10 Awesome Things You Can Do With

PowerPoint!

1. Animations PowerPoint’s Animation

capabilities are an easy way to bring some fun and pizzazz

to your slides, with just a few clicks!

Just click on some content on a slide that you want try an

Animation with, then click on the Animations menu. You will see options like “Appear”, “Fade” “Fly In”, etc. Click one to see what it will look

like when applied to the content you’ve selected.

Animations (cont.)

Note that it’s pretty easy to tweak how the animations work with the controls

on the right of the Animation window – Effect Options, Triggers (does it start when you click,

or immediately after another animation, etc.?), Duration, Delay, etc. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

You’ll want to exercise some restraint here though. It’s easy to get carried away with these and create a

dizzying array of flashing, whirling content … don’t do that.

2. Motion PathsOne of the most flexible Animations available

in PowerPoint is the Motion Path.

Objects can move across the screen and you can adjust the path they follow. If you click the ‘Add Animations’ button from within the Animations menu, this will bring up a menu

of the various Entrance, Exit, Emphasis, etc., Animations, including Motion Paths

(you may have to scroll down to see these, or select ‘More Motion Paths’). 

Motion Paths (cont.)

Build Test

The basic Motion Paths provided include Lines,

Arcs, Turns, Shapes, Loops, and a Custom

Path (this one lets you define the path you want). If you select ‘More Motion Paths’, you’ll see a bunch

of pre-configured paths, like “4 Point Star” and

‘Tear Drop”.

3. Text & Image EMPHASIS

One set of Animations are for “Emphasis”. When you click the Add Animation button on the Animations menu, you’ll see these.

As long as you’ve selected an object before you click the menu options, you’ll be able to

hover over Emphasis options like Teeter, Wave, Grow/Shrink, etc., to see how they will look when applied. Remember, you can tweak things about the Animations, so you may be able to get them

to behave in unexpected ways to achieve a desired effect.

4. Follow the Bouncing Ball

If you’re of a certain age, the phrase “follow the

bouncing ball” brings to mind images of a small

white cartoon ball bouncing merrily along

above a scrolling line of song lyrics at the bottom of

the TV screen.

Follow the Bouncing Ball (cont.)

This is a fun, nostalgic effect that uses the Motion Path animation. In this music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Mtmj_R-_Y, you can see how I used this technique

along other Animation tools to create a fun music video for an original song I recorded.

Here are the instructions I found onlinethat showed me how to do this: http://

www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/animate-a-bouncing-ball/

5. Narrate Over Slides

This is probably easier than you thought!

There are a couple of ways to tackle this.

They’re both discussed in this

video:https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKv1W3kJyW4

6. Use PowerPoint as a Blank Template for Building Video Content

By combining Animations and other PowerPoint techniques and functions with a screen casting tool, it’s pretty

easy to create video content that looks professional. By using a blank

background, or a picture as your background, viewers will have no idea you even used PowerPoint. (I used this technique to make parts of the music

video in #4 above.)

7. Embed a YouTube Videoin your PresentationFind the video you want to embed, click the Share link and then the Embed link and copy the Embed code. Then, back in PowerPoint, just click the Insert Menu and choose Video, then select Video from Website and paste in the embed code for any YouTube video!

8. Create an Animated GIF from a PowerPoint Slide

You can save a PowerPoint slide as a GIF

and then use a program like GIMP to create your

own animated GIF!  This Wikipedia entry

 provides further details (there are other GIF

animator programs out there as well).

Here’s the template is used for this presentation: http://www.presentationmagazine.com/sparkler-powerpoint-template-5322.htm

9. Find and Use Your own Unique Templates

I love to seek inspiration when starting a new slide deck or animation by seeking out a new

template. There are lots of good free ones available on the Web. Here are over 44,000 free presentation templates

 from PresentationsMagazine.com!

10. Embed a Functioning Excel Worksheet into a Presentation

Did you know you can have a totally functional Excel Worksheet embedded in a PowerPoint slide? It’s easy … just a couple of clicks. Click the Insert Menu, then choose Object from the menu ribbon. Then either click on Excel Worksheet under ‘Create new’ or click ‘Create from File’ and browse out to an Excel worksheet and select it. Note that a large format worksheet isn’t going to work well here, but if you create or insert a small functional worksheet, it should be easy to navigate and use.

This presentation was created using content originally published in this article: http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/09/awesome-things-powerpoint-can-do/

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