Microsoft Office Tip: Animating SmartArt the Easy Way in PowerPoint

We all know the familiar saying “A picture is worth a thousand words.” And in my experience, this has been very true. But should it take a thousand hours to animate in PowerPoint? Of course not.

PowerPoint offers very easy–to-use and apply animations; however, the default offerings and how they are applied may not be what you want.

If you’ve ever been tasked with creating a high-impact presentation to wow customers, potential clients or company executives, today is your lucky day, as I’ll share a few tips and tricks for effectively animating SmartArt in PowerPoint.

What is SmartArt?

A SmartArt graphic is a visual representation of your information and ideas. In applications like PowerPoint, SmartArt makes it quick and easy to magically transform text into illustrations. You can choose from among many different layouts to effectively communicate your message. You can create a SmartArt graphic in Excel, PowerPoint, Word, or in an e-mail message in Outlook, and you can copy and paste SmartArt graphics as images into other programs.

What to Consider When Choosing a SmartArt Layout

When you choose a layout for your SmartArt graphic, ask yourself what you want to convey. Because you can quickly and easily switch layouts, try different layouts (across types) until you find the one that best illustrates your message (e.g., an upward pointing arrow to show growth). When you switch layouts, most of your text and other content, colors, styles, effects, and text formatting are automatically carried over to the new layout.

Here are a few of the types that I’ve found to be most useful:

• List – shows non-sequential information
• Process – shows steps in a process or timeline
• Hierarchy – shows a decision tree
• Relationship – illustrates connections
• Cycle – shows a continual process

In general, SmartArt graphics are most effective when the number of shapes and the amount of text are limited to key points. Larger amounts of text can distract from the visual appeal of your SmartArt graphic and make it harder to convey your message visually. However, some layouts, such as “Trapezoid List” in the List type, work well with larger amounts of text.

Add an Animation

SmartArt graphics are made up of multiple shapes, and some animation effects, such as the “Color Typewriter” Entrance effect or the “Flip” Exit effect, can only be applied to those individual shapes, not the graphic as a whole. If you want to use animation effects that are unavailable for SmartArt graphics, first convert your SmartArt graphic into individual shapes, and then add the animation effect.

When you animate your SmartArt graphic, depending on the layout that you use, you can choose one of the following options for how to apply the animation:

• As one object – the animation is applied as though the entire SmartArt graphic is one large picture or object
• All at once – all of the shapes in the SmartArt graphic are animated at the same time, but individually
• One by one – each shape is animated individually, one after the other
• By branch one by one – all of the shapes in the same branch are animated at the same time
• By level at once – all shapes at the same level are animated at the same time
• By level one by one – the shapes in the SmartArt graphic are animated first by level and then individually within that level

For a complete step-by-step tutorial, download our How to Guide: Animating SmartArt in Microsoft PowerPoint.