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export InDesign pages as animated gif

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 24, 2020
7 replies
30896 views

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

Correct answer Laubender

Hi Patricia,

don't know how many pages you want to process.

You could export the whole book to PDF files. One PDF file per page.

Then you work on with PhotoShop.

There is a script that comes with PhotoShop that can load a folder of images or PDFs to layers. Each image to its own layer.

From that you can create key frames with PhotoShop's timeline feature and export the result to animated GIF. For every key frame you do, a different layer ( a different rendered PDF page ) is visible in the stack of layers. Do that with the Alt key by clicking the Eye icon in PhotoShop's Layer panel. You can define the duration of every key frame in the timeline. You even could do tweens between single selected frames to do smooth blending.

Perhaps all the tasks in PhotoShop can be automated with a PhotoShop action. You could ask this in the PhotoShop forum:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/bd-p/photoshop?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Loic.Aigon

Legend

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

m quiggl47890392

Inspiring

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.

Loic.Aigon

Legend

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

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

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

Creative Overlord

Known Participant

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

Participant

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

Known Participant

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

K

Kevin2560403583lr

Participant

Such a bummer that InDesign does not allow you to export as a GIF. This would be an easy export function for InDesign to include. The In5 add-on is great but way too pricey.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

Why not use Photoshop to create an animated GIF?

Creative Overlord

Known Participant

I'd say that's what most of us do, it's just bizarre they have an animation pane in indesign now but no ability to export the animation as anything other than epub or pdf, both useless for web. Extra steps in photoshop are tedious and it would be such an easy inclusion.

Justin Putney

Known Participant

This option exports InDesign pages as animated GIFs:

https://ajarproductions.com/blog/2019/10/11/how-to-create-an-animated-gif-with-indesign-in5/

(Disclosure: I'm the creator of this product)

M

Marketing Plus.line

Participant

Quite expesive, sadly 😞

M

m quiggl47890392

Inspiring

There is another Adobe program for that, too...Creative Cloud Express. formerly Adobe Spark. Create in that software. It is not included in the CC bundle, however.

I believe we are being stretched too thin...

L

Laubender

Correct answer

Community Expert

Hi Patricia,

don't know how many pages you want to process.

You could export the whole book to PDF files. One PDF file per page.

Then you work on with PhotoShop.

There is a script that comes with PhotoShop that can load a folder of images or PDFs to layers. Each image to its own layer.

From that you can create key frames with PhotoShop's timeline feature and export the result to animated GIF. For every key frame you do, a different layer ( a different rendered PDF page ) is visible in the stack of layers. Do that with the Alt key by clicking the Eye icon in PhotoShop's Layer panel. You can define the duration of every key frame in the timeline. You even could do tweens between single selected frames to do smooth blending.

Perhaps all the tasks in PhotoShop can be automated with a PhotoShop action. You could ask this in the PhotoShop forum:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/bd-p/photoshop?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

P

Patricia ChildersAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks, Uwe, I had tried uploading pdf pages to photoshop layers but ran into a problem with white backgrounds turning black in the final gif. After reading your message I tried it again after adding white to the background of all master pages in InDesign. This time it worked! Thank you, Patricia