I hear you've gotten involved in special effects. Tell us about that...

Will do. Let's say you're doing a slide show. Everyone expects one slide to just click to another. But with my transition effect, you can make slides dissolve into one another. It looks very high tech.

Very cool my friend.

And I do all my own stunts, by the way.

Adding a Transition A transition is a special effect used to introduce a slide during a slide show. The following steps will show you how to add a transition to a slide. 1. In Normal (Slide) View, click the slide you want to add the transition to. 2. Click on the Animations tab. In the Transition to This Slide Group on the left side, you are given some common Transition Effects to choose from. To see all the possible Transition Effects, click on the downwards pointing arrow and a drop-down window will appear. 3. Hold your mouse over a Transition Effect and you will get an instant preview of it on the slide. Click on the Transition Effect you want to use and it will be applied. As well, a slide transition icon appears beside the slide. 4. On the right side of the Transition to This Slide, there are some options for the Transition Effect, including the speed at which the transition occurs. Pick a speed for your Transition Effect from the drop-down list: Fast, Medium or Slow. If you want the same transition to apply to all the slides in your presentation, click the Apply To All button in the Transition to This Slide Group. Note: You can apply Transition Effects to a slide in the Slide Sorter View too. You cannot see an instant preview of a Transition Effect before applying it however.

Those transitions are really incredible and keep you on the edge of your seat! I bet Spielberg is scratching his head on how you pulled that off.

Well, a lot of it is practice. Plus, I check to make sure the Transition Effect worked. Here's how...

Checking a transition In Normal or Slide Sorter View, click the slide transition icon. The transition effect you applied will run. Alternatively, you can press the Preview button in the Preview Group in the Animations tab.

Well, those transitions are pretty cool. With all the things you've invented, one day they may even invent a slide show that runs by itself! Ha ha ha.

They have. That's one of my abilities.

That's impossible. I was making a joke.

Let's say you're doing a presentation on "Coordination". With an automatic slideshow, you can speak the presentation, have your slides advance automatically, and leave your hands free for juggling, for example. It's very handy. Pun intended.

Timing a transition If you want your slide show to run automatically, you must add timing to the slides. When you add timing to a slide, you specify the number of seconds to remain on each slide. Here's how you add timing to your slides: 1. Select the slide you want to add timing to by clicking it. 2. In Slide Sorter or Normal View, click on the Animations tab. In the Transition to This Slide Group go to the area labeled Advance Slide. 3. Under Advance Slide, uncheck the box On Mouse Click and then click the check box next to Automatically After. 4. In the seconds box, type the number of seconds to remain on the slide. For example, 5 seconds. When you run your slide show, the slide that you have applied the timing to will only remain on screen for five seconds.