Entrance Effects and Sounds

 

The question we receive the most is:  “How do you get the text to enter one letter at a time and have it sound like a typewriter is typing the text?”

We’ll now show you how to do this.

 

You should be on Slide 1 in the Normal View screen.  We need to move to Slide 2.  Look at left side of the Normal View screen.  You will see that this area looks like the image to the right.  Click-on Slide 2 in this area.  A blue line will go around the slide and you will see Slide 2 in the center portion of your screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You will see a bulleted list of the ingredients for a PBJ.  Move your cursor anywhere over the list of ingredients and click the RIGHT mouse button (to bring up a menu).  Move down the menu and select Custom Animation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You will see the Custom Animation area appear on the right (as you did in Slide 1). 

Select Add Effect, then Entrance and then More Effects (as you did in Slide 1).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This may not seem like much, but the choice of the Entrance Effect is very important here.  Notice, in the image to the right, that we chose Appear.  We need the text to enter, letter-by-letter, very quickly.  Appear will take care of this.  Other choices may “look funny” when the animation is “running.”  When you become more accomplished with PowerPoint – try all kinds of effects.  Click-on OK at the bottom of this menu screen when you have selected Appear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now look further down the Custom Animation area on the right side of the screen until you see an area that looks like the image on the left.  Click-on the small down arrow and then select Effect Options.

 

 

 

 

 

When you click-on Effect Options an Appear menu screen (similar to the one on the right) will appear.  We’ve gone ahead and entered the effects to make our text look and sound like an “old timey” typewriter typing.

 We clicked-on the down triangles to the right of each feature and did the following:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sound:

 We clicked-on the down arrow and chose Typewriter.

After animation (Dimming):

 We noticed that before we clicked-on the down arrow, that the words “Don’t Dim” appeared in the area to the right of After animation.  We then clicked on the down arrow and chose the light blue color that appeared.  When you are making your PowerPoint presentation, you might like to have the bullet, about which you are speaking, be more noticeable than the bullets about which you’ve already spoken.  By choosing the light blue color, as you move through the bulleted items, you will see the last bullet dim and the new bullet be more noticeable.  In a moment, when we complete this Appear Effect menu, we’ll Play our slide and you’ll see what we mean.

 

Animate text:

 We clicked-on the down arrow and chose By letter.

 Seconds delay between letters

 We used the small “up and down” arrows to indicate 0.1 seconds between letters.

 Click OK.

 

 

Now, click-on Play at the bottom right of your screen.  You will see the text enter like it’s being typed, hear the typewriter sound, and see the bullets dim as you proceed on to the next bullet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be Careful with Sound

Be careful when using sound for transitions and text animation.  Sometimes, too many effects can overwhelm and detract from a presentation. As you become more experienced with sounds and web pages you will find many web pages devoted to sounds and clip art.  In the Front Page 98, 2000 and 2002 tutorials, there is a section on WAV sounds.  If you desire a copy of either of these tutorials, simply e-mail the addresses at the end of this tutorial.  You may want to experiment with some other sounds you “download and save” form the internet.

Don’t forget to keep saving your presentation as you enhance it with these effects.

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