring a sense of realism to your slides, ultimately helping to engage your audience. These animations can be applied to just about any objects on your slide.
Instructions
Builds and actions define how objects enter, exit or can be emphasized on a slide.
To add a build:
- select the object you want to animate
- click on the “Add an Effect” button on the formatting pane under the “Animate” > “Build In” or “Build Out” tab
- Preview a build style before committing by clicking the “Preview” link
Once we have added a build, we can adjust the following properties on the formatting pane:
- timing/duration
- direction of motion
- delivery style
We can add a Build In without a Build Out and vice versa.
An action defines what happens with an object when it’s already on a slide.
To add an action to an object:
- select the object you want to animate
- click on the “Add an Effect” button on the formatting pane under the “Animate” tab
- resize or relocate the target size/location as needed
We can change the target size/location any time:
- select the object
- click on the red diamond to adjust the target size/location
- 00:04 If you were to ask me what one feature sets Apple's Key Note apart from
- 00:08 other presentation tools.
- 00:10 I would tell you that it's the cinematic quality, and precision of its builds and
- 00:13 actions.
- 00:14 So what are builds and actions?
- 00:16 Well, to put it in plain terms, it's how objects on a slide enter, move around on,
- 00:22 or exit a slide.
- 00:23 Its the animation aspect of a presentation.
- 00:26 Telling your story to an audience can sometimes be a challenge.
- 00:30 With key note we not only have images video and
- 00:33 audio to build and tell our story, but
- 00:35 we can use animations to illustrate motion and communicate progress.
- 00:40 There's a lot to cover in this lesson so let's dive right in.
- 00:43 To keep things relatively simple,
- 00:45 I'm gonna use a circle object as our animation subject.
- 00:49 To add a build which is another way of describing how an object enters or
- 00:53 exits a slide,
- 00:54 we first need to click on the Animate button on the right side of the tool bar.
- 00:59 Now we can see the Build In as well as the Build Out buttons, and
- 01:03 we'll come back to the Action button later.
- 01:06 To add a build in, we simply click on the Add an Effect button to reveal a list of
- 01:09 builds specific for this object type.
- 01:12 One thing to note about this list is that it is dynamic, and
- 01:16 it varies depending on the type of object that we are building in.
- 01:19 For example,
- 01:20 a chart would give us a slightly different list of builds to choose from,
- 01:24 some of which are specific to the chart type that we choose to build in or out.
- 01:28 In this example we will choose one of my favorite builds to show off, the Flame.
- 01:33 Before committing the build style to our object,
- 01:35 we can Preview it first by clicking on the Preview link to the right of the build.
- 01:41 If we like it, we can commit the style to our object by clicking on the build name.
- 01:45 That's it.
- 01:46 Now that we've chosen our build type,
- 01:48 let's look at some of the other customization options that are available.
- 01:51 First and foremost is our timing.
- 01:53 We can adjust how long it takes for this bill to complete.
- 01:57 If we want the build to take longer, we simply slide the slider to the right.
- 02:01 We can also choose a value by using the stepper buttons or
- 02:04 even enter a value manually like this.
- 02:07 Once we have the value we want we can test the build by pressing the preview
- 02:10 button above.
- 02:12 Next, let's add a build out.
- 02:14 This will define how the object will exit the slide before we move
- 02:17 on to the next slide.
- 02:18 To add a build out we click on the build out button.
- 02:22 Click on add an effect and choose an effect from the list.
- 02:25 As you've noticed,
- 02:26 this process is exactly the same as it was to choose a build in effect.
- 02:31 Do we have to use a build out if we use a build in?
- 02:33 Absolutely not.
- 02:34 We can choose build in without a build out,
- 02:37 just like we can choose a build out without a build in.
- 02:40 We can also choose to use both or neither, it's completely up to you.
- 02:44 To spice things up a little let's add another object.
- 02:46 This time we will add a text box and add several lines of text using bullets.
- 02:51 Now that we have a text box with content, we want to add a build in for this object.
- 02:56 For this example we will choose the flip effect because we have added our build
- 03:01 effect to a textbox, we have additional customization options to choose from.
- 03:05 For example, we can choose the direction of our build, whether the text bounces or
- 03:10 not, and even the text delivery type.
- 03:13 From here we can choose to have the text appear by object,
- 03:17 which would be the entire textbox at once by word or by character.
- 03:23 To illustrate what this could look like, let's change the timing to 10 seconds and
- 03:26 choose the By Character option.
- 03:32 To take it one step further, we can also choose to deliver this build By Paragraph,
- 03:37 Paragraph Group, or Highlighted Paragraph under the Delivery options.
- 03:42 The most common form of delivery,
- 03:44 especially when working with bullet lists, is by paragraph.
- 03:48 In other words, one bullet at a time.
- 03:51 Let's switch gears just a little bit and talk about actions.
- 03:55 While bullets define how an object enters or exits the slide, and
- 03:59 action defines what happens to the object while its on the slide.
- 04:02 In this example, we will choose to apply a scale effect to our circle.
- 04:07 Once we have selected that effect, we now have options to choose from.
- 04:11 The default action for a scale effect is to enlarge the object.
- 04:15 We can adjust the size of the end result by simply resizing the object like this.
- 04:19 We can also choose to shrink the object using the same scale effect,
- 04:23 byre-sizing the object.
- 04:24 So that it's smaller than the original, like this.
- 04:29 We can even change the location of the final object by relocating the object
- 04:33 like this.
- 04:34 When we do this, Keynote will automatically apply a second action,
- 04:38 called move.
- 04:39 Now that our customizations are done, let's click preview to see what happens.
- 04:44 If we deselected an object with some of these more advanced actions applied we can
- 04:48 go back, and make adjustments by selecting the object and clicking the red diamond.
- 04:54 This will allow us to make changes to the size, and location of the end result.
- 04:58 If we look at the formatting pane we will see one more attribute that
- 05:01 we may want to adjust.
- 05:03 The acceleration type.
- 05:05 We can choose None, Ease In, Ease Out, or Ease Both.
- 05:09 This is a personal preference and you'll need to explore all of these on your own
- 05:13 to see what best suits your needs.
- 05:15 There's no right or wrong way to use any of these builds or actions, and
- 05:19 there's no defined style guide to follow.
- 05:21 It's complete, 100% up to you and your personal judgment.
- 05:25 There are so many various combinations to choose from, so
- 05:28 let your creativity take over as you explore all the options.
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