Animation in a Reflowable ePub

[jrett]

Hi,

I was wondering what the best way to create animation in a reflowable epub is. We create epubs in InDesign, which doesn't allow animation to be used on anchored objects. I'm fairly new to epubs in general, but especially new to working with animation.

[Notjohn]

I see that it might work on my Fire tablet, but in the Paperwhite? I've never seen anything move in an e-ink device.

(The most -- almost the only -- entertaining thing I ever saw on the opening screen of my Fire tablet was a group of people, probably a TV show or movie, with one tyke with pigtails leaping up into view. I actually looked at that ad, though obviously it didn't work well enough to make me remember the subject.)

[fbrzvnrnd]

I have just published an electronic poetry in EPUB3 with (simple) animation in reflow. I think this could be done focusing over the words and not the page.

[IronChaim]

My understanding is, that in the end, it depends on if the reading agent supports your method or not. I've seen use of CSS, javascript, even embedding a GIF - but it didn't always work across reading environments.

Are you trying to create an effect as the result of some trigger, or begin immediately when rendered, etc.? What you want to happen may influence how/what you can use, and again in what readers it will actually work in.

[jrett]

I'm looking into animation in epubs, and it looks like a lot of people use fixed layout textbooks for ones with animation. My company produces textbooks in reflowable format. I was wondering if it is possible to include animation such as text effects (headings pulled on screen, words shaking, etc.) in reflowable epubs and, if so, what programs can be used to do that.

We use Indesign to export the textbooks to epubs and, so far, the interactivity I've been able to add has been limited to interactive TOCs, indices, and other forms of hyperlinks, as well as videos. I'd love to add some show/hide buttons, text effects, and other forms of interactivity, but haven't been able to get it to export in reflowable epubs. If there's a program that allows us to do that, it would definitely be worth looking into.

[Dr. Drib]

Moved out of the General Discussion Forum, which is for "General discussions about e-book reading not specific to a device, software or format."

Moved to the epub Forum.

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Don
(Moderator)