More control over which objects Morph on Windows and Mac

By Lauren Janas on February 13, 2019

Hi Insiders – 

My name is Lauren, and I’m a Program Manager on the PowerPoint Team. Office Insiders Fast users now have access to some new Morph improvements which give you more control over which objects Morph. You can now specify which objects Morph across slides, which enables smoothly morphing between different types of shapes, fixing incorrect object matches, changing one image to another, and more. We’ve also added some tweaks to make Table and SmartArt morphing a little smoother (e.g. try resizing tables). For now, this is only supported for Windows users running Insider build 1903 11331.10000 or higher, and Mac Insider Fast users on build 16.23 (19020305) or higher.

Old morph behavior in PowerPoint, showing two cars meeting at an intersection and a traffic light changing from green to red
The old morph behavior in action
The new morph behavior in PowerPoint, showing two cars meeting at an intersection and a traffic light changing from green to red
The new morph behavior

How to use it

Our custom naming scheme lets you match two objects on successive slides and force one to morph into the other. The naming scheme is simply to begin an object name with !! (two exclamation points) and to assign the same custom name to the two objects. Use the Selection pane to change an object’s name.

For example, you can put a circle named !!Shape1 on Slide 7 and a square named !!Shape1 on Slide 8. Then, by assigning a Morph transition to Slide 8, the circle will morph into the square in the transition from one slide to the next. 

What you can do with this feature:

  • Force different shapes (such as a circle and a square) to morph
  • Force two instances of the same shape – but with different text in each – to morph
  • Force two images to morph
  • Force any two objects of the same type to morph (table/table, SmartArt/SmartArt, chart/chart)
Improvements in SmartArt morphing
SmartArt improvements
Improvements to Table morphing
Table morphing improvements
  • Continue to use object names that don’t start with !! and know that it won’t change the way Morph treats them

Rules Morph follows with the !! naming scheme:

  • If Morph sees two objects of the same type with the same name, starting with !!, across two slides, it’ll morph one object to the other in the transition from one slide to the next
  • Morph won’t match at “!!” object with a non-“!!” object
  • Morph expects a 1:1 mapping between objects, so for best results, a specific !!Name should be unique on a slide

As always, please be sure to let us know what’s working and where we might improve. Happy Morphing!

Lauren

Posted in Mac, PowerPoint, Windows

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