Handwriting annotation ability??

May 05, 2011

I am trying to develop a course using a blackboard as a slide background and was wondering if there was an ability when someone clicks on the slide or it comes up in the presentation the course title can appear to be written as you are viewing the slide.  Anyone done this? 

7 Replies
Tom  Davenport

Lauren, I tried this in both Power Point 2003 and 2010 versions and the wipe effect does not write each letter one at a time.  I saw your recommendation somewhere else too (in fact watched a video demo of it) so you are not the only one to suggest it, but obviously I must be doing something wrong with the wipe effect because it would not work for me.  Just not sure what it is.  Here are the steps I took:

1)  Highlighted title text on my Power point title slide

2)  Went to custom animations

3)  Clicked on "add effect"

4)  Selected "entrance"

5)  Selected "wipe"

6)  Seleted motion path ("from left" is not an option that I saw in 2010; was there in 2003, but neither version worked the way I expected). 

Thanks for any help in spotting what I may be doing wrong. 

Lauren Milstid

I performed your steps above and it worked successfully in PowerPoint 2007. I'm not familiar with 2003 or 2010; maybe those versions require an extra step in the process. The only other thing I can suggest is to, if you haven't already, slow down the speed of your animation, to "very slow," in order to easily see one letter appear at a time.

If that doesn't help, then what exactly are you experiencing when you add the wipe effect? Does anything happen?

Nancy Woinoski

Hi Tom - I think you can edit the text effect  a little further - if you double click on the wipe effect, a dialog box opens and there is an option for setting the text animation - options are all at once, by word, by letter.   If you select by letter or by word, it may give you the effect you are looking for. (btw - I am using 2007)

I have not used this effect myself so am not sure how it behaves in Presenter, but give it a try.  

Kayla Burtch

Hi Tom,

Unfortunately the animate by word or by letter animations are not supported by articulate. They will showup in slide show mode but not when previewed or published by articulate.

The closest effect you can get is with the "wipe" "from left" animation, but this will not literally write each letter, just have them... well...wipe in from the side... it looks similar but not exactly the same.

If you want the words to literally look like they are being written, you would probably be best using a screen recording tool (like screenr) to record yourself writing the letters out with a tablet...or mouse. That's a lot of work though, so I usually just use the wipe method.

Shelley Owens Schaal

Another option you can try is using a reveal animation with a rectangle. Draw a rectangle the same size as your text and color it to match your background. It is easiest if your background is a solid color. Then animate the rectangle with an Exit animation of Fly out. Then set the properties to be "Very Slow" speed and direction of "to right".

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