3 ways to animate a table in PowerPoint

According to Global Presentation Survey Society GPSS, a whopping 87% of presentations have tables. And that's not all. Another groundbreaking study revealed that presenters who use tables effectively see an astounding 32% surge in audience engagement. But there is a problem. Despite their prevalence, most tables in presentations are static cells colliding, numbers rioting, and the audience wondering if they need a decoder ring just to understand what's going on. This is the reason I recently pub

lished a short video showing how you can use animations to highlight important data on your tables. And in this video, I'm going to open up the whole process and show you step by step how to animate the three components of a table - rows, columns and cells. At the end of this tutorial, you will understand how to approach table animations for best result and be able to apply this technique in your presentations. And if you love time saving PowerPoint tips, then there is one waiting for you before

the end of this video. So let's begin. The table we are going to use for this tutorial comes from Global Gender Gap Report 2022, straight from the prestigious World Economic Forum. Iceland rocked that report and claimed the number one spot in gender equality. So naturally, I couldn't resist. I rolled up my sleeves and went all the way to create a presentation summarizing key data for Iceland using tables and infographics. If you would like to get behind the scenes and see my approach and though

t process where every hue has a purpose and every shape has a story to tell, then turn on your notifications. For my next video. Here is the table we are going to animate. The first thing you must do before even thinking about animation is to create your table. You can do that on a paper or in PowerPoint. The reason is, once we split this table into its animated parts, there is no turning back. It's like breaking a delicious chocolate bar. Once it's broken, it's no longer a perfect whole. Maybe

in a future version of PowerPoint, putting a table back together will be possible. But for now, let's make sure the table is ready and no further editing is necessary. Once your table is good to go, ask yourself what data do I want to highlight? Is it a row, a column or a cell? The examples in this video will cover rows, columns and cells. So let's get started. But wait, before we do anything, let's duplicate the slide. This way we have a backup in case things go south. And trust me with this tu

torial, things are definitely going north. On this table. let's say the first row Global Gender Gap Index is the key data we want to highlight. But before we can apply animations to this row, we must divide this table into three parts. The row we want to animate the ones above it and the rows below. Since we are going to split the table and move its parts around. Let's enable Ruler and Guides. This will help us to mark the original position of the table. Go to View tab and enable Ruler and Guide

s with the guides in place. We can easily mark the top and bottom positions of the table. Let’s add a new Horizontal Guide. Think of it as a ruler. Next, I'm going to gently move it up to the top of the table. Let's introduce another one and position it right at the bottom. But wait. Do we really need this one? I think not. So I'll just delete it. And let's keep only these two. I'll hold on Ctrl key and click and drag to make a copy of the table. For the time being, let's tuck away the title tex

t and rectangle, allowing our tables to take center stage. Now, with a touch of finesse, let's move one of the tables upward. And in perfect harmony, the other one downward. The first part of the table we need is the rows above Global Gender Gap Index. Specifically the first two rows. So I'll select the rest of the rows and it should bring up Table Design and Layout tabs. Click on Layout, head over to Delete and select Delete rows. And now we have the first part of our table. Once again, let's d

uplicate the table. I'm going to take this one up a bit to create more space for this particular table. All we need is the third rows. Simple and straightforward. So let's briefly delete the rows above and below. it, leaving only the gem we seek. Now I'll select the first two rows, just a couple of clicks. Next head straight to the Layout tab, there in the Delete section. I'll click once again on Delete rows. I'm pretty sure when you work on your tables you'll be stuck between deleting a row or

a column. So watch out for that. Now if you observed, the top rows has become the Header row. To remove the header attribute. I'll head over to Table Design tab and uncheck Header row. All right. It's time to remove the rows below, just as we did before. I'll deftly select them and head over to Layout tab. And with a swift click on Delete, choose Delete rows. Voila. And there you have it. The second piece of the table. For the final touch, let's handle the remaining piece with finesse. All we ne

