InDesign Interactive Presentations - How to add animated bullets to apprear one at a time

[ShabM]

Hi all!

Does anyone know how to set up an interactive presentation in InDesign so that your bullet points appear one at a time (whenever you click on the page a new bullet point appears) similar to the effects in Powerpoint?

I can only get 2 bullet points to work. I set my first bullet point to appear on "page load". I set each of the other bullet points to appear "on page click" but when I click on the page then all of my other bullet points appear at the same time. 

Appreciate any help I can get...thanks!

[Peter Kahrel]

The way I do that for presentations is to add one bullet on a page. Then add a page and repeat bullet 1 and add the second. Then add another page, repeat bullets 1 and 2 and add bullet 3. Etc. etc.

Then in presentation mode (or export to PDF and run it in presentation mode) you press page down and it looks as if you stay on the page and have animated bullets.

InDesign is a far better presentation creator than PowerPoint.

P.

[ShabM]

Thank you for your suggestion, Peter. I will give that a try.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This. Instead of having PowerPoint's 'leventy-six slide animations, you use ID pages as 'video frames' and can let PDF transitions handle things like fade-in.

InDesign is a far better presentation creator than PowerPoint.

Absolutely. Let's start with 'styles.'

[Jeffrey_Smith]

A limitation to Indesign animation is: even though you can have multiple elements animate (at once or sequentially), there is only one action that will trigger all animations.

How are you presenting: PDF or Publish Online? Are you driving this presentation or self-guided? For a single page, click and each bullet animates presentation, I have a Publish Online (and that you present) workaround, and can share if you are interested.

[ShabM]

Hi Jeffery, 

It will be a PDF however I did notice that there are many animated features that are not supported by Interactive PDF, so if needed I could switch it to Publish Online.

I'm designing it for a client and I believe it will be a self-guided presentation but could potentially be either or both.

I would love to hear more about your workaround.

Thanks!

[BobLevine]

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I see no benefit in jumping through InDesign hoops when Powerpoint is designed specifically for this purpose. This is especially true if you want to use a PDF.

[rayek.elfin]

Agreed. And one more unpopular notion may be that in my opinion animated bullets are a scourge on Earth and should be avoided while presenting. Research seems to back this up: avoid the dreaded "Oh NO! Not another bullet slide! NOOOOO!" response from your audience.

And brains shut down.

Just not a great method to present information to a crowd. One of the worst, actually.

https://www.brightcarbon.com/blog/bullet-points-dont-belong-presentation/

https://www.brightcarbon.com/blog/i-have-to-use-bullets-my-slides-are-too-technical/

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, we just had this argument and while I am 100% of the opinion that there are far too many "presentations" and most of them are bad in some way, my loathing of PowerPoint is completely because of its crap, amateur-level fingerpainting creation model. It's an abysmal tool regardless of the purpose or productions. And MS just keeps giving it more tinsel and glitter rather than adding decent 'structural' features... but then, all MS has done with Office for fifteen years is take it to the cloud and add tinsel and glitter.

[rayek.elfin]

The tool used for a presentation isn't that important if the slides are going to be static ones - as far as I see it. I love InDesign but I never use it for presentation slides. Nor do I use Powerpoint or LibreOffice Impress. Instead I use another tool for those, for example Figma or PhotoLine. Reasons are my own here. The output for delivery is always PDF, though, and I keep a folder of PNG images as well, just in case a PDF cannot be read when I present for the first time in an unknown location without having accessed it first for testing. It just works, and in the past I've been cut too often by presentation machines not being able to handly PP or other file formats well. Or have no internet connection!

If the presentation should include animations and highly interactive content I'd again vote against InDesign or PowerPoint type presentation apps. I use Godot for those. But it is far more technical and too much for most users probably since it does involve a bit of coding as well (I have pre-built scripts). It allows me to build a presentation that runs independently of any other software and only requires the OS. I built information museum kiosks in the past this way as well and runs smoothly.

In the end it's less about the tool and more about the way the information is presented and structured. The best presentation tool in the world cannot help a badly designed and presented presentation. 😉

The tool is a preference of the presentation builder.

Personally I really dislike PP though 😛

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

In the end it's less about the tool and more about the way the information is presented and structured.

Or, as I find myself saying several times a week, "the tool is not the task." It's astounding how many people, often in should-know-better roles, insist on a specific tool rather than a defined result. (Hiring is rancid with this kind of thinking.)

I've used ID to build presentations, usually for PDF, for a long time now. It may not be the optimal workflow for everyone, but having high mastery of ID and a big bag of tricks it can use works for me. (I have also simply exported JPGs to embed in a PP deck when someone absolutely insists... but I won't use PP to create slides.)

Personally I really dislike PP though

That's where I am, and it slowly earned every bit of enmity I have for it. Even after "okay, I'm going to give it another try" efforts.

[BobLevine]

Way back in the day, I did a lot of Powerpoint presentations. One of the things I hear over and over again was "There's no way you did that with Powerpoint." I had a show a few people the file to convince them.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Well, there are those among us who can do master class work with MS Paint and an old roller mouse. 🙂

Good, even exceptional work can be done in almost any tool. But you shouldn't have to push the rock all the way up the hill on every step to get there.

[BobLevine]

Agree fully, but I could make the same argument against using InDesign for interactive presentations.

Animation and multimedia tools were added more than 10 years ago and have seen virtually no improvement at all since. They are clunky at best, and due to limited format support leave users scratching their heads when they don't work at all in PDF.

I stand by Powerpoint when the question includes "similar to the effects in Powerpoint." I don't see anyone asking how to make PowerPoint layout brochures and books "similar to the way it's done in InDesign."

The right tool for the right job. In this case, it's Powerpoint or any other app specifically designed for this purpose.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I guess it depends on what you mean by "an interactive presentation." It's relatively trivial to create an interactive PDF in ID, only marginally more difficult than PP's E-Z-drag-n-drop models.

I don't think most animations add anything to presentations (and I think the majority of comments here agree). For every time motion graphics add to the information and understanding, they are just clutter and distraction ten other times. Maybe fifty. Subtle page transitions can make a presentation... less harsh, and ID/Acrobat has those.

PP is a woefully bad tool at the design and development level. It enables the least-possibly-skilled users at the expense of every greater skill level, and completely lacks even Word's 'next level' of organized and precision control. No argument about the results changes that, and comparing things like animation and transition options is... not a professional topic. That it's endemic in the corporate world excuses nothing, as well.

This isn't a case of once being bitten by PP. I've come to my position across almost 30 years of having to cope with it.

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Hi ShabM, click here to view a publish online document where all content is on one page. Page click starts animation of first bullet, click the first bullet to animate the second, click second bullet to animate third, etc.

[Willi Adelberger]

THis thing with appearing buletts will not work.

But you can duplicate pages, and increase page by page the bullets, an mark the important one with a character style.

The audience will not see a differece.