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[Mario_Hugo]

This is one archaic app...I have to do this project for a very big energy drink company (the biggest), involving bullets and images.

How the FUCK do I get this to go in this order.

click>bullet
click>image beneath the bullet.
click>bullet
click>image beneath bullet

etc.

This has to be ultra simple. How it is that I know 100 difficult apps like the back of my hand and can't figure out this godamned program is beyond me, but any help would be appreciated.

 

[Dilbert]

You don't mention which version of PowerPoint you're using, so this advice may differ. (I only have Office 97 at home, which is an OLD version of the software.)

There should be a context menu when you right-click anywhere on the slide called "Custom Animation." One of the tabs will give you a list of items which can be animated on the slide, and you can choose the order in which they will appear per mouse click. Text boxes can be animated per bullet point -- I think the setting is "all at once" for the text and "1st level" for the paragraph setting. Individual pictures can also be animated rather easily.

The catch (at least in the version of PPT that I'm using) is that the individual bullet points aren't objects. So, you can't animate from bullet -> picture -> bullet -> picture the way you'd like. My recommendation (unless someone has a better idea) is to create multiple text boxes (one for each bullet point), set the animation order the way you'd like, and use the "snap to grid" feature (available on the Draw menu) to make the bullets line up neatly. It's kind of a kludge, but I can't see any other way to do it...unless subsequent versions of the software added this capability.

 

[Mario_Hugo]

Okay, so I'm with you on the custom animation business--that's how I got the images loading in the right order. At the moment, the file progresses

bullet bullet bullet image image image

exactly for the reasons you've described...goig to try the solution now

 

[Mario_Hugo]

Got it. How nobody demands a better fucking app from Microsoft is beyond me. This software feels painfully 1994.

 

[Dilbert]

Glad that hack worked.

Yes, PowerPoint is overrated. However, I've never had a problem with that particular lack of functionality since lesson #1 (and #2 and #3...) in business presentation school is DON'T USE ANIMATION. Obviously, since you're working in design, you'd be an exception to that rule...but for most people, even reaching for the animation button is the wrong decision.

 

[Mario_Hugo]

Haha--thanks very much. Everything is functioning now. It's still hideous, but functioning.

 

[Mario_Hugo]

This is some funky project with decoder glasses--lets just say it's an alternative presentation either way.

 

[FreakyFink]

I never heard anyone utter one positive comment about PowerPoint. Ever. It really is just one big mess of a program.

At any rate, I thought I'd throw in my two cents in; I use PowerPoint (and, preferrably, Apple Keynote 2) for marketing and busienss development presentations regularly.

jinx's solution was best—separating out the bullets into individual fields. Your other option, Mario_Hugo, was to add long pauses between each bullet appearance and then use time delays for the image animations in conjunction with the animate with previous timing command.

Glad that hack worked.

Yes, PowerPoint is overrated. However, I've never had a problem with that particular lack of functionality since lesson #1 (and #2 and #3...) in business presentation school is DON'T USE ANIMATION. Obviously, since you're working in design, you'd be an exception to that rule...but for most people, even reaching for the animation button is the wrong decision.

I was taught more or less the same way in business school, but this hasn't held true in my professional career, especially as I work more with customized graphics. However, the presenations in school were more lecture focused; therefore, animations were distracting because slides were text heavy.