Software to Animate Graphics

[Jeff Zylstra]

I'm doing a Power Point presentation, and was looking for some software to provide some "special effects" as it were.  Maybe to spin our logo, or provide other effects for pictures or text headings or other things in the presentation.   I don't know if flash animation is what I'm looking for, or just what it would be .  Free is always good, but if it's reasonably priced, that would be good too. 

I'm just wondering how much we would use it, which leads me to ask if this is something that I should have done by a professional, and then develop the power point presentations ourselves.   What is everyone else doing for Power Points and other presentations?  Any help is appreciated.

[Matthew Udovich]

I believe you can do custom animations in PP to make your logo spin and do funky stuff.

[DebAmstutz]

It depends on the presentation.  A little spin here or there or other effects can be okay, but perhaps not if it's a serious subject.  I'm doing a presentation with powerpoint for the first-timers and TENCon and there is no spinning or special effects, but the pictures and words work together quite well.  You want to get what you're presenting noticed, not how it's presented, or those who see it will remember the effects and not the message itself.

But that's just my opinion....

[Lance Bateman]

Matthew's correct.  Play around with the "insert-clip art" and select animations or sounds you may want, you'll figure that part out.  Also, I've found the "fade in/fade out" work pretty well, especially if you're adding things to a slide that has multiple steps.

[Mark]

Just to add to these comments, you can create animated gif files with GiMP.  the problem though, is that you have to have each layer/frame.  so to get your stick figure to walk from here to there, you need a frame of him/her taking each step.

So, if you want your logo to spin (and I think you can already do that with PP like mentioned above) is that you'd need a picture of your logo in each position of the spin.

Make sense?

[Jan Regnier]

IN PP (Office 2003) - under the SLIDE SHOW heading on the top of the presentation are all kinds of options for making it more interesting. 

[Jeff Zylstra]

It does.  Thanks, Mark and everyone.  I will see what "effects" PP has internally.  I don't want it to be a dog and pony show, frames of our PP presentation will be show before and after a PP presentation by any insurance company, so we need it to look professional but not glitzy.  Maybe that's the wrong tack to take, but that's our plan right now.

[Bloody Jack Kidd]

I'd say good quality clip art and stock photos trump animation - IMO

[Jeff Zylstra]

I'd say good quality clip art and stock photos trump animation - IMO

I think I would agree with that.  And I'm thinking that the animations that Jan mentioned should be just fine.  I don't need it to spin, crash, or explode, so Flash is not necessary.  Thank you, everyone!

Time for me to slink away in shame for my demonstrated ignorance of Power Point functions.   

[Mark]

I'd say good quality clip art and stock photos trump animation - IMO

I'd agree with this.  No one really likes animation these days anyway, unless it's actually a video.

[Matthew Udovich]

I find the animations in PP work best for slides that are used as Q&A with the intent of provoking the audience into thinking of the answer before it appears up on the screen.

[Lance Bateman]

No need to slink.  It's not an easy thing to play with the first time.  I remember for Bill's mother's 90th birthday, I was sent about 250 pictures of family and friends from around 1915 on to current - and trying to get a half hour show including music (changing for each period) - well, it probably took me over 100 hours to do.

Good part - and it was a small town, about 2500 people, Arthur IL (half Amish) - everyone seemed to enjoy it, and wanted copies.  Once you get the hang of PP (not easy), you can do a lot.  But I agree, only get as fancy as needed for the topic and the audience.

I'd say good quality clip art and stock photos trump animation - IMO

I think I would agree with that.  And I'm thinking that the animations that Jan mentioned should be just fine.  I don't need it to spin, crash, or explode, so Flash is not necessary.  Thank you, everyone!

Time for me to slink away in shame for my demonstrated ignorance of Power Point functions.   

[Jeff Zylstra]

Thanks, Lance.  Since this presentation is primarily for seniors, I'm hoping that the threshold for technical competence is fairly low.   My problem is that it will be shown along with an insurance company presentation, so I don't want to come off as being too crude or elementary. 

I'm assuming that I can somehow "merge" the 2 Power Point presentations to one file by just copying and pasting slides from one file to another.  Is that correct?   I'm assuming that I will have to edit the timing of the slides to match their timing and special effects.  Or will I just have to run 2 separate PP files?

[Matthew Udovich]

I'm assuming that I can somehow "merge" the 2 Power Point presentations to one file by just copying and pasting slides from one file to another.

My experience with this is that you may have to copy the slide masters from the other PP's as well and you may have to reassign the correct ones to the slides. I have done this and I have also linked the PP's together, where as when one presentation ends the next slide actually calls the other PP and it starts up separately. The only issue I had with that was if I had to scroll back to a slide in the first presentation.

If you like I can dig for my notes on how I did that.

I found them faster than I thought I could, Thanks to W7 Oh well, never mind, I'd have to email them, I can't get the 212 KB down to 192 KB 

[Jan Regnier]

Thanks, Lance.  Since this presentation is primarily for seniors, I'm hoping that the threshold for technical competence is fairly low.   My problem is that it will be shown along with an insurance company presentation, so I don't want to come off as being too crude or elementary. 

I'm assuming that I can somehow "merge" the 2 Power Point presentations to one file by just copying and pasting slides from one file to another.  Is that correct?   I'm assuming that I will have to edit the timing of the slides to match their timing and special effects.  Or will I just have to run 2 separate PP files?

I know this isn't much help but I JUST saw a program in the last few days that merges PP files.
Unfortunately I don't remember where I saw it.... if it was just an email solicitation or a website I was on.... or an iPad app......  It might have been on How-to-Geek

[Billy Welsh]

Another option would be to print slides to PDF in desired order, then use Adobe for slide show.  With PDFactory, this creates one PDF file.  And you can reorder before saving if you happen to print in wrong order (though depending on # of misplaced slides starting over could be quicker - it is one page at a time).

Just another way to skin the cat.

[Lance Bateman]

You can copy the slides from "2" into "1", but I'd then check how it runs in case there is anything that needs to be fixed.

Thanks, Lance.  Since this presentation is primarily for seniors, I'm hoping that the threshold for technical competence is fairly low.   My problem is that it will be shown along with an insurance company presentation, so I don't want to come off as being too crude or elementary. 

I'm assuming that I can somehow "merge" the 2 Power Point presentations to one file by just copying and pasting slides from one file to another.  Is that correct?   I'm assuming that I will have to edit the timing of the slides to match their timing and special effects.  Or will I just have to run 2 separate PP files?

[Jeff Zylstra]

Thank you, ladies and gents!