Emphasize a section of text or an image

There are many ways to do this and I’ll present two in this tip.

The first way is to simply change the color of the text. There is an animation effect that changes font color, but it only works on an entire paragraph, so instead you can duplicate the text placeholder, change the color of the section of the text that you want to emphasize, and then just fade in the second placeholder on top of the first one. Here are the steps:

1. Create the text in a placeholder or text box.
2. Select the border and press Ctrl + D to duplicate it.
3. Use the arrow keys to move the duplicate exactly on top of the original.
4. Choose Slide Show> Custom Animation. (In PowerPoint 2007, click the Animations tab> Custom Animations.)
5. With the duplicate still selected, choose Add Effect> Entrance> Fade.
6. In the Speed text box, choose the desired speed.

You can now read the entire paragraph to the audience, and then click to fade in the duplicate with the red text when you want to focus on that shorter section. Watch the video to see what it looks like.

(I used TechSmith SnagIt’s Video capture to create this movie.)

Another technique is to wipe lines to a separate text box that shows just the shorter quote. You can use a larger font for this quote. The animation is more complicated. Here are the steps:

1. Create the text in a placeholder or text box.
2. Add a new text box and enter the text for the shorter quote. This text should be larger and may also be a different color.
3. Move the new text box so that it’s somewhat offset from the original text.
4. Draw a line from the beginning of the shorter quote where it appears in the longer version to where it appears in the second textbox.
5. Repeat with a line between the ends of the quote.

wipe lines to a separate text box

1. Select both lines. (Click one, press Shift, and click the second line.)
2. Display the Custom Animation task pane.
3. Choose Add Effect> Entrance> Wipe.
4. In the direction text box, choose a direction. The lines should appear to come from the full quote to the shorter quote. For the above slide, I chose From Top.
5. The Start for the first line on the task pane’s list of animations should be On Click. The Start for the second line should be With Previous. Make adjustments if necessary.
6. Choose a speed from the Speed drop-down list. You may need to adjust this later, but I found that Medium worked best.
7. Select the shorter quote and choose Add Effect> Entrance> Fade.
8. Set the speed in the Speed drop-down list. I used Medium.
9. Set the start in the Start drop-down list to With Previous.
10. Select the original, longer quote. Choose Add Effect> Exit> Fade. Set its speed to Slow and its start to With Previous.
11. Finally, select the two lines again. Choose Add Effect> Exit> Fade. Set the speed to Medium and the start to With Previous.
12. Click the Play button in the Custom Animation pane to watch the animaton. You may find that you want to make some minor adjustments to the timing. For example, I wanted the larger quote to fade out a little later. To accomplish this, click any animation, click its down arrow, and choose Show Advanced Timeline. Then drag an orange rectangle to the right to delay its timing.

the custom animation pane

You can use this same technique for part of an image. Here I took a screen shot (Using TechSmith SnagIt again) of an entire W9 form. Then I used an image-editing program to make a duplicate of the image and cropped it to just the top portion. The only difference is that I used a Zoom entrance animation for the top portion of the form, to illustrate that it is an enlargement of one section of the form. I also set the speed of the fade of the entire form to Slow.

Watch the video.