Controlling the Slide Transition During the Presentation

There are multiple ways to tell the computer to transition from one slide to the next during your presentation. Depending on the situation you may decide to enable an automatic transition based on time, or wish to control the flow of the presentation by using either the keyboard or mouse. All three of these methods are explained below.

Using an automatic transition

Clicking on "Slide Show"

"Slide Transition" will allow you to set a time interval for slide transition.

Using the Keyboard to Control Slide Transition

All you need to do to control slide transition using the keyboard is click any key on the keyboard of the computer when a change should be made on the slide. The presentation will not transition from slide to slide without a button on the keyboard being pushed unless the user had chosen the auto transition option explained above.

NOTE The button used on the keyboard to signal slide transition does not matter. Any key can be used for this task.

Using the Mouse to Control Slide Transition

Follow the same steps shown above to get to the Slide Transition dialog box ("Slide Show" "Slide Transition"). Once you see the image shown below, click "On Mouse Click" to set the presentation to only respond to a mouse click to transition from slide to slide.

The mouse can be used to control the changing of the slides even if you do not specify that the slides NEED the mouse to change from slide to slide. As you explore Power Point you will find tools that require you to use the mouse to activate during the slide show. To activate the mouse during the slide show simply give the mouse a wiggle until you see the cursor on the screen.

Click on the arrow to return to the beginning of this tutorial.