*** From the Archives ***
This article is from October 1, 2010, and is no longer current.
Creating a Presentation, Part 1: Automatically Animating a List
This is the first in a series of techniques used to create presentations with InDesign.
Most people expect to create presentations in PowerPoint or Keynote, but there are lots of people who prefer to use InDesign. Unfortunately, prior to CS5 presentations have been largely static due. For example, if you wanted to create a list of items appearing one after another, you had to fake it by creating multiple pages with each page adding another item from the list. While this method worked, it was painful to create and edit. With CS5 InDesign has added a slew of new interactive features that allow us to create presentations easier.
Layout
Normally when you are laying out a document inside InDesign, it is recommended that you create as few text frames as possible. When it comes to presentations, this is not necessarily the case. Each element should be inside its own text frame to allow interactivity to happen to each frame. Since I need each list item to appear at a different time, I need to have them separated.
Animate the list
When you are giving a presentation you may want to have as few clicks as possible. If this were the case, you would want to have an automatic list. This means that when you navigate to that particular page, the list will appear without interaction.
Open the animation panel (window > interactive > animation) and select the frames that contain list items and apply an animation. I used the fade in preset, but if you choose a different animation you may need to apply the attribute “hide until animated”. This will ensure that you don’t see the other list items until they begin their animation.
Set the timing
Open the timing panel (window > interactive > timing). Here you can drag each of the animated items around and put them in the order that you want them to animate on page load. I don’t want them to animate immediately after each other so I am going to set a delay between each item. Select all of the items in the panel and set the delay to .5 sec.
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Previewing the Animation
Now that the animation is complete, you can test the animation directly inside InDesign by using the preview panel. Press cmd/ctrl + shift + return/enter to open the panel and preview the animation.
Click the image above to see the animation.
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While I genuinely much appreciate James’s showing us how this is done — especially as I’ll have to re-take my ACE exam sooner or later, are there really (reeeeaally) many InDesign users who want to be able to re-create Powerpoint?
InDesign is a magnificent application. I feel like I’m watching a “noble steed” that has been kidnapped by the Comic Sans Circus, and been trained to walk around on two legs instead of running wild, running free, running fast, and all that sort of thing!
@Jeremy – InDesign is a program used by many people for many different reasons. If you don’t feel the need to use these types of features, you don’t have to use them. That is why we have workspaces.
As an designer and an instructor, I have come across many people over the years that try and create presentations with InDesign. Many end designing the entire presentation in InDesign and then export the layout as a jpg and place it in PowerPoint. These new features will let them create their entire presentation inside InDesign instead of having to work with PowerPoint.
I remember reading an article about how the InDesign team decided what to add to the new version.To sum up the article, went to a variety of companies (design agencies, publishing houses, corporations, etc) and asked them what they want and observed how they use the product. A surprising number of people used InDesign to create presentations, and this is where this feature came from.
Hopefully someone can provide a link to the article. It was an really interesting peak into software development.
I would absolutely love to see Adobe completely reinvent PowerPoint. Basically, I want a PowerPoint that has the typographical control of InDesign, uses snippets and integrates a Photoshop/Illustrator workflow.
I’ve seen Presentations on Acrobat.com and I sure hope that’s not it.
And I’ll also say that PowerPoint 2010 has made some great improvements, including the ability to group slides, better slide transitions (no new animations, though!) and easier control of gradients. But, at the end of the day, it’s still a Microsoft product. The more I use Adobe products, the more I grow impatient with PowerPoint and Word.
James, I’m looking forward to more posts like these.
You should see the monstrosity of a a flash file I put together LOL.
It may not be the best for this sort of thing. But 99.9% of all my graphics and text is already in InDesign. It takes a lot of figuring out and planning to make animations.
I started out with sketches and planned out the design.
Then because InDesign is my favourite layout tool I started putting to together in InDesign.
The bosses wanted to see it animated so I didn’t have time to go and create all the assets in Flash and then animate it on the timeline etc.
So I animated it right there in InDesign – exported and sent it for sign off. While they were mulling over it I created all the assets and put it together in Flash.
Great job James, nice to see a blog post going up about the animations. Can’t wait to see what you do next!
Thanks Eugene.
I am going to address file size in a future post. But in a nutshell, InDesign makes HUGE flash files. But if you are giving a presentation, file size doesn’t really matter since you can keep everything local. File size does matter if you are building something that will be deployed to the web, but that is a different topic that I will get to eventually.
