Formatting text and applying custom animation; text alignment, bullets and numbering

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. Plain black text on every slide looks dull. How do you make text clear, neat and even make points appear one by one? Today we will format text, align it, add bullets and numbering, and apply custom animation in Impress.

Formatting means changing how text looks, without changing the words. Before formatting, you must select the text. Click inside a text box to place the cursor there. Drag the mouse over the words you want to change. To format all the text in a box at once, click on the border of the box. Then apply the formatting you want.

Changes to letters are called character formatting. Bold makes letters thick, and the shortcut is Ctrl+B. Italic makes letters slanted, with Ctrl+I. Underline draws a line below the text, with Ctrl+U. The font name and size boxes on the formatting toolbar change the style and size of letters. The font colour icon changes the colour of the text.

All these options are also in one dialog box. Open the Format menu and choose Character. The Font tab sets the font, the style like bold, and the size. The Font Effects tab has font colour, strikethrough and shadow. Click OK, and the selected text changes.

Alignment is how the lines of text line up inside the box. Left alignment lines text up on the left edge, and it suits most points, with Ctrl+L. Centre alignment puts text in the middle, which suits titles, with Ctrl+E. Right alignment lines text up on the right edge, useful for a date or a name, with Ctrl+R. Justified makes both edges straight, like a newspaper column, with Ctrl+J.

Pause and predict. You select a slide title and press Ctrl+E. Where does the title move? It moves to the centre of its box, because E is the shortcut for centre.

Lists make slides easy to read. Bullets are small symbols, like dots, used when the order of points does not matter. Numbering uses 1, 2, 3 or a, b, c, used when order matters, like steps to make tea. You can switch bullets or numbering on and off with the icons on the formatting toolbar. For more styles, open the Format menu and choose Bullets and Numbering.

A list can have main points and sub-points. Press Tab at the start of a point to move it one level down, making it a sub-point. Press Shift+Tab to move it back up one level. Sub-points usually get a smaller bullet and smaller text. Keep only two or three levels, so the slide stays simple.

Now, custom animation. An animation is a movement effect given to one object on a slide. Any object, such as a text box, a picture or a shape, can be animated. Teachers use it to make points appear one by one, so students focus on one idea at a time. In Impress, you set it in the Animation panel of the sidebar.

Here are the steps. Select the text box or picture you want to animate. Open the Animation panel in the sidebar. Click the Add Effect button, which is the plus sign. Choose a category and then an effect, such as Appear or Fly In. Set when it starts and how long it takes. Then preview it to check.

Impress groups effects into categories. Entrance effects bring an object onto the slide, like Fly In. Emphasis effects draw attention to an object already there, like Grow and Shrink. Exit effects make an object leave the slide, like Disappear. Motion paths move an object along a line or curve that you choose.

Each effect has options. On click means the effect starts when you click the mouse or press a key. With previous means it starts together with the effect before it. After previous means it starts automatically once the previous effect ends. Duration sets how many seconds the effect takes. You can also change the order of effects with the up and down arrows in the panel.

Let us revise. Always select the text first, then format it. Bold, italic and underline use Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I and Ctrl+U. Alignment shortcuts are Ctrl+L, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+R and Ctrl+J. Use bullets when order does not matter and numbering for steps. Animation effects come in four categories, entrance, emphasis, exit and motion paths.