Chapter 2

Adding Animationto a Presentation

Applying Animation

• Animation is a great way to add life to InDesign documents by making objects:– move and fade– appear and disappear– fly in from one side of the screen

Applying Animation

• Presets, which are available on the Animation panel, can be applied quickly and easily to objects in your layout.

Preset menu on the Animation panel

Applying Animation

• Use the Events menu on the Animation panel to specify when the animation should occur.

Apply Animation

• You can apply multiple events to a single animation.

• The ability to use more than one event to trigger an animation increases your options for making a more complex presentation.

Previewing Animation

• The SWF Preview panel allows you to test out the animations you are applying without exporting the file each time.

• When you press the Play button on the SWF Preview panel, the page is reloaded in the panel, just as it would be in a browser.

SWF Preview panel

The SWF Preview Panel

• Shows only the current page in the InDesign layout.

Previewing Animation

• If you click a button or hyperlink that is linked to a website, a browser window will open and take you to the destination.

• This is a great way to quickly test that the URLs you have set as destinations are live and working without having to export the file.

Using the Timing Panel to Control Animation

• To work with animation, you need to think of the exported document as being a presentation displayed in a linear timeline.

• The Timing panel is used to control when animated objects play.

Using the Timing Panel to Control Animation

• The Timing panel lists all the animations on a current spread, specifying the page event assigned to each animation.

Timing panel

Using a Button to Play Animation

• The very essence of a button is to make something happen when you click it.

• The button plays the role of the signal or sign post, telling the viewer, “Click here and something will happen.”

Using a Button to Play Animation

• To create a button trigger, choose what you want to use as the button.

• It can be a simple square, a text frame, or a placed image.

Using a Button to Play Animation

• Once you’ve created a button and formatted it to trigger an animation, you can apply an animation to the button itself.

Create button trigger button