PowerPoint: Morph + Highlight

/ Charles

The ask, figure out a way to “highlight” PowerPoint slide elements. A technical trainer, in their more content-heavy sessions, would like to “highlight” lines of code. The suggestion today, use the Morph transition in PowerPoint, but instead of using morph to zoom, add transparent rectangles to “highlight” code snippets.

Figure 1 - PowerPoint presentation with morph transitions.
Figure 1 – PowerPoint presentation with morph transitions.

To create the “highlight” effect, first, insert some rectangles. For each inserted shape, set its fill color and transparency. By default, shapes are opaque, so they’ll need their transparency adjusted to at least ~67% to give the “highlight” effect.

Figure 2 - PowerPoint presentation with multiple slides and transparent rectangles.
Figure 2 – PowerPoint presentation with multiple slides and transparent rectangles.

Two quick things to keep in mind:

  1. Keep the rectangles higher in the selection order than whatever element they’re highlighting.
  2. Adjust the dimensions of each rectangle on the subsequent slides to create the effect.
Figure 3 - PowerPoint Selection pane of slide elements.
Figure 3 – PowerPoint Selection pane of slide elements.

And as with the earlier post, create duplicates of slides and adjust shapes as necessary, essentially, designing the slide deck like a flipbook.

Figure 4 – PowerPoint presentation list of slides.

Conclusion:
With a bit of creativity, the PowerPoint morph transition completely transforms slide decks. Not only can it animate slide transitions, but it can also animate slide elements, turning decks into mini productions.

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