That’s exactly what it was for – presentation to be brought around for seminars and conferences etc.
There were some limitations to the animation in InDesign that you just need Flash for. But as you post more complex examples I’ll try to remember and post relevant things :)
@James
“InDesign is a program used by many people for many different reasons. If you don?t feel the need to use these types of features, you don?t have to use them.”
But indeed I do feel the need to use these features, for the simple reason that I’d like to pass my next ACE exam! — And I genuinely and sincerely thank you again for helping me and everyone else with that next task.
“A surprising number of people used InDesign to create presentations, and this is where this feature came from.”
Since you use the word ‘surprising’ there, I’d guess you too are a bit surprised by the direction CS5 has taken with limited resources — putting them into Powerpoint-type stuff, instead of footnote-type stuff, XML-type stuff, or EPUB-export-type stuff.
@Jeremy – nobody is disagreeing with you.
We work with what we’re given. There’s the Adobe Feature request https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
You can request new features here. And I suggest that anyone else that wants new features insert them here.
With regards to “presentation” type things, mostly any presentations I’m asked to do are in Powerpoint because different people need to update them, and none of them have InDesign and certainly don’t have Flash.
There’s far more to the animation and interactive side of things in InDesign – this is just one possible usage.
As I said in my last post – I was able to give a quick and easy Flash mockup with the things I already had in InDesign.
Another thing I was able to do was animate a Penguin Stand that I created. It was printed at Penguin Stand size, but it was just the right dimensions at scale for a place on a website too.
So now I don’t have to update the InDesign file and the Flash file for text changes, I make all the changes in one document and export for print or flash and it works!
There’s loads of uses – but bringing up the fact that they neglected to update some features while concentrating on others is neither here nor there.
Nobody here is at fault for that. Just reporting what you can do with the features that are there :)
Fritz, I realize that cheese, bacon and butter are the base of the food pyramid in Wisconsin, but I’m concerned about your shopping habits. You need to add in a few leafy dark green vegetables and carbohydrates!
Seriously, great post. Thanks.
I’m with mhinds72. We produce dozens of powerpoints a year and I am constantly lamenting the lack of kerning, paragraph control, effective styles, etc. I would LOVE Adobe to create a presentation software to compete with Powerpoint. Back in the days of overheads, I always used Pagemaker.
@mhinds72 & @ Kriss – I agree with your frustration with PowerPoint. That is exactly why Adobe made these changes to InDesign. It may not have every bell and whistle that a standalone presentation program has, but with these added features, you can create really compelling presentations within InDesign and export them to SWF or PDF for the presenter.
@Keith – I guess I should have added brats & beer to my shopping list too!
Yeah, I guess you’re all making good points. I’m just allergic to PowerPoint… I think it has done untold damage to the art of teaching, because it gives the teacher the opportunity not to think.
Great to learn new things, the trick is to apply it to real-world situations.
I am looking forward to see how can I link prezi.com with my creative suite…. A plugging or a take over by Adobe?
I am receiving more and more questions on using the import export XML to get a web database to create automatically catalogues… Looking forwar to reading more tutorials on that
@Eric – I don’t know of any plans for Adobe to incorporate prezil.com into the creative suite (it would be cool if the did).
I would recommend that you check out Jim Maivald’s Lynda.com video series on XML.
https://creativepro.com/new-video-title-offers-xml-training-for-indesign-users.php
There are also lots of plug-ins out there to help you connect a web database to an InDesign Catalog. You might want to look into any or all of the following:
autoprice – https://www.meadowsps.com
indata & incatalog – https://emsoftware.com/
Easy catalog – https://www.65bit.com
I marvel. Compelling presentation? For real, I get it that companies may be producing presentations in PowerPoint for clients, because that is what the client wants. That’s all about $$$$. But the reality of good presentation is that these little bells and whistles are very superficial (read: not compelling at all) and serve a very limited purpose. They are abused often by people who don’t know what they’re doing. Twirl-in does not enhance a presentation one iota. And these very rudimentary animations don’t enhance InDesign one iota either. Come on, for real. We’re not “allergic” to PowerPoint. It serves its purpose and is a good program when used properly. But, it does have way too much crap that is not appropriate in any presentation not given by a seventh grader in speech class. Please, someone tell me what real world situation am I, as a designer or a presenter (I am both), going to effectively use or want to use these kind of rudimentary tools in ID? I guess there could be lots of good reasons. Enlightenment would be nice. But, really, these features are hardly worth the upgrade. Others make it worth it, but these…. wow.
