Animation by keystroke

[Henrik Lindqvist]

I'm trying to do a "Powerpoint" style presentation in InDesign.

Is it possible to (for example) reveal text or run the next animation by clicking a key?

The events now only allows for OnPageLoad or OnPageClick.

The behavior I want is to only have to click the Right Arrow Key to reveal hidden text, and then stop until I click again.

Hope this makes sense.

[Eternal Warrior]

Whilst something like this may be possible it's worth bearing in mind that InDesign was not designed for "Powerpoint" presentations.

Why do you need InDesign to do this and could you not simply use screenshots of InDesign etc or a video/animation of what you want?

[Sandee Cohen]

It's quite easy to do by creating each individual line of text and then putting each line as its own entry on a multi-state object.

THEN create a button set to play "Next State" in the MSO panel.

AND there is nothing wrong with what you're doing.

[EDIT] And if you go to Ajar Productions you can get a script that will divide a single text frame into individual frames.

[Eternal Warrior]

I was only trying to understand why?

Never said it was wrong....

[BobLevine]

A quick clarification: If you do it Sandee's way, with an MSO, you'll need to do it as a build. If each line of text is in its own frame and its own state, as each state is activated the others will be hidden. You could have a button that goes to next state and have the additional line of text animate on state load (that option will be available once the animation is in a state.

While I agree there's nothing inherently wrong with this, I would do it in PowerPoint, too, unless there's something specific in InDesign that you need.

[Henrik Lindqvist]

The thing is I have a print presentation that I want to make interactice w/o having to convert it to Powerpoint.

I get that I can create buttons to play the next state or use "OnPageClick" to run the next animation.

But I'd like to bind it to the Right Arrow-key so that the user can click through the presentation just using "Next Page".

[BobLevine]

Without seeing the actual content, my initial thought is that print content is not going to translate very well to a bullet list presentation. I’d rethink the whole thing. Nothing will be a group of people to sleep faster than bulleted slides.

[Eternal Warrior]

As I'm uncertain as to how "interactive" you actually desire this to be... i.e. are there bits of video etc? I would still suggest without arguing with the OP or Sandee - that you just export the print presentation to Powerpoint?

I.e. in Adobe Acrobat/DC (assuming its a PDF) just go to File> Export to >  Microsoft Powerpoint presentation.

[Henrik Lindqvist]

It's not any bulleted lists actually.

The client just wants some animations in there for effect, so rather than converting 100 pages to powerpoint we went this route.

But maybe we'll have to bite the bullet.

Otherwise I'm actually quite impressed with Indesigns Publish Online tools, they work great.

It's just some control over triggers and events that's lacking.

[Sandee Cohen]

Henrik, I don’t say this often but you are getting really awful advice in this thread.

Please contact me directly via a message and I’ll go over how to do this without biting any bullets (which could explode in your head).

[Eternal Warrior]

[BobLevine]

I would never question Sandee as far as using animations in InDesign. Nobody on the planet’s better at it.

I’d love to know how to get this working with keystrokes instead of button events.

[Sandee Cohen]

Missed the part about "keystroke" which I took as mouse event.

You're right Bob, keystroke "no". Mouse "yes".

[Henrik Lindqvist · Accepted solution]

Thanks everybody for your input.

Sandy; I figured out the Mouse Click and I might have to go with that.

It would be great though to be able to bind events to keystrokes.
Adobe; make it happen!

[BobLevine]

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