*New Feature* Create Animated GIFs using PowerPoint

Anonymous
2019-12-27T23:30:53+00:00

Hello Insiders đź‘‹

My name is Aimee, and I'm a PM in the Office Graphics team.

Have you ever had an idea for an animated GIF but didn't know where to get started?

With the new feature Export/Save As Animated GIF, you can now create your ideas in PowerPoint.

This feature is currently rolling out on Desktop for Office 365 Subscribers only, and the Web coming very soon.

- Windows: Version 2001 (Build 16.0.12410)

  • Mac: Version 16.34

This feature is not available on Office Perpetual, namely Office 2019 or 2016.

Getting Started

Making an animated GIF is easy – I’ll make two in this post!

Follow along with my steps.

STEP 1

Open PowerPoint and insert your media.

For my first GIF, I am creating a memorable email signature, so I inserted an animated sticker and some text that I liked:

For my second GIF, I am creating a rotating gallery of images to share on my social media, so inserted a series of images on each slide:

Tip: Adjust the dimensions of your slide via the Slide Size menu: go to Design Tab > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size

STEP 2

Choose your export options in the Create an Animated GIF menu.

Go to File > Export > Create an Animated GIF.

In this menu, you can adjust the size/quality of your GIF, and set the seconds spent on each slide:

Tip: If don’t want to adjust the export options, it’s faster to use the Save As menu: *go to File > Save As and in the Save-as-Type dropdown, select "*Animated GIF Format  (*.gif)"

STEP 3

Click Create GIF. 

An Explorer window will open - in here, navigate to where you’d like your Animated GIF exported to.

Click Save and PowerPoint will begin exporting your slide(s) as an Animated GIF. 

Go to your selected folder to see your creation!

Here is my new animated email signature:

And here is my food gallery:

OTHER TIPS

This feature respects all media supported in Slideshow (shapes, text, images, SVGs, videos, Animated GIFs, 3D Models, etc), PPT Animations and PPT Transitions.

A good way to preview your Animated GIF before export is to view your slides in Slideshow Mode.

Feedback

I'm actively working on this feature in Office, and your feedback is key to guiding improvements. 

Use Send A Smile in the Office app to let us know what you think, or reply to this thread.

I read and appreciate all feedback 🙏

With love,

Aimee

None of the media used in this blog post is endorsed by Microsoft. They were selected by the writer as examples only.

Animated sticker by Molly Jacques on GIPHY

Photos by chuttersnaponUnsplash

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-03-21T16:42:26+00:00

    I think I' doing something wrong. I created a single frame, with three symbols on it, and animated them. I then created a new frame with the three symbols copied to it, and added a different animation, and a background colour. I used File > Export and it allowed me to choose Animated Gif.

    But somehow  it didn't work*. I "play" using Windows Media Player, the first screen and animation appears, then I have to click to see the second, but it doesn't show the animation, it just shows the background screen. If I say "Play again", it shows the second screen with background and plays the animation, but not the first screen. Somewhere in the sequence, I must have clicked in the wrong place! All advice welcome. 

    Socially distancing in the UK ~Nick

    *hey, I'm 69 years old, give me a break! It's Saturday, I should be out having fun ~ (but family say "Social Distancing" ~ so cannot forgather round the table at the coffee shop with my knitting circle. So this is my alternative "crafting fun".

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-03-20T22:13:24+00:00

    Thanks for bringing to our attention.

    I sent a private message to understand the issue more.

    Aimee.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-03-11T06:29:30+00:00

    Strangely I cannot find the buggy images with artifacts. I may have been fixed in recent updates, but some images had strange artifacts like a triangle to the edge of the screen. Anyway I am unable to duplicate now, it was definitely a problem a couple of years ago when I tried JPG and PNG exports which is why I changed to GIF.

    My main use is an application where I manipulate PowerPoint from Excel VBA via the powerpoint.application object, using named slides to update information derived in Excel for presentation display purposes and a static image for a website. Currently I use code such as 

        Set ThisSlide = ResultsPresentation.slides(ActiveResultsSlide)

        With ThisSlide        

          .Export ResultsImagefolder & "" & ResultsGIFfile, "GIF"

    end with

    This still works fine.

    Export from the user interface of PowerPoint is less common for me, was looking for it while testing a new slide layout, but is a potential requirement as our website has a setting applying to GIF files to always load rather than using the cached version, ensuring updated information is always visible to the user. BEcause I FTP the image file and the file name is the same, using JPG or PNG may result in out-dated information being displayed due to user caching.

    I cannot understand why a functionality such as this has been removed, especially when there is support for animated GIF, which is useful but in some cases a single slide is needed, for example to load to a website or insert into documentation.

    Geoff Kelly

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-03-09T14:59:35+00:00

    Nice!! Thanks for sharing, Aimee :) Now it's possible to create gif using powerpoint.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-03-09T14:11:28+00:00

    Lets hope Microsoft sees this post and restores the functionality.

    It can be done through VBA. My main use is from a VBA application in Excel that updates content in a PPTX file using VBA, then exports a slide to GIF using slide.export. Fortunately that still works but the ability to manually export a slide to GIF via the PPT UI has gone.

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