@Nicholas – Like all tools, they can be used for great design and terrible design. Just because InDesign has effects and font support doesn’t mean that I have to put a drop shadow and outer glow on comic sans. The same is true with animation. Sure, there are cheesy twirl animations, but a simple fade can be tastefully done.
As a designer you can make PowerPoint work, but I am sure you have felt the pain of trying to produce a solid design due to its lack of typographic controls. While you can make a powerful presentation with PowerPoint, I personally prefer to stay in InDesign as long as possible for my design work. Whether it is normal print design or a presentation.
The question I have is, why would you want to create a presentation in PowerPoint if you could create it inside InDesign? The main argument that I can come up for PowerPoint is if the client has to be able to edit the file. If you are the one giving the presentation or the presenter does not have the edit the file, I personally feel that InDesign is right choice for some presentations.
I am not saying that you should never use PowerPoint, but I am offering an alternative way to produce a presentation.
The more I think about it, the more I think my problem is with “presentations” themselves rather than with doing them with InDesign!
I guess I’m just destined never to be a “corporate” sort of guy… sigh…
Oh, i just posted this (cause i was in a good mood, like spending time on the FR form) :
*******Enhancement / FMR*********
Brief title for your desired feature:
Presentation mode = preview panel
How would you like the feature to work?
Add a checkbox somewhere that says “presentation mode : turn on animations”
Then when i press shift-V, i know i’ll have to wait a little for everything to arrive.
Better, with background tasks, i can expect inD to build the pres while showing it. Oh yeah, let’s make it.
Why is this feature important to you?
Just as i design animated features, previewing them in the tiny tiny (yet resizable) preview panel is just too one step too short for me.
And since i always work and adjust at the last minute, i decided to only use static presentation mode.
(Fancy animations are nice, but in the end, a disturbance)
But
If there was an easy way to get the animated features + page transitions just in one shortcut (shift V), with background task preloading everything on the go, well, that would be awesome !
(And bye bye ppt)
Of course, we could imagine half baked transitions, things could get more complex into flash, but right now i don’t feel as much concerned.
Thanx
fr
Franck – I do agree it would be nice if preview mode supported the animations, but did you know that you can resize the preview panel? You can make it be as big as the screen if you like. When I work on two monitors, I like to put the preview panel on the second screen full size.
If you press cmd/ctrl+shift+return/enter you can preview the current spread. This will open the panel and begin the animation. If you press it again it will close it.
Pressing cmd/ctrl+opt/alt+shift+return/enter will preview the entire document. This can take awhile if you have a lot of pages.
I’m sure this is practical for a lot of people. And stuff like this highlights the road ahead.
But wouldn’t it just be a whole lot more practical if we could just copy and paste a design to PowerPoint, and edit it back and forth hassle-free? Or even create a PowerPoint layout from within Indesign?
I’d like to make a philosophical point here, if I may.
When are the software vendors going to sit down together and get some synergy going? Trying to corner patches of each other’s turf, while lawyering up with patents is so analog.
But they are, you will tell me. Doesn’t ID have a great Word import filter? And how about all the new and exciting inter- and cross-platform exports? Besides, we’re just trying to improve the product and gaining market share. It’s how business works.
Undoubtedly, Adobe, Microsoft and the like know their business. They’ve got the figures to prove it. But I also know mine. Just like most of us here, I put together words, ideas and images. My clients provide me with those, in one shape or form.
From a sketch on the back of an envelope to a 1500 page reference work, I’ve had everything thrown at me. I love it. I love forming and shaping stuff and spitting out a beautiful finished object.
So please, give me the tools to do the job!
I am prepared to pay whatever you ask, I will even sell my soul to a questionable eula if that is what it takes, I just want the best technology tool out there.
We’re processing text, numbers, graphics, audio, video etc. Each of those have specific, powerful software associated with them. Trying to include a generic light version of each of these in every kit is not the way forward. Being able to seamlessly flow info from one to another is.
That sounds hard.
