Slide Transitions in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac

Transition effects show a visual change when you move from one slide to another. Before you add any transition effect, your slides advance rather abruptly. Adding a transition effect like Fade, Wipe, or any of the other effects makes the flow between slides smoother to the eye and easier to the slide content. Although the purpose of transitions is to remove the abruptness of moving from one slide to another, you can actually do a slide transition without any effect. In addition, you can set timings for transitions and also add transition sounds.

Whichever transition effect you may add, remember these basic concepts:

1. Transition effects happen when the slide shows up rather than when they are gone.
2. Transition duration (speed) influences how long it takes to move from one slide to another.
3. Transition timings indicate how long the slide shows on screen. Most slides that are presented during sessions or conferences do not have any fixed transition timings since speakers don’t know exactly how long they will end up speaking while a particular slide is shown. In this case, a mere mouse click takes them to the next slide.
4. Transitions can have sound, and this is one of those PowerPoint features that you should never use unless you have a compelling reason to do so!

Follow these steps to add a slide transition to one or more slides in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

1. Open your PowerPoint presentation, and navigate to the slide to which you want to add a transition. If you want to add a similar transition effect to more than one slide, access PowerPoint's Slide Sorter view, and select the required slide(s), as shown in Figure 1, below.
2. 
   Figure 1: Slides selected within the Slide Sorter view
2. Access the Transitions tab of the Ribbon, and click the arrow within the Transition to This Slide group, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below.
3. 
   Figure 2: More button within the Transition to This Slide group
3. Click this down-arrow button to open the Slide Transitions drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 3 below. You will see that the transitions are divided into three categories: Subtle, Exciting, and Dynamic Content. We suggest you select a transition effect from the Subtle category. To start with, we chose the Split effect as shown in Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Slide Transitions drop-down gallery
4. Select and click any of the transition effects to see a preview of the transition on the active slide. This preview looks better in the Normal view rather than Slide Sorter view.
5. If you want to add the same transition effect to all slides in your presentation, as opposed to just the active or selected slides, select the transition effect, and click the All Slides button located within the Apply To group of Transitions tab as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4, below.
6. 
   Figure 4: All Slides button within the Transitions tab
6. Save your presentation often.

We explore other Transition options such as Transition Duration (speed), Transition Timings, and Transitions Sound in other tutorials of this series.