ed to do is delicately remove the first three rows, along with the header row attribute. Once that's done, our table will be complete and ready to shine in a vast realm of possibilities, we could have taken a different approach, creating three tables, each with its distinct row count - two rows, one row and four rows respectively. However, my deliberate choice was to present it this way, as it will enable you to understand what we are trying to achieve. And once you grasp the concept, you will u

nlock the versatility to approach it diverse and creative ways. All right, it's time to bring each piece together. The horizontal guides will play a crucial role in this process, ensuring everything aligns to perfection. First and foremost, let's focus on the top piece and make sure it fits into place. And to avoid any confusion, I'll cleverly hide the backup slide. We wouldn't want to mix things up, would we? Let's duplicate this slide. The first slide will reveal the initial state of our table

. While its duplicate will shine a spotlight on the row we want to highlight. But wait, we've got a small detail to address. The title text is currently hidden from view. Let's fix that immediately. And unhide the title text. From here forward, we must make some visual adjustment to the table and morph transition will handle the rest. First, let's make ample room for the role, allowing it to breathe and shine. Next, increase the font size to 28 points and expand the row to accommodate it. Now le

t's make sure this text is centered and the row is positioned in the middle To increase visual priority of this specific row, I'll employ a clever technique by reducing the transparency of the other rows by 50%. Starting with the top row. First, select the rows, go to Table Design and click on Shading. Then select More Fill Colors. At the bottom of the Color window, Either use the slider or impute 50 in the text field followed by a click on. Okay. Let's repeat this steps for the remaining rows.

Now look at that. The row we want to emphasize stands tall, radiating a sense of relevance and significance. To take this animation to the next level, let's duplicate the current slide and reverse the color transparency of the other rows, while restoring the main row to its original size. Now, if you're unfamiliar with Morph Transition, you're probably scratching your head pondering why I couldn't just duplicate the slide above this one. The answer is linked to the way Morph Transition works in

PowerPoint. To unravel the answers. I'm currently working on a video where I demystify Morph Transition. All your questions related to Morph animation will be answered in that video, so keep an eye out. All right. Let's bring all the pieces of the table back together like nothing happened. If you notice, the height of the table has increased beyond the guides but that's okay for this example. Ladies and gentlemen, the moments we've been waiting for. I'll hold down, Shift key and select all three

slides. Then head over to Transitions tab and click on Morph. Now let's see the result in slide show. This looks pretty awesome, but the default duration for this animation is lagging. So let's decrease the duration to half a second. Once more I'll select all three slides and under Transitions tab, go to Duration and set it to 00.50 seconds. Let's run slide show once again. First we revealed the original table in all its unadorned glory presenting the raw data without any effect. Then the table

gracefully morphs into the second iteration, beautifully highlighting the chosen row. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more mesmerizing. We bring it full circle as it morphs back to its original size and formatting. Incredible, right? But here's the best part. If you find this row animation inspiring, brace yourself for the jaw dropping column transition coming next. But before we dive into that, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Share your impressions and drop me a comment below. Sp

eaking of columns, I'll now head over to our back up table slide, right click and duplicate it. Let's make sure to unhide it. Otherwise it won’t appear during slide show. All right. The columns we want to animate are Score and Rank columns, and they are right under 2022 column. So let's proceed by duplicating the table. At this moment I will hide the title text and its rectangle momentarily. Then I will move one table up and the other table down for the next step. Allow me to take the lead and s

elect everything to the left of the column we want to animate. Now let's head over to Layout. Click on Delete and select Delete columns. We'll repeat this exact steps for the columns on the right. And there you have it. Our main column stands proudly before us. The next logical step now is to extract the other parts of the table. To achieve this, I will duplicate the table below. Whoops. It seems I accidentally clicked the wrong option. Let's quickly undo that and try again, shall we? Now I'll h

