How to Add Slide Transitions in PowerPoint

PowerPoint is one of those programs that has so many bells and whistles that it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. One of the features you can use to add a simple effect to your presentation is the use of slide transitions.

Slide transitions allow you to apply an effect to your slides as they move from one to the next. A transition is similar to an animation, and can provide a nice movement or flow to your presentation. If needed, you can apply a slide transition to one, or to all of your slides. Let’s take a look at how to apply a slide transition to your slides in PowerPoint.

Applying a Slide Transition

1. Open PowerPoint and open the presentation you want to work with
2. Select the first slide
3. Click on the Transitions tab in the ribbon
4. You will now see the transition gallery displayed (hint: there are a lot of them)
5. Hover over any of the transition types such as Push, Split, Reveal. You will see a preview of the transition effect on screen.
6. When you have found a transition you want to use, simply click on it and it will be applied to the current slide
7. You will now see the symbol of a star appear under the slide number in the navigation pane on the left of your screen.
8. Select Slide 2 and repeat the process and choose a different transition

Previewing Your Slide Transition

Now that you have applied a slide transition, you may want to see what it looks like in presentation mode.

1. Select the Slide Show tab from the ribbon
2. From the ribbon you can choose to run the presentation From Beginning or From Current Slide
3. If you prefer to use keyboard shortcuts, you can use F5 to preview from the beginning or Shift + F5 to preview from the current slide.
4. The presentation mode will start
5. To end the show press the Esc key on your keyboard

Adjusting Your Slide Transition Timing

Now that you have applied a slide transition, and previewed your presentation, you may find that the transition timing is not quite right. Perhaps the transition is too fast, or too slow. Let’s take a look at how you can adjust your slide transition timing.

1. Make sure you are on the Transitions tab on the ribbon
2. On the right side of the transition gallery you will see the Timing group
3. You will see the Duration setting. Mine is set to 02.00 (2 seconds).
4. Adjust the Duration setting to a higher or lower value depending on whether you want to speed up or slow down the transition effect

Using the Same Transition for All Slides

One thing I see often is that people get a little too excited about transition effects. Applying a different slide transition to each slide in your presentation might make your audience a little seasick by the end. One option to avoid overdoing it is to use one slide transition for all of the slides in your presentation.

If you have 50 slides in your presentation, you are certainly not going to want to have to apply the transition one slide at a time. Let’s look at how to use the same slide transition for all slides in the presentation.

1. Make sure you are happy with the slide transition and timing applied to the slide
2. From the Timing group click on the Apply to All button
3. The transition and timing will now be applied to all slides in the presentation.

Using the Morph Transition

One of the newer slide transitions available is the Morph transition option. This particular slide transition works a little differently than the others, so be sure to check out my post on Morph and Zoom in PowerPoint.

Pubblicato in Word & PowerPoint