PowerPoint 2007 & 2010: How to Turn an Image Into An Animated Puzzle, Part II

Last week I showed you how to animate a picture in PowerPoint so that it came in as a puzzle, piece by piece. That was cool. But if you followed along last week, read on to find some bonus tips for making the animation a little more realistic and adding some finishing touches.

How to Make an Animated Puzzle Look More Realistic

1. From the Selection and Visibility Pane, select all of the puzzle pieces.
2. On the slide, right-click one of the puzzle pieces and choose Format Object.
3. From the Line Color category, change the line color to black.
4. From the Line Style category, change the line Width to 1 pt.
5. From the 3-D Format category, in the Top Bevel area, change the Width to 5 pt and the Height to 2 pt.
6. Click the Close button.

The puzzle pieces will now appear 3-dimensional. 

Make the Puzzle Pieces Disappear

1. Select everything on the slide (press [Ctrl] [A]).
2. From the Animations pane, choose Advanced Animation > Add Animation.
3. From the Exit category, choose Disappear.

All of the items on the slide will appear selected on the Animation Pane with the Disappear animation applied to them.  

4. Click the more arrow on the last animation effect and choose Timing.
5. From the Timing tab, click the Start drop-down menu and select With Previous. Increase the Delay to whatever you would like. (I would suggest something like 2 seconds.)

Voila, you've done it! I see this effect being really nice in conjunction with a team photo to show how everyone is a part of the bigger picture, but I'm sure there are many other applicable uses for it. How will you use this animation? I'd love to hear from you. 

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AJ will be teaching a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. The class is later this month and there is still time to sign up.