It is if you’re not creative. If you’re set in your ways and determined to keep doing business as you used to. My advice: take a long, hard look at each others code and make it work together. And don’t be afraid, people will still need a word processor for some time to come, and a spreadsheet.
We are your clients, your life-blood. We are working with you, telling you what we want. But will also drop you like a stone when a better tool turns up, sooner than later.
While you’re at it, please fix some of the old stuff in ID. Things like endnotes and that horrible fattening when applying any effect. You know the gripes. It’s not as if we didn’t ask nicely.
/rant
> James
Yes, i know that, but think of me in a meeting room, with the computer plugged and i just want to show easy way, full screen, nothing else, exactly what presentation mode does, without animation…
@ Franck – Check out Keith Gilbert’s script that uses InDesign’s presentation mode and makes it self-running.
https://creativepro.com/self-running-slide-show-script.php
You should try using Keynote instead of PowerPoint. As it does do kerning and tracking. Though the controls for kerning are a little weird. To kern a letter pair, you only select the first character and then adjust the “character spacing,” as Apple seems to define it as “set spacing between this character and the next,” rather than the “spacing between these two characters.” I don’t know how it works in PowerPoint (if it does at all). The only times I’ve tried to use it were as pleasurable as slamming your head in a car door. (Why on Earth do people keep buying this @^*#!)
Seems to me that using InDesign for presenting says a lot more about just how bad PowerPoint is than it does how good InDesign is at its job.
Wow, I struggle with Powerpoint and Open Office Impress every day.
I use Open Office Impress because it has actual styles that I can use. OO has object styles that can define almost everything from font, color, spacing, background, etc… and you can create and name your own styles. OO’s text styles are worthless to me because you are stuck with the names they have given you. One gottcha with OO custom object styles is if you save to PPT, poof, they are gone.
Powerpoint has no way to create my own styles that I can find.
I long for a presentation program where I could define paragraph, character, and object styles and where I could place entire other PPT files into the document for modularity like I can with ID.
I absolutely love the possibility of these new features. I am a teacher who uses powerpoint every day and hates it. I would love to be able to use powerpoint for this. It would save me tons of time in the long run.
However, there is one caviat to indesign I have yet to figure out. There is no way (at least that I have found) to present what you make in InDesign CS5 on two monitors with the tools I am accustomed to from years of teaching/speaking with powerpoint or keynote. A simple program that lets you present on a projector and see notes and a next slide on your laptop would make this feature way more exciting for me.
As it is now, I will probably be exporting lots of jpgs from InDesign into powerpoint.
@Ryan,
You are correct that it is not possible to have a second monitor display notes for you during the presentation. However, if you just created a document with notes, you could choose to extend your desktop (instead of mirroring). That way, your presentation could be running on the screen while you could look at your notes on your computer monitor.
Of course, you could always just print out your notes and have them in front of you during the presentation.
Can one use InDesign to produce a flashy dazzling photo slide show? I need to make one for a upcoming wedding…? In PowerPoint, one can import groups of photos, can this be done in InDesign? If yes, how?
Cory
Cory, you can certainly import groups of photos into InDesign (File > Place, then shift-click all the images you want) … and then you could animate them in InDesign … but I would probably just turn to something like iPhoto which has all those fun animation/slide show stuff built in.
@Cory,
I would probably avoid using any animation for a slideshow of images since flash slides can not automatically advance from page to page. If you put a different image on every page of a layout, you could apply page transitions and export it as an interactive PDF. In Acrobat’s Preferences you can set the video to loop when it advances every x sections full screen.
Despite this, AM is right that iPhoto or another free program for the PC might be an easier solution.
This post is 6 years old, so I hope there are some new features I haven’t stumbled on. I’m ripping my hair out trying to find the best way to make a powerpoint in Indesign. I’ve searched and searched, and so far found only frustration. Using Indesign’s animation and interactive tools has resulted in clunky PDF presentations, with transparent backgrounds not supported (even though I check the box). Really? Have we not found something that works seamlessly? If we have to, we will continue to use Indesign to create powerpoints by exporting jpegs. It just creates a ton more work if we are trying to create animations, bullets that appear one at a time, etc. We prefer Indesign so we have control over layout, fonts, etc. Any help is appreciated!
PS, re: the sentence “may want to have as few clicks as possible.” We want user control with clicks. Indesign doesn’t offer that.