resizing animations

[jonnie s.]

I just spent a LOT of time creating an animation with dozens of objects,
custom paths and timing. But now I need to resize (scale down) everything to
fit in a particular area on a slide. If I Select All and drag an element to
resize, things don't all scale down the same, so objects are in the wrong
place and paths are way off. If I attempt to group everything to better
control the scaling, all the animation steps disappear!
Tell me I don't have to toss all the animation work out, resize all the
elements to their final size, and then re-do all the animation again!

 

[Kevin]

I faced the same issue a week ago and ended up scaling every shape and text
contents individually to avoid losing the animations. If someone comes up
with a better solution I'd be exteremly pleased (for the next time)!

 

[Lucy Thomson]

Hi

As well as Kevin's idea, you could try creating a new file and scaling the
page size to larger, then copy & paste all the elements from the first file
across. I *think* that would work. As long as it is scaled correctly (e.g.
4:3 or 16:9) it shouldn't matter what the actual page size is when
projecting or printing.

Lucy

 

[Echo S]

That's what I'd do, and yeah, it works. (Been there, done that.)

Alternatively, there are a couple of animation painter utilities out there.
You could make a copy of the slide, scale the objects, then "paint" the
animations back onto the objects.

Animation Carbon: http://skp.mvps.org/ac/index.html
Edit for PPT: http://www.pptxtreme.com/edit.asp (There's also Effects
Library if you need built-in effects and stuff.)

 

[jonnie s.]

Lucy- You put me on the right track.
Using the existing animation file, I used the Page Setup to set a custom
page size of 5x3", about the size of the area that the graphic needs to fit
into on a standard 8-1/2 x 11" page. PPT resized the animation
appropriately. I saved this under a temporary name. I then re-openned the
original file (with letter-sized pages). Then I copied/pasted the animation
graphic from the 5x3" version into the letter-sized version, and
(thankfully!) it retained its scaled-down size. Problem solved.

Clearly PPT knows how to scale animations properly, since it can do it in
response to a Page Setup change. Why the scaling doesn't operate similarly
when doing it "manually" by selecting and re-sizing the objects seems like a
programming shortfall. Maybe next version...

Thanks!

 

[Lucy Thomson]

Thanks for letting us know that it worked and exactly what you did - I'm
sure it will help some future PowerPointer

Lucy

--
Lucy Thomson
PowerPoint MVP
MOS Master Instructor
www.aneasiertomorrow.com.au