A man walks into a nature reserve. “I volunteered to help the rangers count amphibians,” he says.

The receptionist (that’s me) replies, “That’s great. Will you tap your name on that video screen to let the rangers know you’re here?”

He taps the name ‘Paul’.

Bink. A tadpole appears under Paul’s name. Two other names sit tadpoleless. Paul smiles. “That’s cool. Does that go into a database or something?”

“No,” the receptionist smiles. “It’s just a PowerPoint. But now everyone can see that you’re here even if you wander away from the door.”

Gasp! “PowerPoint? How did you do that?” 

“I animate the tadpole to appear when the name is clicked.”

Gasp! “Animate? How do you do that?”

Of course, nobody listens long enough for the long answer, so I am subjecting you to it now.

How to Animate a Tadpole to Appear When Paul’s Name is Clicked

Let’s start with a blank PowerPoint slide.

Add a text box and type Paul in it. PowerPoint secretly names the text box TextBox 1.

Insert a picture of a tadpole. PowerPoint secretly names it Picture 4 (or whatever number). You can see all the object names in the Selection Pane, which is buried in the Select button:

You can change those names to something more memorable. For now, I’ll let them stay generic so yours will look the same when you try it.

Now select the tadpole – either the picture itself or its name in the list. We want it to only appear if Paul’s name is tapped. With the tadpole selected, open the Animations menu and click Appear.

Now open the Trigger menu and choose TextBox 1 as the trigger.

Now run the slideshow and tap Paul’s name.

Bink! Tadpole says Paul has arrived.

You’d be amazed how many people are amazed by that simple little animation. You should see how teachers take this to epic proportions and make interactive games for their students. Classroom Jeopardy is a classic in the classroom.

*** BONUS ROUND ***

Now for your bonus points. Go back to the Selection Pane and rename your objects to sophisticated identifiers so you feel like a computer programmer. In this way, only you will know what intelligent design lies beneath that magic tadpole. Such is the life of a programmer.

I hope you’ll try it. It really is emPowering.