Text highlight "animations"?

[Scott Meyers]

A number of my presentations include text where I'd like to highlight or
unhighlight various parts of the text without changing the slide. For example,
I might show some text that was created by several authors, and I'd like to
selectively highlight or unhighlight each's contribution. Or I might like to
highlight pairs of words that rhyme, etc.

I know the sequence in which I'd like to highlight/unhighlight parts of the
text, so what I really want to do is create an animation. But I don't want to
have to make each piece of "special" text its own object, because that's a lot
of work. Instead, I'd like to be able to select the text I want to highlight or
unhighlight, then specify what action should take place for that text. Is this
possible?

I'm using PPT 2002.

Thanks,

Scott

 

[Guest]

Put a yellow filled shape behind the text to be highlighted and a 99%
transparent (invisible) shape in front set an entrance animation for the
yellow shape triggered by a click on the transparent shape. A second on click
exit animation dragged below the entrance ( and below the trigger) will mean
a second click will remove the highlight
--

 

[Scott Meyers]

Put a yellow filled shape behind the text to be highlighted and a 99%
transparent (invisible) shape in front set an entrance animation for the
yellow shape triggered by a click on the transparent shape. A second on click
exit animation dragged below the entrance ( and below the trigger) will mean
a second click will remove the highlight

This still requires manually creating and placing the various shape objects.
That's a lot more work than just selecting text. Furthermore, if the text
location changes for some reason (e.g., change in font or font size, added
graphic on the page, different margins, etc.), the objects will have to be moved
again.

So there's no way to create animations from text selections, huh?

Scott