Animations and transitions

Transitions control how each slide arrives, Morph glides shared elements between two consecutive slides, and element animations bring objects in and keep them moving. Transitions live on the chips between slide thumbnails; entrance effects, count-up, ambient motion and Morph live in the Properties panel. Motion plays in present mode and in the editor's previews, so check it there before you show the deck.

Add a transition between slides

Each junction in the slide rail has a chip, and a slide owns the transition into itself, so the chip between two thumbnails edits the slide below it. The chip reads Add while the junction is a cut.

1. In the slide rail, click the chip between two thumbnails. The popover names its target, for example Into slide 3.
2. Pick a kind: Cut, Fade, Slide, Push, Wipe, Zoom, Flip or Morph. Point at a kind to read what it does.
3. For Slide, Push, Wipe and Flip, pick a Direction: Leftwards, Rightwards, Upwards or Downwards.
4. Set Duration and Easing. Duration runs from 100 to 2000 ms in steps of 50. The easing chips read Lin, In, Out and In-out for Linear, Ease in, Ease out and Ease in and out. The popover's stage plays the junction: each choice replays it straight away, and the duration slider replays when you let go. Click Play it again to replay it.
5. Click Apply to all to copy the transition to every other junction. Shift-click a chip to do the same without opening it. Either way, the whole change is one undo step.

A new junction defaults to Cut at 400 ms with Ease in and out. Once a junction has a transition, its chip shows the kind's icon and the duration, for example 400ms. For Cut, which replaces the slide with no motion, Duration and Easing are hidden.

What each kind does:

Set a Morph between two slides

Morph moves elements that appear on both slides from their place on the first to their place on the second. Elements pair when their keys match, and an element only pairs with the same kind of element on a consecutive slide. Duplicating a slide is the quickest way to set one up.

1. Right-click the slide in the slide rail and choose Duplicate slide. The copy keeps each element's pairing, so its elements already travel to the originals.
2. On the copy, move or resize the elements you want to travel.
3. Click the chip between the two slides and set the kind to Morph.
4. For an element you did not duplicate, select it, open the Morph section and choose its partner in Pair with. The list shows elements on the previous and next slides, each with its slide number.
5. Read the line under the field. It either names the element it pairs with and that element's slide, or starts with Not paired yet and explains that nothing on the neighbouring slides answers to this key.

Under the picker, the Morph section shows the element's Custom key field, its Effective key readout and a copy button for that key. With no custom key, the effective key is the element's own id, which is why a duplicated slide pairs for free.

A Morph tweens the element's frame, its opacity and its colour where there is one: a text element's colour and a shape's solid fill travel between the two states. A gradient fill does not tween, and an image's crop window travels only when both paired images are cropped. Applying a layout, or asking the AI to re-compose the slide, replaces its elements and with them any pairings: see Slide layouts.

Animate an element

Entrance effects, count-up and ambient motion are set per element. Select an element and open the Animation section of the Properties panel.

1. Pick an entrance tile: None, Fade, Fade up, Fade down, Slide left, Slide right, Slide up or Slide down. A slide tile names the direction the element travels, so Slide left starts it off to the right.
2. To build up a slide, set Order for each element, from 0 to 99. Elements with the same order start together, and a lower order goes first. Once more than one order is in use, the field adds a wave readout, for example Wave 2 of 3, and how late the wave starts.
3. For a text element, turn on Count up to count its first number up from zero on entry. The prefix, suffix, separators and decimals stay as you wrote them.
4. Under Ambient motion, pick Still, Drift, Breathe, Sway, Pulse or Dash march. Then set Period, Strength and Offset.
5. To animate several elements together, select them. Click One by one to stagger their entrances in reading order, top to bottom and then left to right. Click Together to start them all at once.

One by one gives an element that has no entrance yet the Fade up entrance, and the whole stagger is one undo step. In a show, staggered elements arrive about 90 ms apart, up to 16 steps. For the editor's selection gestures and undo rules, see Editor shortcuts and gestures.

To preview an element's animation over the canvas, click the play button in the Animation header. Its tooltip reads Play it on the canvas.

Settings and defaults

Each ambient motion has its own Strength range and default: Drift 2 to 80 px (16 px), Breathe 1% to 20% (6%), Sway 0.5 to 15 degrees (3 degrees), Pulse 5% to 60% (20%) and Dash march 2 to 80 px (16 px). When you change the motion, Period and Offset stay and Strength resets to the new default.

Permissions

Changing motion needs edit rights on the deck. Viewers do not see the Properties panel, so they see no Animation or Morph controls. In the slide rail, they see each transition chip read-only, and a junction set to Cut shows nothing to a viewer. For how edit rights are granted, see Publish and share and Slides permissions.

Limits and edge cases

• Two elements on one slide should not share a Morph key. When they do, only the first of them pairs, and the Morph section warns: Another element on this slide already answers to "{key}". Same-slide keys must be unique for a morph to know which element travels, so give one of them its own key.
• Dash march needs a dashed or dotted stroke. Without one, the section warns: Dash march walks a stroke that is already dashed or dotted, so this element holds still. On a shape, set Dashes in the Shape section to give it one.
• Ambient motion plays in present mode and in the Animation preview. The editor canvas keeps geometry still, so only Pulse, which changes opacity, moves there.
• An element with no entrance is simply there when its slide arrives.
• Count up runs for about a second and counts the first number only.
• A slide a layout builds, including one the AI writes, carries staged motion by default: elements arrive in beats and figures count up. A slide built as plain runs none. See Slide layouts and Write slides with AI.
• A system-level reduced-motion setting is honoured automatically, and it always wins. The deck cannot turn motion back on.

Questions, answered

My Morph does nothing. Why?

The elements are not paired, or they are not the same kind on both slides. Duplicate the slide so the copy keeps each element's pairing, and set the chip into the copy to Morph. For elements you built separately, open the Morph section and pick a partner in Pair with, or give the two elements the same Custom key.

How do I reveal bullets one at a time?

Put each bullet in its own text element, give each one an entrance other than None, and set a different Order for each. Elements with the same order arrive together.

Can I apply one transition to the whole deck?

Yes. Click Apply to all in the transition popover, or Shift-click a chip. Both copy that junction's transition to every other junction, in one undo step.

Which slide does a transition chip edit?

The slide below the chip. A transition belongs to the slide it brings in, so the first slide has no chip.

What does "Wave 2 of 3" mean?

The element is in the second of three waves on its slide, and its wave starts later than the first. Waves group elements by Order, and elements sharing an order start together.

Why doesn't my ambient motion move on the canvas?

The editor keeps geometry still so its guides stay accurate. Ambient motion plays in present mode and in the Animation preview. Pulse is the exception, because it changes opacity and also plays on the canvas.

Dash march has no effect. Why?

The element needs a dashed or dotted stroke. Set Dashes in the Shape section. Without one, the element holds still and the panel shows a warning.

Will my animations play in PowerPoint?

Slide transitions do, including Morph. Element animations do not, including entrance effects, count-up and ambient motion: the exported file shows each element at rest. See Export and import for what survives the export.

Motion is distracting on the projector. What do I do?

Press M during the show to reduce motion, and press M again to turn it back on. See Present for the other keys.

Can viewers change the motion?

No. Changing transitions and element animations needs edit rights. Viewers see the transition chips read-only and no animation controls.

Why are some transition controls hidden?

Direction appears only for Slide, Push, Wipe and Flip, the kinds that have a direction. Duration and Easing are hidden for Cut, which replaces the slide with no motion.