Low Quality of Animated Object When Publishing Online from InDesign

[Mepoenie]

I am creating an Indesing document with various animations to Publish Online. I have drawn a percentage bar (in Indesign 18.5) which I then animate. When I export to Publish Online I see that the quality is very poor. Can I do something about this? 

Below is an image of the object in Indesign and the object in the Online document.

<Title renamed by MOD>

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Can you share a link to the Publish Online doc?

I created a similar animation, and even when published with the low rez setting, the art appears the same.

View 

[Mepoenie]

Below is a link to some animations on my page. The animations are in this size on my page. I notice that the quality is much better by setting it to 144ppi with the image quality on high, but it will be a document of 240 pages so I fear that it will be too heavy and will load slowly.

I'll have to learn to live with it, right? Faster loading but poor quality or slow loading with good quality.

Too bad vectors can't stay vectors.

TEST animation resolution 

[Jeffrey_Smith]

I publish large documents at 144ppi most of the time, and don't see any loading issues. I re-examined my test at the 72 and 144ppi and there is subtle quality difference.

[Mepoenie]

Thank you, for now I will publish it on 144ppi. 

I don't know if it would make a difference if I put vector icons as SVG or EPS, I would have to test it out.

[Laubender]

Hi @Mepoenie ,

well, yes, you need high resolution to get that right. Don't think there's a waay around it.

Hm, what you can try is to change the height of the bar a bit. Maybe then it would work as expected with a low-res representation.

Another idea:

perhaps it helps to change the container frame of the bar so that you gain some space around the visible bar?

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Mepoenie]

Thank you but the shapes are just shapes, they don't have a container. Placing it larger would indeed help, but I don't always want that.

[Laubender]

@Mepoenie said: "Thank you but the shapes are just shapes, they don't have a container."

Just a suggestion, don't know if it will help in your case:

Do the following test with a duplicate:

Draw out a rectangle above your animated object.

Cut the animated object to the clipboard.

Paste the animated object inside the rectangle.

Make sure that the distance from the animated object to the rectangle is about one point.

Then publish online with 72 ppi.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Laubender]

@Mepoenie said: "I don't know if it would make a difference if I put vector icons as SVG or EPS, I would have to test it out."

That makes a big difference with Publish Online!

SVG will export to vector objects.

EPS will export as bitmap images.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Jeffrey_Smith]

@Laubender

I tested svg for Publish Online and noticed a size discrepancy of art placed in Indesign doc, and art reduced greatly in Publish Online. Is there a certain format of svg needed to preserve size of placed graphic?

[Laubender]

Hi Jeffrey,

this is complicated matter. Wrote about it back in 2022:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/images-not-exporting-properly-when-publishing-on...

Also this:

https://indd.adobe.com/view/d5755598-459c-431b-b426-efa35c3fa0cd

The most important thing is that:

When in InDesign do not use this setting for scaling placed SVG files:

Preferences > General > Scaling >

[x] Adjust Scaling Percentage

When already done, reset the scaling to 100% using the Transform panel.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Thanks Laubender, I thought I remembered reading a workaround that you posted.

[Mepoenie]

@Laubender 
So the answer to my problem is: Publish Online with the settings 144ppi (that's what i'm doing and works fine form me) or place my graphics in SVG with the right settings (explained here https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/images-not-exporting-properly-when-publishing-on...)?

[Laubender]

Hi @Mepoenie ,

basically yes. I'd prefer a graphic in the SVG format.

At least for Publish Online.

What I'm not sure about, but a test would show, if the animation shown through Publish Online would work with vector graphics. Just set up a test document and come back here to report if it works as expected.

And: It may not bother you for this project, but, of course, using SVG files comes with a downside when doing offset printing in CMYK. SVG files are always in RGB color space.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )