Animation on Powerpoint 2004 (Mac) vs Powerpoint XP

[nir.friedman]

Hi all,

I am sorry if this is a deadbeat subject, but I have just switched to
Macintosh with the hope of improving my life... and just run into a
wall.

One of the amazing thing MS did in PPT 2003 (and later XP) was to
revise the animation setup to actually allow scriptable animation
setting. As I pride myself in the quality of my scientific
presentations (I am an academic), this became an indispensable tool.

I just tried modifying one of my presentation on my new Mac, and was
horified to discover that the Mac animation interface is less workable
than the old Office 2001 interface. The annoying thing is that this
powerpoint plays without a problem animation created by PPT XP, and so
its internal representation and the slideshow engine have the
capability to deal with such animations. Yet the user interface does
not allow to create half of the things you can do in the PC version,
and moreover, even getting a simple animation sequence going is painful
(I can't figure what is going from the preview window, and closing and
restarting the Custom Animation dialog takes forever).

Whats the story? Is there any workaround??

Thanks!

-Nir

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Nir,

I can help you with the animation preview I think. There is a feature in
Mac PowerPoint that does not exist in the Windows version. To find it,
on the View menu choose Toolbars > Animation Effects. The last button
on the toolbar is "Animation Preview." If you like what that button
does you can keep that toolbar open, or use Tools > Customize and then
drag that button to any other toolbar or menu. In the same dialog box
you can reset the Animation Effects toolbar to get the button back.

The Mac PowerPoint 2004 user interface does not have the ability to
create path animations. PowerPoint 2004 does have full ability to use
and play all of the animations including paths created by PowerPoint
2003 in Windows. Mac PowerPoint even has the Visual Basic code
capabilities in regard to animations animation paths.

I can only guess as to why not, but given the enthusiasm and talent of
the MacBU programmers it's probably a simple combination of not enough
time and available resources to create the interface in time for release
of the product.

On the other hand, the MacBU has been very responsive to customer
feedback and has tried to design Mac Office around the requests received
by customers. There's a Send Feedback to Microsoft option on the
PowerPoint Help menu. Use that feature to let the Mac BU know that you
would like them to put the path animation GUI into Mac PowerPoint. MacBU
can't read minds, so everyone who is similarly affected should also send
feedback to Microsoft.

-Jim