Animations in Prezi allow you to enhance the viewer’s experience and bring your presentation to life. They're also a great way to make your information stand out and stay memorable. Animate away!
Overview of animation sidebar
From the animation sidebar, you can select from all the animations you can add to your presentation step. From the editor, click the Insert button at the top of your screen, then select Animation. When on the overview or in a topic/subtopics, you will see the animations you can add to the given presentation step but as soon as you select an object on the canvas, you will be able to choose from more options.
Types of animations
There are a variety of animations to choose from in Prezi Present. Mixing multiple animations together brings your content to life and creates a cinematic effect when presenting.
Fade in and fade out
Fade-in animation is a great way to keep your audience focused on what you’re saying and moving with you because you control when the object or text appears or disappears. You can fade in or out of images, text, video, topics, and subtopics.
You can also select multiple items and add fade-in or fade-out for an even greater effect. To select multiple objects, hold the SHIFT key and drag your cursor over the items you want to select. You can also click on each object while holding the SHIFT key. You’ll see the objects you've selected outlined in blue.
Zoom to
Zooming allows you to highlight a specific area/object or give a greater perspective. You can use the zoom to animation with any object on your canvas.
Zoom area
From the animations sidebar, click Add zoom area and a rectangle will appear. Resize it and place it to fit the area you’d like to include in the zoom.
Zoom out to overview, topic, or subtopic
Context is important to a good presentation. Sometimes your audience can get lost in the details and lose the bigger picture. To avoid this, try adding a zoom out to the overview, topic, or subtopic.
Adding animations
Animations allow you to zoom in to particular areas on your canvas or zoom back out to get an overall picture of the topic or subtopic. You can also add zoom animations to an object such as text or an image, or can add fade in and fade out animations to highlight specific information.
To add animations
1. Select the object or text where you’d like to add the animation. If you don’t select an object, you can still add a zoom area or zoom out to overview/topic/subtopic animation anywhere on your canvas.
2. Click the Insert button at the top of your screen, then select Animation to open the animation sidebar. Alternatively, you can click the arrow next to the Topic button in the left sidebar and select one of the zooming animations from there as well.
3. Select the animation you’d like to add. The animation will be added to the presentation timeline in the left sidebar where you can preview or edit it and determine when it should be played while presenting.
4. To add additional animations, simply return to the animations sidebar to select the animation you'd like to use.
Editing animations
Animations can be deleted or reordered at anytime from the left sidebar.
Reviewing your animations
You can play your animations in the sidebar to see how they’ll appear during your presentation. Just click the play button in the timeline to see a preview.
Reordering animations
Once you add an animation, you can change the order it appears. In your left sidebar, click the animation you want to move, then drag and drop it to the desired position.
Deleting animations
To delete an animation, simply click the bin icon next to fade in and fade out animations in the left sidebar or click the three dots on the thumbnail of zoom animations and select Delete.
Adjusting the overview zoom area
You can also adjust the size of the overview zoom area.
1. Right-click anywhere on the overview and select Advanced topic editing from the dropdown or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl+E.
2. Adjust the size of the overview zoom area by grabbing and moving one of its corners.
Adding a custom starting point to an animation
- Locate the zoom animation you'd like to use as a starting point in the timeline in the left sidebar.
- Click the three dots on the presentation step thumbnail.
- Select Set custom starting point from the dropdown menu.
You will see an icon appear next to the presentation step to show where the starting point was added.
