export InDesign pages as animated gif

[Patricia Childers]

Can I export pages in an InDesign doc as an animated gif.

I would like the gif to automatically progress from beginning to end of the book.

Almost like an auto progression in a slide show.

Thanks

[damianb_]

Absolutely. Also Publish online is as clear as mud, and links that it created didn't work for my team (for their purpose).

As for the Publish Online Dashboard, well, see attached.

Incredible, to me, that simple DTP tasks we did FAST and in VOLUME back in the 90s are a complete mess in 2022

[Creative Overlord]

I would like to do this too, I just found the animation pane and thought I could skip the tedious export to photoshop, import as stack & keyframe situation. Sadly no. DAMN it would be so easy to animate the sale ads I do in 502334323 different sizes directly from InDesign!

[kalieb20845839]

The ScreenToGif freeware worked FANTASTIC for me. I built a complex text animation in InDesign (the software I use most and therefore am most familiar with) as the animation features are SO simple and easy to use compared to the tutorial I watched for doing the same in photoshop or animate. It took about 90 seconds to download, set it up to screen record my InDesign and then save as a GIF. Highly recommend.

[Creative Overlord]

Damnit, like much of the design industry I'm on a mac... they only allow download on a pc

[Eric Dumas]

There is a Mac equivalent, GIPHY Capture

[Loic.Aigon]

Hi Patricia,

Allow me to jump in this discussion to ask you a question: if you could create animated GIF file out of Adobe InDesign without needing external tools, would you like having this possibility? 

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Loic

[m quiggl47890392]

Yes, I believe that for many of us who have to make 'ads' for social media would appreciate such software since InDesign does not allow, using only that software, to make animated GIFs. We must purchase another software to animate. 

Or why doesn't Adobe just buy Ajar? They buy lots of other programs to further expand their software capabilities... Just talking out loud here.

[BobLevine]

Yeah, and then they let it die. As an in5 fan, I would hate to see Adobe get their hands on it. They bought Table and Cell Styles from Teacup Software around the time of CS2 and have done nothing in the more the 15 years since to make any improvements at all.

[Peter Kahrel]

> around the time of CS2 and have done nothing in the more the 15 years since to make any improvements at all.

A similar fate befell, among others, the index and (for a long time) footnotes. 

[BobLevine]

Right. I get that you have to have version one before you have version two, but it's quite rare to see anything go to version two anymore. 

[m quiggl47890392]

You have it, Bob. They let the "charts" function really go no further than version on way back in the early versions of Illustrator. When companies such as Adobe gobble up smaller ones, there is less 'creativity' in the product they purchased.

[damianb_]

Can I just add too that in the industry at the time, Indesign was seen as the 'Quark killer'... a cheap version of Quark for publishing. I never felt that Adobe had much interest in the publishing industry personally, aimed more at small scale companies operating in barns or whatever... small operations and boutique companies with no dedicated back end infrastructure for high res images for a start.

And lest we forget there was also quite a comical angle in Indesign: the USP to 'cut up' layouts for snazzy interactivity, aimed at the ipad set of the time (usually sales types who would try to win business this way... ).

I never met anyone who could a) work out how to design quickly in the latter and b) to seamlessly output anything else but a confusing mess, let alone which would work on multiple platforms.

[BobLevine]

Sorry, but on this one your history is a bit fuzzy.

Adobe bought Aldus in the late '90s to get their hands on InDesign which was still in development. The interactive features were actually added for Flash export and then adopted for use in DPS and then HTML (epub, publish online).

[damianb_]

Sure thing Bob... I am happily not intimate with Adobe software history details : )
I should have prefaced the post with 'regarding short term Adobe incentives etc' but I can't see how to edit a post!
From memory and experience, epub/publish output was really exceptionally bad.

This this links to the original topic: how to export an animated gif. Which to me, really is a simple expectation on the part of designers.

[BobLevine]

Of course it is, but not from a page layout application.

[damianb_]

yes Bob I do understand but Indesign I feel is used generally for anything that has text and graphics; eg web banners. Which are often animated.

I would rather do a banner in Indesign that in AI or Photoshop as I invest heavily in typography btw... being subjective here but it feels faster.

[m quiggl47890392]

I agree. All the nuances to type adjustments are there in ID and not available in Illustrator and PS. We make text look Fabuloso! Can't really do that in the other software.

[Loic.Aigon]

Thanks for the feedback. I have created an illustrator extension which does exactly that: exporing animated GIF from Illustrator (without using PS or external services). And I have toyed with the idea of porting this product to InDesign but have never been sure there was a need. I may finally consider doing this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xpPBhr_qUs

[Loic.Aigon]

I forgot to let you know that GIFStudio is now available for InDesign as well!

https://exchange.adobe.com/apps/cc/108842/gifstudio

[PA-Sami]

I've just installed in indesign but I must be missing something because I can't see how to bring up the panel. I've checked your website but it only mentions illustrator and not indesign.

[PA-Sami]

Hi, I found the panel and trialed a really quick export (a square moving on the indesign page). Am I correct that it doesn't pull the animation out of indesign but you need to make the animation in the gifstudio?

[Loic.Aigon]

The concept that applies to both InDesign and Illustrator is that you design animation content inside pages (or artboards for Ai). Once the design is ready, you import them into GIFStudio and there you set your animation. Basically, it's pretty like setting a GIF animation with Photoshop and layers. The only difference is that you can get your animated GIF file straight out of InDesign or Illustrator.

This video introduces an old version of GIFStudio but you may get the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKE3qMNx2MI

[JumpSue]

Hello Loic, I watched your video, and this looks like a nice clean and easy to use interface. However, InDesign allows us to create motion, animations and set up timings with various objects on a single document page. However the export options are ridiculously limited. I'd be very interested to see a reasonably priced plug-in to InDesign can export the page with its multimedia effects (animation, sound, movie) directly to gif or mp4. InDesign has decent multimedia tools, but since the demise of Flash, even saving a simple preview (like SWF) isnt available! 

[BobLevine]

If you want to expand the export capabilities then you'll need in5. Only you can determine if it's worth the subscription cost, but I can tell that it is absolutely brilliant.