Showing Transitions between PowerPoint Slides

In PowerPoint-speak, a transition is a little bit of excitement that occurs as one slide leaves the screen and the next slide appears. Transitions include the dissolve, the wipe up, and the cover down. Don't worry —you do get a chance to test-drive these transitions before you attach them to slides.

Before you know anything about transitions, however, you should know that they can be distracting and time-consuming. The purpose of a presentation is to communicate with the audience, not display the latest, busiest, most dazzling presentation technology.

Here's how to show transitions between slides:

1. Switch to Slide Sorter view.

2. Click the Transition button or choose Slide Show --> Slide Transition.

The Slide Transition task pane appears, as shown in Figure 1.

3. Select the slides that need transitions; or, to run transitions throughout your presentation, click the Apply to All Slides button or press Ctrl+A.

4. Select a transition in the Apply to Selected Slides menu.

As soon as you choose a transition, the slide or slides you selected "transition" — meaning that they demonstrate the transition you chose. Click the Play button to see the transition again. Experiment with different transitions until you find one that's just right.

Choose the same transition for all the slides unless your goal is to make a wacky presentation. Transitions already call attention to themselves. Assigning a different transition to each slide has the effect of turning the audience's attention away from you and toward transitions.

5. On the Speed menu, choose a speed for the transition — Slow, Medium, or Fast.

Again, the slides demonstrate how fast or slow these options are.

6. To play a sound during a transition, select the sound from the Sound menu.

These canned sounds can be distracting, however, so choose wisely, or, better yet, don't choose a sound unless you are working on a kiosk presentation.

A flying star icon appears with slides that have been assigned transitions (the star also appears with slides that have been animated). To remove a transition from slides, select the slides in Slide Sorter view, click the Transition button, and choose No Transition on the Apply to Selected Slides menu in the Slide Transition task pane.