Keynote Magic Move: How to Use Slide Transition Effects | How To

When appropriately added, animation in a presentation can grab and hold the audience’s attention. In Apple’s Keynote, there are a variety of animation features that keep your presentation moving with energy.

Magic Move is a Keynote-specific feature that can be used to create slick animations that jump between slides. With Magic Move, an object can smoothly animate between two slides. When you advance between slides, that object will animate smoothly, jumping to a different size and position on the next slide.

Let’s take a look at the various types of animations:

• Keynote slide transitions are the animations that play when you jump from one slide to the next. 
• Object animations allow objects to move around on a single slide. 
• Magic Move is the best of both worlds, as objects can jump between different slides for smooth animations.

Adding animation to a Keynote presentation doesn’t have to be difficult. Let’s learn how to use Magic Move in Keynote in this tutorial. 

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Now let’s dive into this tutorial, to learn all about how to use Magic Move in Keynote.

Watch & Learn

Want to learn how to use Keynote Magic Move? Check out the screencast below to see this feature in action. If you aren’t sure why you would want to use this feature, make sure to play the screencast to visualize how Magic Move differs from traditional animation slide effects.

Make sure to check out the rest of the tutorial to see a step-by-step guide to using Keynote Magic Move. 

What Is Apple Keynote Magic Move?

Keynote’s Magic Move feature creates some slick Keynote slide transitions for objects on slides. With a Magic Move transition, you can create animations across slides. 

You might have worked with animations in the past. Simple animations can move what’s on a slide from one spot to another, for example. You might have also worked with Keynote slide transitions, the effects that play when you switch between slides in a presentation. 

Keynote offers a hybrid between these two animations with Keynote Magic Move. As you move between slides, objects can create a beautiful segue that carries consistency through to subsequent slides.

How to Use Magic Move for Keynote Slide Transitions

Although Keynote Magic Move creates a cool effect, it’s not hard to use if you know what to do. Follow the steps below to add Magic Move to your Keynote presentation:

1. Duplicate an Existing Slide

To use Keynote Magic Move, we’ll first need to duplicate an existing slide. Start off by selecting the thumbnail of a slide in the sidebar of the app. On the left side of the app, you’ll see a thumbnail for each slide in the deck and creating a duplicate is the first step for generating a Magic Move animation.

Then, press Cmd + D on your keyboard, or right click on the slide thumbnail and choose Duplicate. You’ll see a slide identical to the active one in a sidebar.

2. Animate an Object

Now that you’ve duplicated the slide, jump back to the first slide (the original.) Click on the object that you want to animate between two slides, and then make sure that the Animate option is open in the upper right corner.

In my example, I’m going to animate a logo with Magic Move. On the first slide, the logo will be on the right side of the slide, featured prominently. Then, I want it to Magic Move to the lower right corner of the next slide, resizing it down to a smaller scale. This will be a smooth slide effect that’s easy to create. 

Click on the logo on the original slide. Then, click on Add an Effect, and choose Magic Move. 

Now, switch over to the second slide. Grab the same object on that slide, and then work with it to make changes and shift it to its new position on the second slide.

In Magic Move, some of the adjustments you might try making include:

• Object size. Magic Move can scale down an image or graphic, so resize it in the second slide to watch it animate the resize.
• Positioning. As the logo example illustrates you can move the object anywhere on the slide to smoothly animate it.
• Style. Make tweaks like changing the opacity to see the object fade or come into clearer view, for example.

In my example, I’m going to move it to the lower right corner of the slide. I’ll also scale it down a bit by grabbing the corner of the image and resizing it down. These two changes will be handled automatically by the Magic Move feature.

3. Preview Your Animation

Now, play a preview of the slide by clicking on the Play button near the top of Keynote. Even as you move between slides, the single object that the slides have in common will animate between them. It’s a great idea to use Magic Move for something key like a logo, for example, as it’ll be the focus of the transition. Keep that consistency between slides thanks to Magic Move’s smooth slide effects.

In the quick video clip below, you can see an example of Magic Move in action. The logo shifts from being prominent on the right side of the slide, to being understated in the lower right corner. But carrying that logo between slides can create a strong brand image and consistency between the slides.

Basically, Magic Move does all of the animation work to transform the object from one slide to the next. However you adjust the object on the duplicated slide, Keynote does the hard work to smoothly animate it as you jump to the subsequent slide.

That’s it! You can proceed with building out the rest of the slide design just as you normally would in Apple Keynote. The only objects that’ll animate between slide are the ones that you’ve applied the Magic Move to. 

4. Optional Keynote Magic Move Tweaks

Magic Move certainly simplifies how you can create animations, but you can also tweak them from the Animate panel. Control how the Magic Move plays with two key settings: Duration and Fade. Check out the screenshot below to see the placement of those options in the Animate panel.

On this window, you can tweak the duration of the animation. This controls how quickly the animation will play. Pulling it to the left will show a quicker animation, while pulling the bar to the right will create a longer transition time. 

Also, consider ticking the “Fade Unmatched Objects.” Since you won’t carry over the entire slide as you transition, this is an elegant way to fade out everything except a specific object. 

5. Use Magic Move for Text

Let’s walk through one more example of using Magic Move, this time for adjusting text as it moves between slides. I’ll start with a slide with the text on it, and then duplicate the slide in the sidebar.

Now, return to the original slide and choose the text box. Add the Magic Move animation from the same Animate menu, and click on Add an Effect. Choose Magic Move from the dropdown.

Then, switch back to the second slide and apply the transformation to the text box. In this text-based example, I’m going to tweak the size of the font as well as the font face itself.

Much like the original logo, the Magic Move animation will handle everything else. You’ll see the text animate between the two slides. 

Keep Learning

This tutorial focused on Keynote Magic Move, an animation feature that easily links up objects between two slides. This feature really creates a sense of continuity between slides in your presentation by animating objects between them.

What are your favorite ways to create animations in Keynote? Are you using Magic Move or simpler animations to move objects between slides? Let me know in the comments below.

Now that you’ve studied the steps for creating Keynote Magic Move animations, why not grab a template from Envato Elements or GraphicRiver today and start creating your own Keynote slideshows with Magic Move animations?