How to Create Simple Animated Gif

[fuss]

I've tried searching, but haven't been able to find any straight-forward instructions for creating a simple animated gif.

I've attached an example of what I'm trying to do.

Perhaps you can tell me or point me in the right direction.

Thanks so much!

[handrawn]

an animated gif is a simple thing

you just use a sequence of still pictures and you swap one for another fast so that it appears to 'move'

so in your example you would have five pictures they would all be the same except that the first would have 'Happy' the second that would be changed to 'New'.... and so on to five

you would need to open an animation document and use the frame gallery

the straight forward way is to position your photo and text in the first frame and then use the copy button on the frame gallery to copy the frame and then change the text and then repeat until done

not the most efficient way, but for five frames it may not matter as long as the file size ends up acceptable

you can adjust the timing in the properties [button on frame gallery again]

if you end up with too clumsy a file then you will need to delve into the use of backgrounds and overlays

[fuss]

Thanks for helping me!

Can you elaborate on what an "animation document" is? Is this something that is found in Xara?

Also, when I click on Utilities > Galleries and look for the Frame Gallery, it is grayed out and I'm not able to select/click on it. Do you know what that means?

[steve.ledger]

Also, when I click on Utilities > Galleries and look for the Frame Gallery, it is grayed out and I'm not able to select/click on it. Do you know what that means?

It means you haven't opened a new Animation document.

File>>New>>Animation

[fuss]

Oh, wait, I think I figured out what you mean.

1. Open new animation document: FILE > NEW > ANIMATION

Once I did that, I see that the GALLERIES > FRAME GALLERY now appears.

I'm kind of loss as to what to do next though. (I'm a newbie, not a power user of Xara).

Can you (or anyone) provide some further steps?

[steve.ledger]

I'm kind of loss as to what to do next though. (I'm a newbie, not a power user of Xara).

Press F1

[fuss]

Once I create an animated gif (i.e., I have all the frames set up and the timing set), do I just save/export in .gif and that's it, or does it need to be saved in some other particular format?

Yeah, that didn't work. Does anyone know what to do once you have all the frames set up? What format is it supposed to be saved in to work?

[steve.ledger]

File>>Export animation

Select from .swf / .gif and .avi formats.

[fuss]

That's what I couldn't find. But after posting, I see now that it's under a separate export command.

So for those who are new like me, here are the steps:

FILE > (and then scroll down until you see) EXPORT ANIMATION.

From there, you can save the file type as animated gif, animated flash or AVI video.

[fuss]

I have another problem now.

So I exported the file as an animated .gif and it's working. Yay!

BUT, when I insert it onto my web page, it's got the dimensions as 480x320px instead of the size of the image I created which is 289x100px.

Does anyone know what on earth is going on with that? It's like the image appears as the right size, but it's like it's added all this invisible padding around it. I have no clue what is going on or how to fix.