ead over to Layout tab, click on Delete and Select Delete columns. Ah, that's better. Now that we have this piece, I will move it closer to this one for a more seamless arrangement. There we go. Perfect. By simply looking at the tables, you can see the missing part. Those two columns under 2021. All right. Let's proceed by selecting everything to the left of the column. Head over to Layout tab and delete the selected elements and voila. Now all the pieces are coming together like a puzzle. I wil

l select all three parts and bring them down using the Guides as a guide. No pun intended. Next, I will bring back the title text and rectangle. When we run slide show, the table will look exactly the same, and that's important for the next step. Let's head over to Slide Pane and duplicate the slide and reduce the transparency of the columns on the left. I'm going to try to reduce it for all the columns at once and see if that works. Oh no. It appears that won’t work probably due to the header c

olumn with the Indigo color. So let's undo it and try again, this time breaking it down into three steps. I'm quite sure you've grasp how to do this. so I'll speed up the video for you. And now let's increase the size of the column. I will select the column and confirm the font size I use for rows. All right, It's 28 point. Let's return to Slide 9 and make some changes to the column. For this part, I'll speed up the video to save time. Now that our column is ready, let's duplicate the slide and

revert the formatting to what it was on the first slide. Remember, we must do it this way. Otherwise morph animation will not work as expected. And yes, to save your precious time, I'll once again speed up the video for this part so you can effortlessly follow along with ease. And here comes the best part. Let's select all three slides. Head over to Transitions tab and choose Morph. I'm going to decrease its Duration to half a second. Next, click on slide show icon at the bottom and let’s witnes

s the Marvelous Move Animation in Action. Welcome to the thrilling finale of this video where we delve into the art of animating a cell. Your time is precious and my mission is to deliver only the most valuable insights. So I wouldn't burden you with an exhaustive steps. Instead, I will focus on important concepts that I think will be useful to you. Let me show you an alternative method to split a table into its individual parts. But before that, let's quickly tuck away the title text With this

method, we have to first copy the table and paste it as Enhanced Metafile All right, click on the table and choose the copy option. Let's move the table down a bit instead of the usual pasting method we are accustomed to, I'm going to Paste Special. This nifty feature allows us to paste the file. as Enhanced Metafile So I'll click on Paste Special. Within the paste options, I'll choose Picture (Enhanced Metafile) and hit OK. Now for a moment, let's hide the original table, allowing our newly tra

nsformed table to take center stage. The next step in this mesmerizing process involves ungrouping the picture, not just once, but twice. Rest assured, it's simpler than it sounds. First, ensure the table is selected. Then navigate to Picture Format tab. Click on Group and choose Ungroup. A message dialog will appear, but fear not. A simple click on Okay will whisk it away. Now the table, which was a picture, has been converted to a shape. How do I know? Just glance at the menu and you'll notic

e it has changed from Picture Format menu to Shape Format. So let’s ungroup the shape Simply head to Shape Format. Locate the Group option and select Ungroup. And just like that. Boom. From now on, every cell of the table can be individually selected. You can even group multiple cells together to create a row. This method comes with its cons and pros. Weigh them carefully and determine what best suits your needs and preferences. Let's bring back the original table. As you’re already well acquain

ted with the steps, I'll quickly move through the process in the video leading us to the end of this section. After performing all the necessary rituals, we successfully crafted three slides that beautifully illustrate how to animate a cell. Now, without further ado, let's immerse ourselves in the grand showcase by running slideshow. That's how to animate a cell in PowerPoint. While there are certainly other techniques, this method serves as an excellent starting point. Ladies and gentlemen, we'

ve reached the end of our presentation. Three Remarkable Ways to Animate a Table in PowerPoint. I trust you found this information both informative and valuable. If you enjoyed the content, don’t hesitate to share the video. Leave your comment and subscribe to this channel for more insightful tips and tricks. Thank you for tuning in and being a part of this enriching experience. Until next time, keep exploring, keep learning and creating amazing presentations. Chow.