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About this lesson

Transitions explained! We will learn the importance of smooth transitions between slides, how to apply transitions to one or more slides, the different types of transition and how to manage and remove transitions.

Exercise files

Download the ‘before’ and ‘after’ PowerPoint presentations from the video tutorial and try the lesson yourself.

4.13-slide-transitions - Exercise.docx
426.5 KB 4.13-slide-transitions- Exercise Solution.docx
426.9 KB 4.13-slide-transitions- Course File Complete.pptx
24 MB

Quick reference

Slide Transitions

Many people confuse animations and transitions. Whilst they both 'animate' a slide, animation is applied to objects on a slide whereas transitions control how each slide moves to the next.

Transitions are divided into three categories: Subtle, Exciting and Dynamic Content. Subtle contains transitions that are short and subtle. Exciting contains more dramatic transitions that are generally longer and Dynamic Content contains transitions that apply to the slide objects and not the background. 

When to use

Apply transitions whenever we create a presentation to move smoothly from one slide to the next. 

Instructions

Apply a Subtle Transition

Transitions can be applied to slides in Normal view but it is sometimes easier to apply transitions when working in Slide Sorter view. 

  1. From the View tab, in the Presentation Views group, select Slide Sorter. 
  2. Hold down SHIFT and select the first three slides in the presentation. 
  3. From the Transitions tab, in the Transitions group, click the More drop-down to open the Transitions gallery.  
  4. Select Reveal from the Subtle group. 
  5. Press F5 to run the slide show. 
  6. Press ESC to exit the slide show. 

Once a transition has been applied to a slide or slides a star icon will show next to the slide thumnail in Slide Sorter view and Normal view. 

Apply an Exciting Transition

  1. Select the same three slides. 
  2. From the Transitions tab, in the Transitions group, click the More drop-down to open the Transitions gallery.  
  3. Apply the Peal Off transition from the Exciting group. 
  4. Press F5 to run the slide show. 
  5. Press ESC to exit the slide show. 

Apply a Dynamic Content Transition

  1. Select the same three slides. 
  2. From the Transitions tab, in the Transitions group, click the More drop-down to open the Transitions gallery.  
  3. Apply the Pan transition from the Dynamic Content group. 
  4. Press F5 to run the slide show. 
  5. Press ESC to exit the slide show. 
  6. Apply the Pan transition from the Dynamic Content group. 
  7. Press F5 to run the slide show. 
  8. Press ESC to exit the slide show.

Customize Effect Options

Effect Options allow us to customize how the transition performs. The items we see in Effect Options change depending on the Transition selected. 

  1. Press CTRL+A to select all slides. 
  2. Apply the Fade transition from the Subtle group. 
  3. Press F5 to run the slide show. 
  4. Press ESC to exit the slide show.
  5. From the Transitions tab, in the Transitions group, click Effect Options. 
  6. Choose an effect option. 

Remove Transitions

  1. Press CTRL+A to select all slides. 
  2. From the Transitions tab, in the Transitions group, click the More drop-down to open the gallery.  
  3. Click None. 

