Animations always add a bit of extra flair to PowerPoint presentations, and using motion paths can help you create unique, custom animations. In today’s presentation design, the Morph transition is the way to accomplish motion. For this Friday’s looking back post is a tutorial from 2011 on PowerPoint motion paths, because sometimes the Morph transition is not able to accomplish the needed motion. The how-to still holds up today – though we’ve added some updated images to give the post a facelift!

Motion path animations are a great feature, but using them beyond basic functions can be confusing. For example, here is the slide from an earlier timeline sample of ours:

The animation effect was great, and the design of it relied on a lot of motion paths. This is a quick step-by-step example of moving an object to two positions with motion paths.

1. The blue box is the object to move. First to area “1” and then to area “2.”

2. Moving to area “1” is easy. Select the box and add a Motion Path to the left.

3. To move to area “2” is a bit more involved. First, add a Motion Path up. Note: It is added to the existing position. During slide show the box will move to the left, then jump back to the original location and move up – not the seamless effect wanted.

4. Select the “up” motion path. Note: You must be in the Animation tab to view motion paths and select them. Then, click and drag it over so it’s green start is exactly aligned with the first motion paths red end.

5. Done. Now, the box will seamlessly move to area “1” and then up to area “2.”

Download presentation with this sample animation (17K). Note: if your browser changes downloaded file to”.zip” rename to “.pptx”.

– Troy @ TLC

This is from our Look Back series, rediscovering previous blog posts with relevant PowerPoint tips, tricks and examples. The original post from February 4th, 2011 can be viewed here.

Previously we discussed how to cover sections of an image to achieve animation as different sections in this post from February 12th. The issue that we learned was that by covering the sections with white boxes, that this would be more difficult to see while reviewing in slide sorter.  The solution was to animate the images as separate elements. But how did we crop the image into 3 sections? Let’s review how. 

Insert the Image: 

• Click on the “Insert” tab in the ribbon. 

• Choose “Pictures” or “Online Pictures” to insert an image from your computer or from the web. 

• Select the image and click “Insert”. 

Once we have the original image, now we can split it into 3 sections.  

Duplicate: 

We now need to duplicate the image 2 more times. This will come in handy to have 3 images in the same position so the cropping sections will look seamless. There are a few ways to duplicate the easiest is selecting the image and PC: ctrl + c then ctrl v Mac: cmd + c > cmd + v. 

Let’s crop the first image then we will duplicate this process for the other 2 shapes. Here is a trick to map out the sections on how we are going to crop them.  

• Create a shape that’s the same height as the image 

• Next is duplicate the shape 2 more times. 

• Align the 3rd shape the right of the image > then used “Distribute Horizontally” in the ribbon tool, to evenly space out the 3 shapes equally across the image. 

Now we have a clear guide on where to crop each section. 

Crop: 

• Click on the first image to select it. 

• Go to the “Picture Format” tab that appears when the image is selected. 

• In the “Size” group, click on “Crop”. 

• Position your mouse over the cropping handles
  (the black squares around the image). 

• Drag the cropping handles inward to crop the image to the first section you want. You can adjust the cropping by dragging the handles until you’re satisfied with the section. 

• Click outside the image to apply the crop. 

Repeat for the Other Images: 

• Click on the second image to select it. 

• Follow the same steps to crop it into the 2nd and 3rd section you want. 

• Remove the 3 orange shapes as those are no longer needed as guides. 

Now we have 3 sections of the one image that we can animate individually  

Christie @ TLC