A great way to emphasize and draw attention to an object on a slide is to circle it.

Of course, the easy way is to insert a circle, and use the Appear or Fade entrance animation. Be sure to format the circle with no fill. I like to use a red outline and give it a weight of at least 2 pt. To format the circle, follow these steps:

1. Right-click and choose Format Shape.
2. In the Fill section, choose No Fill from the drop-down list.
3. In the Line section, choose a red color and change the Weight.

To add the animation, select the circle, and choose Animations tab. Choose Add Effect or Add Animation> Entrance> Appear or Fade.

But wouldn’t it be more effective for the animation to circle the object? In other words, your audience would see the circle draw itself around the object. You can do this using the Wheel animation. Follow these steps:

1. Insert a circle over an object. Format the object as just described so that it has no fill.
2. Select the circle.
3. Display the Animations tab.
4. Choose Choose Add Effect or Add Animation> Entrance> Wheel.
5. In the Animation task pane or Effect Options drop-down, change the number in the Spokes text box to 1 (if it is set to another value)
6. Play the animation. You’ll see the circle drawn around the object.

Let’s go even further. We might want the circle to have more character. Instead, wouldn’t it be interesting if the circle was drawn with crayon or lipstick?

Here’s how I did it:

1. I drew circles with lipstick on a white sheet of paper.
2. I photographed them with my digital camera and uploaded the photo to my computer.
3. I inserted the photo onto a slide and cropped it to the bottom circle. Use the Picture Tools Format tab> Size group> Crop button.)
4. I made the background transparent. On the Picture Tools Format tab> Adjust group> Recolor drop-down> Set Transparent Color. Click on the background.
5. I moved and resized the circle to encircle the object, a photo of a peacock feather.
6. To add the animation, display the Animations tab.
7. Choose Add Effect or Add Animation> Entrance> Wheel.
8. In the Custom Animation task pane or Effect Options drop-down, change the number in the Spokes text box to 1, if necessary
9. The animation always starts at the top and this meant that a little of the left end of the circle showed at the beginning of the animation. To counteract that, I rotated the circle slightly counterclockwise.

How do you call attention to objects on a slide?