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

[Peter Kahrel]

Nope. InDesign exports only the formats that you see in its export window. No (animated) GIF there, just PNG and JPG.

P.

[Derek Cross]

There is a way using the InDesign plug-in, in5 (at extra cost):

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/in5-animated-gif-maker/dldadkjlkldanpbaicclkikgkgpgpflj

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

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 )

[Patricia Childers]

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

[Justin Putney]

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)