PowerPoint course: 12.10 | Exercise Animations - "Coffee Break" (Part 2)

Welcome back to our PowerPoint course! In the second part of the "Coffee Break" exercise, we will delve deeper into the creation of animations. You have already learned the basics in the first part. Now you will gradually learn how to integrate additional important elements into your presentation.

Key Insights

In this part of the tutorial, you will learn how to:

• select an appealing background for your slide.
• uniformly and attractively fill shapes.
• precisely adjust animations to pique your audience's interest.
• understand and fix errors in the animation area.

Step-by-Step Guide

To make your presentation visually appealing, we'll start with the color scheme of the elements.

First, you should change the colors of your shapes to create a nice coffee-themed design. Go to the fill effects of your shapes. Choose a soft coffee brown that is warm enough but doesn't appear too yellowish. Make sure the color looks appetizing as your presentation should have an appealing look.

Now let's focus on the heights of the boxes. It is important for the boxes on your slide to be of the same height to achieve a harmonious overall look. You can adjust the height of the boxes by looking for the suitable height in the settings. Try a height of 6 cm - this may be too high, so also test smaller values. The goal is to find the perfect height for the final execution.

Since the slide background has not been set up yet, we need to design it now. The background should also match our coffeehouse style. Click on the background and make sure it fits the concept. Later, we will also add an animation that enhances the overall feel of the slide.

Now it's time to configure the animations for our elements. The goal is to have everything that needs to be animated pop up at the end of the animation to pique your audience's curiosity. Go back to the preview to see how the current animation looks.

Let's look at the two boxes. To increase readability, these should now be filled with a lighter shade of brown. The contrast with the disappearing numbers will ensure that an optical element remains visible. Also, make sure to choose a minimal contrast that does not make the numbers unreadable.

Now it's important that the boxes are stacked on top of each other. Click on "center vertically" to perfectly align them one on top of the other. Once you have checked how the arrangement looks, you will notice that the background and the text "Let's continue" must be correctly stacked on top of each other.

It appears that the elements are not properly stacked on top of each other and the background is obstructing the view of the content. To fix this, you need to move the background to the back. This is essential so that your audience can clearly see everything. After moving the image or shape to the back, preview again to check the status.

Now let's look at the box that goes further. It should be presented without a gray border, and the text will be displayed larger. Go to the format section, select "Outline," and make sure no outline is enabled. Your goal is to highlight only the text.

The frame currently appears blue, which does not match our coffee theme. Select all rectangles and change the border color to black. This will bring us very close to the original design.

To present the coffee break ideally, we will now move on to the background options. Choose "Design" and then go to "Format Background". Here you can import an image or texture that fits the coffee theme. Make sure the transparency is high enough so that the background doesn't appear too intrusive, but is still recognizable.

View your presentation in presentation mode to see how everything fits together. Click on the slide to start the animations. If the timing is not correct, errors in the animation area are always possible.

Go to the animations and check the animation area. Often, the timing for the animations is not set correctly. Make sure the second element is set to "after previous". Verify this to ensure everything is animated correctly.

Finally, formulate your conclusion! Clearly tell your audience that they now have a 10-minute break. Once the slide is fully set up, it should look professional and appealing.

I invite you to open a blank presentation and simply follow these steps. Be patient with yourself, as with each practice you will improve. Do not doubt that such exercises will help you master more complex animations. Your skills will improve with each attempt.

Summary

In this part of the course, you have learned how to adjust the colors and heights of objects in your presentation and create effective animations. You have seen how to properly layer objects and set the background to create an engaging presentation. Practice the steps, and you will soon be able to design even more complex animations.