Animate Your PowerPoint 2002 Web Presentation

Microsoft PowerPoint® 2002 makes it easy to deliver your presentation as a Web page. You may be wondering, however, how to use animation effects, as you do for slide show presentations, so that you can focus on important points, control the flow of information, and add interest to your Web presentation. This article explains how to use animation effects to best advantage in a Web presentation, and then shows you how to publish it to the Web. For an example of an animated Web presentation, see the following animation.

Planning ahead

If you know you'll want to deliver your presentation primarily as a Web presentation, you can design it with that in mind. If you have decided to publish an animated presentation that you have already created, you may need to change some of the animation effects to ensure that the slides will play smoothly and as expected in the Web format. Keep in mind not only the animations you want to use (or have used), but also the browser type and version you are delivering for. PowerPoint 2002 animated effects only work with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or later; no custom animation or animation schemes will work with Netscape or earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

Choosing the right animations

Some animation effects (on the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation or Animation Schemes) work nicely in the Web page environment, such as Fade in, Faded Zoom, Blink, Flashbulb, and most motion paths, including custom motion paths. When you apply a motion path effect, however, be sure that by the end of the sequence, the animated text or object is still on the slide (unless you want an exit effect). The following animation shows how a motion path can end up hiding part of the text or object in a presentation.

These types of animation effects are not recommended for use in Web presentations because they either will not animate at all or the effect may not behave as expected:

Any effects that scale text or objects in only one direction (for instance vertical, but not horizontal), such as Stretch, Swivel, Compress, Grow/Shrink, Spin, or Glide.
Any effects that rotate text, such as Flip, Spinner, Swish, Teeter, and Wave.
Effects applied to charts. These effects will play as if they were applied to the chart as a whole (no parts will be animated).
Dim after effects. These effects will not work for images (or video); if a Dim after effect is applied to an object, the fill colors will dim but the outline color will not dim.

Be sure to experiment with the different animation effects to find combinations that work best for your presentation when it is viewed as a Web page. For more information about creating presentations and adding animations, see Microsoft PowerPoint Help.

Timing is everything

Your audience members may not be familiar with PowerPoint, but you can arrange the timing of the animation sequences so that they don't have to click the slide area to make the next item appear. Simply set the animations to play automatically.

To do this, in the Custom Animation task pane, apply the With Previous start option to the first animation on a slide. This will start the animation as soon as the slide appears in the browser window. Then apply the After Previous start option for all other animations on the slide. Alternatively, you can apply the default On Click option for each animation effect and then set timings for each slide (on the Slide Show menu, click Rehearse Timings). When the slide is being timed, click through the animations on the slide and then click the Next button (the blue arrow) on the Rehearsal toolbar. Your viewers will still be able to use the Web presentation navigation pane to click from slide to slide, but all animations on a slide will play automatically. Note that when someone returns to a slide after having viewed only part of it, the animation sequences automatically start from the beginning.

For more information about timing animations, see Microsoft PowerPoint Help and Timing Animation Sequences in PowerPoint 2002 Presentations.

Note If your audience does not have Office XP installed, they may need to install the Office Animation Run-time Add-in to view the animated Web presentation.

Tips for adding sound and video

Consider the following when deciding whether to add sound, video, or embedded objects to a Web presentation.

Sound only plays for a single slide; it doesn't continue playing when you jump to another slide.
If you position a video clip such that the movie icon is partially or completely behind a shape or object, the video will play behind that shape or object.
Linked or embedded objects will not play.

Publish your animated presentation

When you publish a presentation to the Web, you save a copy of a Web page or Web archive to a specified location, such as a Web server or other available computer. By publishing the presentation instead of merely saving it as a Web page or Web archive, you maintain the original version of the presentation in the .ppt file format, and all the necessary supporting files (including graphics, fonts, and backgrounds) are added to the shared location for you.

Open the presentation or Web page you want to publish to the Web.
On the File menu, click Save as Web Page.
In the File name box, type a name for the Web page.
In the Save as type box, do one of the following:
- To save as a Web page and create an associated folder that contains supporting files, such as bullets, background textures, and graphics, select Web Page. This works fine for saving to a Web server when you don't plan to move the presentation.
- To save as a Web archive with all supporting information, such as graphics and other files, contained in a single file, select Web Archive. This works well when you know you'll have to move the presentation or if you want to email it.
In the folder list, select a location for the presentation.
Click Publish, and then do the following:
- Under Browser support, select Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later.
- To ensure that animations play when the presentation is browsed, click Web Options, select Show slide animation while browsing, and then click OK.
To immediately see how your published Web presentation looks in your browser after you publish it, select the Open published Web page in browser check box.
Click Publish.

Now you can send the link, or the Web archive file itself, to your audience members. For more information about publishing and updating your Web presentation, see Microsoft PowerPoint Help.