Tip of the week # 649
8 April 2021


Fade pictures, shapes and text in and out using Morph (PowerPoint for Microsoft 365) *

Back in July last year, as the pandemic put an end to face-to-face events, the Cambridge Science Park took all its events online and I was asked to share some of my top tips with their community. With eight webinars under my belt and introduced by the organisers as "one of the Park's favourite presenters" (what's the point of publishing your own tips if you cannot occasionally blow your own trumpet? ;) ) I was asked to develop and deliver two more sessions.

So this week I've been prepping for the "What's new in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook" webinar and have fallen in love with PowerPoint's Morph functionality. You can find it on the Transition tab and although I normally recommend to avoid special effects between slides and keep things simple, I really like the subtleness of this one.

Here's how:

  1. Create your slides, as normal.
  2. Move, resize or delete pictures, shapes and text.
  3. In the Outline pane on the left, select the slides you want to apply the special effect to. For example, click on slide 2 and while holding down your SHIFT key click on the last slide.
  4. On the Transitions tab, select Morph.

Anything you add will fade in. Anything you delete will fade out.

Microsoft says that to use the Morph transition effectively, you'll need to have two slides with at least one object in common. So you might want to start off duplicating your slide (CTRL + D, anyone?), move one of the pictures on the second slide to a different place and apply the Morph transition to the second slide. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPH1CNsEjvU to watch Microsoft's fabulous video morphing the planets. But I think it works fine on all sort of slides and you might want to have a look at my simple example; see morph.ppsx.

Related tips

  1. Top ten Microsoft PowerPoint shortcuts - tip_540.php
  2. Convert bullet points into professionally designed layouts with icons - tip_646.php

PS Microsoft continuously introduces new and improved features, which means you may not be using the Office applications to its full potential. Although you probably know there are easier ways to use the software, you simply don't have the time or energy to sift through and find what's new yourself. If you are interested in the What's new in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook webinar but don't work at the Science Park or cannot make the dates, contact me on 01223 214177 or email karen@roem.co.uk


* Unless stated otherwise this tip is written for Microsoft 365 and Windows 10 users, but can also be useful in Office 2010, 2013 and 2016.