How To Animate a Google Docs Presentation

13 Jun 2012 by Phil Beach
Posted in: The Point

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Several months ago we sent an email that explained how to animate a Google Docs Presentation. Since then, Google has vastly improved the animation feature-set of Google Apps. Follow along with these steps to learn the new features:

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Login to Google Apps or Gmail and selected the Documents tab
Select the presentation you wish to animate from the list of document, or create a new one by choosing CREATE and selecting Presentation
To begin animating, select the element of your slide you wish to animate and choose Insert, then select Animation.
The Animations pane will be displayed on the right side of your browser. By default, the "Fade in" animation will be applied to the element you selected. The "Fade in" animation functions as follows: when the slide show is played, the element will not be visible until you click your mouse, at which point the element will fade into view.
Choose the menu that says "Fade in" to select another animation effect for the element. For example, here we've chosen "Fly In"
Choose the menu that says "On Click" to change what causes the animation to play. Generally, it's on click, but you can also choose to have it play after the previous animation, or at the same time as the previous animation.
You can adjust the speed of the animation using the slide bar labeled Slow, Medium, Fast
You can test the animation by clicking Play
Repeat the process for each additional elelement you wish to animate
You can re-order animations by clicking on a particular element's animation and dragging it to a different spot on the animation pane. You can delete animations by clicking them and selecting the small "x" on the right side of the animation.