Animate text by letter 2003 student and teacher version?

M

Mole

As a Basic Skills teacher I found this feature extremely useful in
presentations to my literacy students. The letters crawl in one by one and
it helps them to learn by anticipating the correct spelling. In my new
version I cannot find the effect tab to make this happen. The help feature
includes reference to 'animate text by letter and by word' but HOW? Any
ideas?
 
D

David M. Marcovitz

If you are used to the old-style animation in PowerPoint 2000, the new
animation can be quite confusing, but that is because it is much more
powerful. You can right-click on an object and choose Custom Animation. A
task pane shows up on the left. On the top, choose, Add Effect and pick
fly in. Now, down in the bottom of the task pane, you should see some
description of the object that you just animated. Click once on that, and
you will see an arrow (for a pull down menu) next to it. Click on the
arrow and choose Effect Options from the menu. Now, you probably want to
change the direct (From Right probably makes the most sense for your
purpose). Under Enhancements, you choose to "Animate Text" "By Letter."
Finally, you will want to change the "% delay between letters." I had to
kick it up to 200% before it got even close to slow enough for the
purpose you describe (you might even want to go up to 300% or 400%
depending on how slow you want it).

There is a way to turn off the newer animation features and go back to
the old way, but after you get used to the new things you can do with
animation (and figure out how to do the things you used to do with
animation), you won't want to go back.

--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.PowerfulPowerPoint.com/
 
L

Luc

Mole,
In the custom animation taskpane (PPT 2002/2003), double click your text
animation, click on the effects tab (first from the left). Next to the last
item in the dialog (animate text) click on the listarrow and choose by
letter.
Does this help?
 
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