Particles Text Effect in PowerPoint 2016 | Motion Graphics Tutorial

So, in this Blog Post, I am going to describe 10 Easy Steps to create Particles Text Effect Motion Graphics in PowerPoint 2016. Let me first give the credit to Morocco Tutorials, a Youtube Channel, as the background Particles Text Effect video has been created by him using After Effects. When I first saw the preview, I thought, why not try to create this effect in Microsoft PowerPoint. First, have a look at the animation.

As you can see, in the first few frames, Particles are moving off the screen and when they reaches in the middle of the screen, text starts appearing with one letter in a time, which creates an illusion as if the particles are dropping one character behind. Moreover, in this post, I am going to tell you about the basic concept used in this presentation and I think that is the most important part of learning. Instead of, just following the step by step instructions.

The concept behind this animation is totally simple. What you only need to know is, how to do this? Before, I start telling you about the steps used to create this animation, make sure to check the version of PowerPoint installed on your system. This effect is hardly impossible to create in PowerPoint 2007 and earlier versions because they don’t have Merge / Combine Shapes Tool.

If you have PowerPoint 2010, then you need to read this article that How to enable Merge / Combine Shapes in PowerPoint 2010. This effect can easily be done in PowerPoint 2013 / 2016. But, before I begin, let me make it very clear to you that the steps which I am going to describe below will only guide you about the concept of the animation, not where to click. You can watch the embedded video below for each step with more detail information.

Understanding the Concept

Step 1 : First we draw a full Slide Size Rectangle

Step 2 : Then, we type our Text using WordArt from the Insert menu. After formatting the text, make sure to Align the text in the Center and Middle of the slide using Align options from the Format menu.

Step 3 : We need to combine the Rectangle with our text using Combine / Merge Shape Tools. For that, select the Rectangle first, hold down the SHIFT key and then select the WordArt Text Box. From the Home tab, open the Merge Shapes drop down button and then click on Combine.

As you can notice in the above picture that PowerPoint wiped out the text within from the Rectangle and the slide background is clearly visible. That is what the combine command does. It actually combines the letter in to the text box and remove them from the slide and the letters get printed on to the Rectangle.

Step 4 : Create a duplicate of the entire text (in my case that’s “The Teacher”) but this time you need to have each letter in a separate Text Box. I mean, you have to type each letter separately using WordArt. All the letters like “T” “h” “e” should have their own corresponding text boxes and for that you have to type each letter individually or you can take the help of Copy / Paste command by typing a letter then making a duplicate (after selecting a Text Box, you can also press CTRL+D to create a duplicate), and then replacing the characters. You can watch the video to know how I did that. I am using Smart Cut n Paste command (hold down the CTRL key while dragging and dropping text boxes) to quickly create duplicates and that is what I’m doing in the video.

(Placing letter “T” text box on the top of combined shapes to hide the white part. The rectangle and text color should be same, which in my case is Black, to hide everything on the slide.)

BTW, you can also take the help of Selection Pane (from the Home / Format Tab) to easily manage objects on slide. Like, you can select, hide, rename and move objects, right from the Selection Pane. If you are a beginner to PowerPoint, then I must say that you should watch my Work With Multiple Objects using Selection Pane for more information.

Step 5: Now, select all the letters / text boxes (either select the first letter, hold down the SHIFT key and then start selecting the other boxes or use Selection Pane. In Selection Pane, select the first Letter, hold down the Shift key and then click on the last one. That’s easy you know!). After selecting all the letters, go to the Animations tab, hit the Add Animations drop down button and then apply Fade Out from the Exit effect list and for the Start option, set all of them to Start – With Previous and add a Delay of 1 Second. That will apply the Exit Fade Out effect to all the letters / text boxes at once, hiding all of the letters at once in the slideshow. But, we want each letter to fade out with a little delay.

Step 6 : Insert the Particles Behind Text video. We want a lot of particles to appear behind the combined shape (The Teacher), so we will Trim the video to about 1.5 seconds from the beginning from the Playback menu, to have a lot of particles on the screen. From the Playback menu, set the video to Start – Automatically and also from the Animation pane, set it to Start - With Previous and move the video on the top of the animation list by dragging and dropping. Select the video and send it behind the other objects using Send To Back command from the Format menu.

So, when you will see the slide show after applying the Step No. 6, all the letters will get disappear at once and you will see Particles running behind the combined rectangle and will create an illusion as all the letters are filled with the Particles.

Step 7 : From the Playback menu, make sure to check “Loop Until Stopped” option, so the particles continuous to scroll behind until end of the animation.

Step 8 : Now, insert the Particles in Front of the Text video. Set it Play Automatically from the Playback menu and also set Start – With Previous from the Animation tab and move the video on top of the Animation list. As this video will remain on top of all the other objects on the slide, so when you will see the Slideshow, it will hide all the other objects behind it. Even the video is transparent but video transparency is not available in PowerPoint. So, what we are going to do now is to apply the Transparency Emphasis Effect to the Particles video on top.

Step 9 : Move the Transparency effect to number 2 in the animation list. Just below the Particles in Front of Text video. So that when you see the Slide Show, Particles in Front of Text video will play and at the same time the Transparency effect will start working and you will start seeing the objects behind the Particles video.

Step 10 : The final step is to add a delay between all the Fade Out effect for letters, so they must not appear all at once. Instead, each letter should appear with a little delay as the Particles are leaving behind their trail in form of letters and for that you need to add a delay between each Fade Out exit effect.

You can go with 0.25 Seconds delay between each letter or you can set your own timings depending on letters you want to appear on the screen at exact time. Finally, Insert the Background Audio and impress your Teacher / Friends with your impressive PowerPoint Presentation. BTW, you can also use this presentation as your Youtube Intro.

You can watch our Particles Text Effect in PowerPoint 2016 video for more detailed information.

Particles and Background Music Download Link