Using animations in Prezi Present

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!

Select the object you want to animate.
In the property bar that appears, click the Add animation button.
Select the animation you want to play for that object.
The animation will appear in the left timeline so you can easily edit or move it later.

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 More button at the top of your screen, then select Animation. This will show you all the animations you can add to the presentation step that you’re on. For more options, select any object on the canvas.

You can also select an object and click the Add animation button in the property bar that appears.

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

Context is important to a good presentation. Sometimes your audience can get lost in the details and lose the bigger picture. To avoid this, use a Zoom out. Zooming out will always zoom out to the next level of your presentation; for example, if you’re zoomed into a frame, a zoom out will bring you back to the Overview.

Adding animations

Animations allow you to zoom in to particular areas on your canvas or zoom back out to get an overall picture. 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 you want to animate. If you don’t select an object, you can still add a zoom out anywhere on your canvas.

2. Click the More button at the top of your screen, then select Animation to open the animation sidebar. Alternatively, you can select an object and click Add animation to enter the Animations sidebar.

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. Select the overview zoom area by clicking on it.

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.

☝️

Note: Learn more about adding a custom starting point with this article. To learn more about adding default animations to your topics and subtopics with path settings, check this article.