resizing animations

[s.@discussions.microsoft.com jonnie s.]

I just spent a LOT of time creating an animation with dozens of objects,
custom paths and timing. But now I need to resize (scale down) everything to
fit in a particular area on a slide. If I Select All and drag an element to
resize, things don't all scale down the same, so objects are in the wrong
place and paths are way off. If I attempt to group everything to better
control the scaling, all the animation steps disappear!
Tell me I don't have to toss all the animation work out, resize all the
elements to their final size, and then re-do all the animation again!

[jonnie s.]

I just spent a log of time putting together a tedious animation with dozens
of objects, paths and custom timing. But now I need to resize it (scale
down) to fit in an area of a slide.
If I Select All and group everything, all the animation disappears, so
that's not good.
If I Select All, and drag an object handle, everything doesn't rescale
uniformly and the paths get messed up. I know text boxes don't re-scale, but
I can deal with them. But I don't want to have to individually rescale every
object, reposition them and re-do the paths. That's essentially starting
over.

Is there a way to re-scale a complex animation and keep everything in proper
proportion?

[Kevin]

I faced the same issue a week ago and ended up scaling every shape and text
contents individually to avoid losing the animations. If someone comes up
with a better solution I'd be exteremly pleased (for the next time)!

[Lucy Thomson]

Hi

As well as Kevin's idea, you could try creating a new file and scaling the
page size to larger, then copy & paste all the elements from the first file
across. I *think* that would work. As long as it is scaled correctly (e.g.
4:3 or 16:9) it shouldn't matter what the actual page size is when
projecting or printing.

Lucy

--
Lucy Thomson
PowerPoint MVP
MOS Master Instructor
www.aneasiertomorrow.com.au

"jonnie s." <jonnie s.@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:283F502D-5C5D-440A...@microsoft.com...

[Echo S]

That's what I'd do, and yeah, it works. :-) (Been there, done that.)

Alternatively, there are a couple of animation painter utilities out there.
You could make a copy of the slide, scale the objects, then "paint" the
animations back onto the objects.

Animation Carbon: http://skp.mvps.org/ac/index.html
Edit for PPT: http://www.pptxtreme.com/edit.asp (There's also Effects
Library if you need built-in effects and stuff.)

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

"Lucy Thomson" <lu...@NOSPAManeasiertomorrow.com.au> wrote in message
news:ubip18oY...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

[jonnie s.]

Lucy- You put me on the right track.
Using the existing animation file, I used the Page Setup to set a custom
page size of 5x3", about the size of the area that the graphic needs to fit
into on a standard 8-1/2 x 11" page. PPT resized the animation
appropriately. I saved this under a temporary name. I then re-openned the
original file (with letter-sized pages). Then I copied/pasted the animation
graphic from the 5x3" version into the letter-sized version, and
(thankfully!) it retained its scaled-down size. Problem solved.

Clearly PPT knows how to scale animations properly, since it can do it in
response to a Page Setup change. Why the scaling doesn't operate similarly
when doing it "manually" by selecting and re-sizing the objects seems like a
programming shortfall. Maybe next version...

Thanks!

"Lucy Thomson" wrote:

> .
>

[Lucy Thomson]

Thanks for letting us know that it worked and exactly what you did - I'm
sure it will help some future PowerPointer :-)

Lucy

--
Lucy Thomson
PowerPoint MVP
MOS Master Instructor
www.aneasiertomorrow.com.au

"jonnie s." <jon...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F6350BB6-7652-41C4...@microsoft.com...

[shaz.mc...@gmail.com]

BRILLIANT IDEA! THANK YOU!! xxxxxx :))))))))

[rajee...@gmail.com]

It helped a lot. Thank you!

[grann...@gmail.com]

Sigh. I wanted so badly to believe in this, and maybe I'm just doing it wrong. It SORT of works. But then specific elements get skewed WILDLY out of proportion, and others get skewed too thin, or in one direction. I'm copypasting from a 4:3 to a 16:9, so I recognize that could be part of the problem, but I'm just copying some pictures. When I copypaste it and resize it, a lot of the elements stay the right size. Just not all the animated bits. Which are the bits I need to resize right.