Hints & tips

  • Both animations and transitions are represented by a star next to the slide. 
  • Try to stick to two or three different transitions per presentation to keep the feel consistent. 
  • Consider your audience when applying transitions. 
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  • 00:04 It's time to switch gears a little bit now and talk about transitions in PowerPoint.
  • 00:09 And I think that a lot of people confuse animations and transitions.
  • 00:13 And the main difference really between the two is that animations
  • 00:17 are applied to individual objects on your slide,
  • 00:21 whereas transitions are applied to the actual slide.
  • 00:24 It's how each slide transitions or moves to the next slide.
  • 00:30 And there are a whole host of different effects that you can apply as transitions
  • 00:33 to your slide deck.
  • 00:34 So to fully explain to you exactly what transitions are if you're not aware,
  • 00:39 then let me run this presentation.
  • 00:41 So I'm going to press the F5 key to go into slideshow mode, and
  • 00:45 just notice what happens when I move between my slides.
  • 00:49 Pretty much nothing, it just moves quite harshly on to the next slide.
  • 00:55 And what a transition allows you to do is control the way
  • 00:59 you move from one slide to the next.
  • 01:01 So maybe you want a nice fade effect into the next slide.
  • 01:05 Maybe you want something a little bit more dramatic, maybe something spinning in or
  • 01:10 swiping down.
  • 01:11 Now when you're applying transitions to your presentation, you don't necessarily
  • 01:15 have to apply transitions to every single slide in your presentation.
  • 01:19 You can choose which slides you want to apply them to.
  • 01:21 So that might be one, two, three, or the entire lot.
  • 01:25 Now you'll find your transitions on the Transitions ribbon, and
  • 01:29 it's this big group that you see there in the middle.
  • 01:32 Now if we click the drop-down on the end, take a look at the gallery, you can see
  • 01:36 that all of these transitions are divided down into three different categories.
  • 01:40 We have Subtle, Exciting, and Dynamic Content.
  • 01:44 Now the transitions contained within the Subtle group are pretty much what they
  • 01:47 say on the tin.
  • 01:47 They are a very, very subtle transition effect.
  • 01:51 Exciting is a little bit more dramatic and
  • 01:54 these transitions tend to be a little bit longer.
  • 01:57 And then finally, we have Dynamic Content, which basically applies a transition
  • 02:02 to the objects on your page and not the background.
  • 02:05 Now which one you choose is entirely up to you.
  • 02:08 I will say the same thing to you about transitions as what I tell people
  • 02:12 about animations.
  • 02:14 Make sure that whatever you pick is appropriate for your presentation and
  • 02:18 appropriate for your audience.
  • 02:20 Transitions should be there to make your presentation
  • 02:23 look smooth as you move between different slides and
  • 02:26 not to distract or detract from the actual content.
  • 02:30 So with all that said, let's apply a couple of transitions.
  • 02:33 They're super easy.
  • 02:34 Let's see how they work.
  • 02:35 Now when I'm applying transitions, I tend to prefer to work in slide sorter view
  • 02:39 just so I can see all of my slides a little bit easier.
  • 02:43 So up to View, and let's go into Slide Sorter.
  • 02:46 Now I can even use my zoom slider at the bottom to zoom out a bit so
  • 02:50 I can see all of my slides.
  • 02:52 And what I'm going to do is I'm going to select by holding down Shift,
  • 02:56 the first three slides and I'm going to apply a transition to these.
  • 03:00 So up to the Transitions tab and let's apply this first transition reveal.
  • 03:08 And you get a little preview in slide sorter view as to what that transition is
  • 03:12 going to look like.
  • 03:15 So if I want to see it in action, let's press F5 again, and
  • 03:19 you can see that transition effect.
  • 03:22 Let's move on to the next slide.
  • 03:24 We get that kind of fade out and then fade in.
  • 03:27 So sometimes that can look a lot nicer than just harshly switching between your
  • 03:32 slides.
  • 03:32 Now, one thing to notice here is that when you do have a transition applied to
  • 03:36 a slide, you're going to see a little star icon underneath that slide in slide
  • 03:40 sorter view.
  • 03:41 Now it's also worth noting that if you have animation applied to a slide,
  • 03:45 you'll also see that star.
  • 03:47 So if we scroll down, if you look at slide number 6,
  • 03:50 we applied some animation to this slide and that also has a star.
  • 03:55 Let's take a look at a couple more transitions.
  • 03:58 I'm going to select the same three slides, and
  • 04:00 I'm going to apply a different transition.
  • 04:02 And this time, let's choose one of the Exciting transitions,
  • 04:06 we're going to go for Peel Off.
  • 04:08 And there you go.
  • 04:09 You can see that in the little preview exactly what that's going to do.
  • 04:11 Let's press F5 again to run our slideshow and
  • 04:15 take a look at what that is going to look like.
  • 04:19 Let's apply one more transition.
  • 04:21 I'm going to select the same three slides, click my drop-down, and
  • 04:25 this time let's choose Dynamic Content.
  • 04:27 I'm going to go for Pan, and there we go, in the preview,
  • 04:32 you can see that's going to swipe that content up.
  • 04:35 Let's check what it looks like.
  • 04:36 F5, and there we go.
  • 04:42 So I'm not going to go through all of the transitions.
  • 04:44 I will leave you to experiment with them.
  • 04:47 If you just want something super basic that looks really nice and professional,
  • 04:52 then I would always recommend the Fade option in the Subtle group.
  • 04:56 And what I'm going to do here is apply that to all of my slides.
  • 05:00 So Ctrl+A to select everything, up to my transitions, select Fade,
  • 05:06 and now if I press F5, you can see that that is just a really nice subtle effect,
  • 05:12 it takes away the harshness but it's not distracting at all.
  • 05:17 Now another thing to note is that when you apply any of these transitions,
  • 05:21 you do have some control as to how those transitions appear.
  • 05:24 If you take a look to the right of your Transitions gallery,
  • 05:28 you have an Effect Options drop-down.
  • 05:31 And this will change depending on which transition you've selected.
  • 05:34 So currently I have Fade selected.
  • 05:37 If I Ctrl+A to select all,
  • 05:39 I have the option of that fade running smoothly or fading through black.
  • 05:45 If I was to select something else, so let's go for Wipe,
  • 05:50 which kind of wipes it in coming from the right-hand side.
  • 05:55 When I click on Effect Options,
  • 05:57 I can choose which direction I want that effect to wipe in from.
  • 06:01 So Effect Options is going to change depending on the transition you have
  • 06:05 selected, so definitely worth having a little experiment.
  • 06:08 And if you decide that you no longer want any transitions applied to your slides,
  • 06:13 select them all, click the drop-down, and
  • 06:15 the first option that you have is None, which is essentially going to remove all
  • 06:20 of those transitions from your presentation.
  • 06:23 Now I'm actually going to put that fade transition back on again
  • 06:27 because that is my favorite.
  • 06:29 And then let's jump back to normal view where we can carry on editing.
  • 06:33 Notice in the slides pane on the left-hand side, we can still see those little stars.
  • 06:38 So I know that I have transitions applied, but
  • 06:40 that is pretty much all there is to transitions.
  • 06:43 Have a little play around with them, see which ones you like, and
  • 06:47 I'll see you in the next lesson.

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