Transitions In The PowerPoint Web App

Disappointingly, transitions in the PowerPoint Web App are a complete mess. We got hold of the PowerPoint presentation shown below and uploaded it to SkyDrive. This presentation showcases all of the transitions available in PowerPoint 2010. Once in SkyDrive, we opened it in our browser and started the slideshow.

The presentation certainly didn’t look like the above movie. In fact, most of the transitions looked like the Fade transition in the PowerPoint Web App. It’s surprising that Microsoft couldn’t do a better job of rendering the transitions, as they use silverlight to present them i.e. browser limitations are not to blame.

On a related note, when you edit a presentation in the Web App, you won’t see the little “rushing star” indication that a transition is present. There is also no way to add new, or edit existing, transitions either. Thankfully though, if you do make a change to your presentation using the PowerPoint Web App, and later open the same presentation in PowerPoint 2010, you’ll find that all transitions remain intact. It’s just that you can’t see them properly in the PowerPoint Web App.