Form 1 ICT

Bringing Slides to Life: Transitions and Animations

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Have you ever watched a presentation where each point slid onto the screen just as the speaker started talking about it? How do you think they did that? It is not magic: it is animation, and you can do it too.

In this post:

  • The difference between transitions and animations
  • Adding a transition
  • Adding and controlling animations
  • Using effects wisely
  • Three activities and a quiz

Transitions and animations: what is the difference?

TransitionAnimation
What moves?The whole slideOne object on a slide: a title, a bullet point, a picture or a shape
When?As you move from one slide to the nextWhile the slide is on screen
ExamplesFade, Push, Wipe, Split, CoverFly In, Fade, Zoom, Wipe; Pulse and Grow/Shrink; Fly Out
Where?The Transitions tabThe Animations tab

Adding a transition

  1. Click a slide in the list on the left.
  2. Open the Transitions tab and click an effect, such as Fade or Push. PowerPoint shows you a preview.
  3. Use Effect Options to change the direction, and Duration to make it faster or slower.
  4. Click Apply To All if you want every slide to use the same transition.
  5. Under Advance Slide, choose On Mouse Click (you control it) or After a number of seconds (it moves on by itself).

In PowerPoint 2007, transitions are on the Animations tab. In Google Slides, use Slide → Transition.

Adding an animation

There are four kinds of animation effect: Entrance (how something appears), Emphasis (makes something already there stand out, such as Pulse), Exit (how it leaves) and Motion Paths (it moves along a line you choose).

  1. Click the object you want to animate, for example the box of bullet points.
  2. Open the Animations tab and choose an effect, such as Fly In.
  3. Use Effect Options to pick the direction, or By Paragraph so the bullet points come in one at a time.
  4. Set Start: On Click (waits for your click), With Previous (at the same time as the last effect) or After Previous (straight after it).
  5. Change the Duration (how long it takes) and Delay if needed.
  6. Open the Animation Pane to see every effect on the slide, in order. Drag effects up or down to change the order.

Small numbers appear next to animated objects to show their order. In PowerPoint 2007 use Animations → Custom Animation; in Google Slides use Insert → Animation.

A colourful diagram of the water cycle showing the ocean, clouds, rain, snowy mountains, rivers, lakes and groundwater, with labels such as evaporation and precipitation.
A diagram of the water cycle. In a presentation, you could animate each stage (evaporation, clouds forming, precipitation and water collecting in rivers, lakes and the ocean) so that it appears just as you talk about it.

Image source: File:The Water Cycle (SVS30580).png (Wikimedia Commons)

Use effects wisely

  • Animations should help explain, for example showing the steps of a process one at a time. They should not just be decoration.
  • Choose one or two transition styles for the whole show.
  • Keep effects quick, under about one second, so the audience does not get bored waiting.
  • Skip the sound effects unless they really add something.
  • Always run the show (F5) to test that everything happens in the right order.

Watch: animating text and objects

This video shows how to add, change and reorder animations in PowerPoint. Look for the Animation Pane.

Video: PowerPoint: Animating Text and Objects – LearnFree – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw_udjD2xwo

Activity: animate a slide

Try it: a pretend water-cycle slide

First click Play slide transition to see the whole slide move in. Then click Next click ▶ to play each animation, one per click, like in a real slide show. Change the effects in the drop-down lists and try again!

  1. Click 1: ☀️ Evaporation –
  2. Click 2: ☁️ Condensation –
  3. Click 3: 🌧️ Precipitation –
  4. Click 4: 🌊 Collection –

The Water Cycle

Activity: transition or animation?

Try it: sort the effects

Is each one a transition or an animation? Drag each card into the right box (or tap the card, then tap the box).

The next slide pushes the old one off the screen
Every slide changes with a Wipe effect
Bullet points appear one at a time as you click
A star pulses to grab attention
A shape slides off the slide when you are done with it
A picture of the Sun flies in from the left
Slide 3 fades away and slide 4 fades in

Transition (whole slide)

Animation (one object)

Activity: adding an entrance effect

Try it: put the steps in order

Use ▲ and ▼ to put the steps for making a text box fly in, then click “Check my order”.

▲ First step

  1. Click the text box
  2. Open the Animations tab
  3. Choose the Fly In entrance effect
  4. Use Effect Options to choose the direction
  5. Set Start to On Click
  6. Press F5 to test it in the slide show

▼ Last step

Class activity

Open your All About Me presentation. Add one transition and apply it to all slides. On slide 3, make your bullet points appear one at a time. Then present your show to your group and ask for one compliment and one suggestion.

Self-check quiz

Click the best answer. You get feedback straight away; only your first click counts towards your score.

1. What is a transition?

2. Making bullet points appear one at a time is an example of…

3. Which kind of animation effect makes something appear?

4. Which Start setting waits for you to click?

5. Where can you see and reorder all the animations on a slide?

6. Which is the best advice?

Related posts on islandclass.org

Next: Digital Drawing with Paint

Syllabus link: Forms 1–3 ICT curriculum, Module 3, Objective 3.6 – apply animation features to a slide show.

Attributions to media used in this post:

Updates

2026/10/21

- Fixed the activity code so its buttons keep working.

© 2026 Vedesh Kungebeharry. All rights reserved.

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