PowerPoint 2007 & 2010: How to Turn an Image Into An Animated Puzzle

by AJ George 

A recent question in the Microsoft Office forums inquired about the process of animating a picture in PowerPoint so that it came onto the slide piece by piece--like a puzzle. The question was answered, but the answer was not exactly what the original poster had wanted. The answer explained how to make a picture look like a puzzle, but not how to have the separate pieces come in one-by-one. That is what I will cover today.

The original answer referenced this tutorial: Puzzle Pictures in PowerPoint. The tutorial includes a pre-made puzzle framework from PowerFrameworks, which I will also use.

Make an Image Look Like a Puzzle.

1. Download the puzzlepicture zip file at this link.
2. Unzip the file.
3. Start PowerPoint.
4. From within PowerPoint, navigate to the unzipped puzzlepicture folder and open sg002_1200_rectangle.pptx.

A presentation will open with an image of a whale overlaid with puzzle pieces.  

Note: If you are using an earlier version of PowerPoint that does not support .pptx files, follow the instructions here for using the .ppt file.


5. View the Selection and Visibility Pane by choosing Home > Drawing > Arrange > Selection Pane.
   
   You will see 12 puzzle pieces (these are the numbered Freeforms) and one rectangle.
   
       



6. Click the Hide All button at the bottom of the Selection and Visibility pane to hide everything on the slide.
7. Right-click the slide and select Format Background.

The Format Background dialog box will appear. Currently there is a picture of a whale set as the background so Picture or Texture fill is already selected.


8. From the Insert from area, click the File button.
9. Navigate to your own image, select it and click the Insert button.

Your image will now be the background of the slide.  

Note: If you notice sluggish response times in PowerPoint, consider inserting a lower resolution image.


10. Close the Format Background dialog box.
11. On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Show All button to make all items visible again.  The puzzle pieces are already formatted with a background fill, so the pieces are comprised of the image you inserted. If you simply wanted your image to look like a puzzle, you would be done. Continue on if you would like your image to appear on the slide one piece at a time.

Animate the Puzzle Pieces

1. View the Animation Pane by choosing Animations > Advanced Animation > Animation Pane.
2. On the Selection and Visibility Pane, hold down the [Ctrl] key while clicking to select each of the 12 Freeform puzzle pieces.
3. From the Animations tab, select the Appear animation.

All of the puzzle pieces will appear selected in the Animation Pane.


4. Click the more arrow on the last animation effect and choose Timing.
   
   


The Appear dialog box will open.  


5. From the Timing tab, select After Previous from the Start drop-down menu and increase the Delay number to stagger the appearance of the puzzle piece. I went with .5 seconds, but you can choose whatever you like.
6. Click the OK button.
7. On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Hide All button to hide all the puzzle pieces. Click the box next to Rectangle 16 to make it visible.

You will be left with a large blue rectangle. 


8. Right-click the rectangle on the slide and choose Format Shape.

The Format Shape dialog box will appear.


9. From the Fill category, change the fill color to whatever you would like. (For my project, I wanted it to appear as though initially the slide was blank, so I chose white.)
10. Click the Close button to close the Format Shape dialog box.
11. On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Show All button to make all items visible again.
12. Press the [F5] key on your keyboard.

Your image will now come in as a puzzle, one piece at a time.

To use the slide in any other presentation, select the slide from the slide sorter pane (or in Slide Sorter view) and copy and paste it into your desired presentation.

Note: When pasting into another presentation, be sure to paste using the Keep Source Formatting option. Learn more about pasting options here.

Check back next week for tips to make your animated puzzle look more realistic!

Comments

[Simon_ahern]

I am using Powerpoint 2007 and I got as far as step 11 in the first section, but I cannot see Animations > Advanced Animation > Animation Pane at step 1 of the second section.

I can see Animations > Custom Animation, but that doesn't seem to be it. Can you tell me what I might be doing wrong?

[AJ]

Hi Simon,

These instructions were written from within PowerPoint 2010, so the names of some elements are slightly different. In 2007 you are looking for the same thing, but it is called the Custom Animation Pane. You can view the pane by selecting the Animations tab from the ribbon and then choosing Animations > Custom Animations. Please let me know if that doesn't work for you :)

[Aisa Choi]

I have 2010, and followed every step you provided. At the end, I clicked F5, nothing happen.

[AJ]

Hi Aisa,
Are you saying F5 didn't preview the slide or that when the slide previewed the puzzle didn't work?

[Aisa Choi]

both are not working.

[AJ]

Hi Aisa,

I made a minor adjustment to one of the steps to make it more clear that you should set each puzzle piece to appear "After Previous." As for the F5 not working, I have two solutions. F5 is just a keyboard shortcut to preview the slideshow, so you could always just go the long way and view the presentation using the Slide Show tab.

If you would like to use the F5 shortcut, but it is not working, it's possible your presentation is set up to output to a second display (and without the 2nd display connected, it just isn't showing up). Here are steps to fix that:
1. Exit PowerPoint.
2. Reopen the presentation.
3. From the Slide Show tab, choose Set up Slide Show.
4) If the Multiple Monitors drop-down menu is not grayed out, change it to display
Primary Monitor.
5) Click OK to close the dialog box.
6) Press F5.

[Paula]

Hi I get to Step 3 of animating - 3.From the Animations tab, select the Appear animation.

they appear but as a group so I can't animate. I selected each one individually.

At this step - 7.On the Selection and Visibility pane, click the Hide All button to hide all the puzzle pieces. Click the box next to Rectangle 16 to make it visible.

I cannot make just the rectangle visible it's all or nothing

[AJ]

Hi Paula,

I just ran through all the steps again (and had someone else here do the same) and they do all work as written for PPT2010. When I initially wrote this I had access to PPT2007 to test it on and it worked then. I no longer have 2007, however, so I can't run through it again to check what the issue could be. If you have 2010 you may want to go through and re-try the steps.

[Cyrus]

Basically it is quite tough to turn an image into an animated puzzle, therefore we use animated graphics technology through the Photoshop and other animation and graphics tool. Marquee effect are also used in HTML coding to give an animated effect to our images and text but here we can found what techniques are being used to turn an image into an animated puzzle, really these techniques are more helpful for us.

[Eberlomasmit]

I just removed Rectangle 16 from the animation panel and only then I figured it would work... and it did. Rectangle 16 you don't need it, if you leave it in there just the outline of the puzzle pops up on top of your picture while your picture is visible the entire time. I repeat I ONLY removed it from the Animation panel NOT from the Selection and Visibility. Hope this helps anyone else who couldn't figure it out.