Animate one symbol in a formula
Move, morph, or draw attention to a single term instead of the whole equation.
Flashing a whole equation points at nothing in particular. One symbol at a time lets you animate a single term inside a formula — or one word inside a line of text — so the eye lands exactly where you want it.
Animate one symbol
- Select a formula or a text object.
- Open the inspector's Anim tab and scroll to One symbol at a time.
- In the field, type the symbol exactly as it appears —
x,dx, a lone minus sign. For a text object, type the piece of the text, likecat. - Pick a colour in the swatch next to the field if you plan to use Recolour.
- Click one of the effect buttons. The animation drops onto the timeline at the playhead, where you can drag, trim, or mute it like any other clip.
Draw attention to it
These leave the symbol exactly where it is and simply make you notice it:
| Effect | What you see |
|---|---|
| Pulse | a brief scale-and-brighten on that symbol |
| Circle it | draws a ring around the symbol |
| Flash | a burst of light rays from it |
| Wiggle | rocks the symbol side to side |
| Recolour | fades it to your chosen colour and leaves it there |
| Isolate | dims everything else so this term stands alone |
Isolate is the quiet one, and often the most useful: instead of adding motion, it fades the rest of the line back so the term you named is the only thing still bright.
Make it move
These actually take the symbol somewhere or turn it into something else. The number fields sit right above the buttons, so a click is never a guess about what will happen:
- → X and ↑ Y — how far it slides, in scene units.
- ∠° — how far it turns, in degrees.
- × — the resize multiplier.
- Turn into — what the symbol becomes.
| Effect | What you see |
|---|---|
| Move | slides the symbol to a new place and leaves it there |
| Rotate | turns the symbol about its own centre |
| Resize | grows or shrinks just that symbol |
| Turn into… | transforms the symbol into whatever you typed, in place |
| Pull out | lifts it out, holds it, and puts it back — the whole formula survives |
Pull out is the "look at this piece" gesture. It borrows the term for a moment and returns it, so the equation ends up exactly as it started — perfect mid-explanation, when the line still has to be there afterwards.
Every match is affected
If the symbol appears more than once in the formula, every occurrence is animated, not just the first. In x^2 + 2x = x, asking to pulse x pulses all three. That is usually what you want when the point is "this variable, everywhere" — but if you meant one specific instance, pick a longer, unique term that only appears there, like 2x instead of x.