# gif image in beamer presentation

I wish to display some animations in my beamer presentation. The most trivial way that comes to my mind is to use a gif image. How can I put it in the presentation and what should I use to display it? Is there any other way of doing it?

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You could have a look into the beameruserguide Chapter 14, which describes some different methods to do animated stuff. –  Benedikt Bauer Sep 25 '12 at 16:38
Does using \includegraphics{<file-name.gif>} not work? –  Peter Grill Sep 25 '12 at 16:46
@PeterGrill: GIF is not supported. –  kiss my armpit Sep 25 '12 at 16:58
@garbagecollector: useful to mention the context, here -- when pdftex was being developed, gif format was encumbered with a software patent that applied to its compression method (lzw). there are several free software projects that avoided gif, in that context, and pdftex was one of them. it's a pity, since (as sthiadhi says) motion gif is one of the easiest motion formats to handle. –  wasteofspace Sep 25 '12 at 20:21
@wasteofspace: Even if gif were supported by pdfTeX, the viewer application would have to support it as well, in particular its animation feature. Only gif creation software using LZW was subject to licensing, not viewing software. Even though, Adobe abstained from supporting animated gif in Acrobat. Perhaps they considered it dispensable. –  AlexG Sep 26 '12 at 7:10

In a single run you will get 4 separate files as follows,

• a GIF animation
• a PDF animation
• a MP4 video
• a slide that contains a PDF animation and imports a MP4 video as shown in the figure below

## Requirements

• ImageMagick must be installed and its path must be registered to PATH system variable.
• FFMPEG must be installed and its path must be registered to PATH system variable.

## How to compile

The following input file, named as main.tex, must be compiled with pdflatex -shell-escape main. WARNING: If your OS is not Windows, then please adapt the Windows shell command to your OS shell command.

% this filename is main.tex
% compile it with "pdflatex -shell-escape main" (without the quotes)

\documentclass[mathserif]{beamer}

\usepackage{filecontents}

% Create a PDF file that consist of some pages
\begin{filecontents*}{frames.tex}
\documentclass[pstricks,border=12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}

\begin{document}
\multido{\i=5+5}{72}
{
\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=false](-2,-2)(2,2)
\psparametricplot[algebraic,plotpoints=1000,linecolor=red]{0}{\i}{2*sin(7*t*Pi/180)|2*cos(11*t*Pi/180)}
\end{pspicture}
}
\end{document}
\end{filecontents*}

\immediate\write18{latex frames}
\immediate\write18{dvips frames}
\immediate\write18{ps2pdf frames.ps}
% sometimes you need to disable auto rotate in ps2pdf. Please follow up if you really need it!
% delete auxiliary files generated by the 3 commands above.
\makeatletter
\@for\x:={tex,dvi,ps,log,aux}\do{\immediate\write18{cmd /c del frames.\x}}
\makeatother

% convert to GIF animation
\immediate\write18{convert -delay 5 -loop 0 -density 75 -alpha remove frames.pdf Lissajous.gif}

% convert to MP4
\makeatletter
\immediate\write18{convert -density 600 -alpha remove frames.pdf frames-\@percentchar04d.png}
\immediate\write18{cmd /c if exist Lissajous.mp4 del Lissajous.mp4}
\immediate\write18{ffmpeg -r 5 -i frames-\@percentchar04d.png -vcodec libx264 Lissajous.mp4}
\immediate\write18{cmd /c if exist frames-*.png del frames-*.png}
\makeatother

% convert to a single PDF animation
\begin{filecontents*}{Lissajous.tex}
\documentclass[preview,border=12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{animate}
\begin{document}
\animategraphics[controls,loop,autoplay,scale=1]{10}{frames}{}{}
\end{document}
\end{filecontents*}

\immediate\write18{pdflatex Lissajous}
% delete auxiliary files generated by the above command.
\makeatletter
\@for\x:={tex,log,aux}\do{\immediate\write18{cmd /c del Lissajous.\x}}
\makeatother

\usepackage{animate,media9}
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[t]{Lissajous in action}
\begin{columns}[T]
%=============
\begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
\begin{block}{PDF Animation}
%\animategraphics[controls,autoplay,loop,scale=<integer>]{<frame rate>}{<PDF filename without extension>}{<left blank>}{<left blank>}
\animategraphics[controls,autoplay,loop,scale=1]{10}{frames}{}{}
\end{block}
\end{column}
%=============
\begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
\begin{block}{MP4}
\includemedia[
activate=onclick,
width=\linewidth,height=\linewidth,
flashvars={%
&autoPlay=true%optional configuration
&loop=true%variables
}
]{}{VPlayer.swf}
\end{block}
\end{column}
%=============
\end{columns}
\end{frame}
\end{document}


## Notes:

The auxiliary file named frames.pdf must be removed manually because I cannot remove it from within main.tex. If you know how to do this, let me know!

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–  kiss my armpit Sep 26 '12 at 7:59
There is yet another option. You could convert frames.pdf to animated SWF using swftools and embed this one using \includemedia from media9 package. This keeps the vectorial nature of the graphics (as opposed to MP4). –  AlexG Sep 26 '12 at 8:14
@AlexG: OK. Thanks. I will update this answer once I am finished trying it. –  kiss my armpit Sep 26 '12 at 8:15
this could also be written into an arara rule :) –  cmhughes Jun 22 '13 at 19:06
@cmhughes: Yes it might be rewritten in an arara rule but learning arara will burden us to spend an extra time. –  kiss my armpit Jun 22 '13 at 19:27

the same without using an external file (the pdf is here: http://perce.de/temp/anim0.pdf):

\documentclass[mathserif]{beamer}
\usepackage{pst-plot,animate}
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[t]{Lissajous in action}
\begin{columns}[T]
\begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
\begin{animateinline}[%
width=0.9\linewidth,
begin={\begin{pspicture}(-2.1,-2.1)(2.1,2.1)},
end={\end{pspicture}},
controls, %palindrome, %autoplay
]{3}
\multiframe{72}{iA=50+50,iB=5+5}{
\psset{algebraic,plotpoints=\iA,linecolor=red}
\parametricplot{0}{\iB}{2*sin(7*t*Pi/180)|2*cos(11*t*Pi/180)}
}
\end{animateinline}
\end{column}
\begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
\begin{align}
x(t)&=2\sin(7t)\\
y(t)&=2\cos(11t)
\end{align}
\end{column}
\end{columns}
\end{frame}

\end{document}


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I downloaded the pdf and viewed it in evince but the animation doesn't work. Do I need any other pdf viewer for this? –  lovespeed Sep 25 '12 at 18:02
I suppose that it works only with acrobat –  Herbert Sep 25 '12 at 18:06
Apparently, pst-plot has already imported multido. –  kiss my armpit Sep 25 '12 at 18:50
I do not need it anyway ... –  Herbert Sep 25 '12 at 18:59
@chepukha: run the example with xelatex. It does not work with pdflatex. If you want to use several images then have a look into the documentation of animate, it has some examples. –  Herbert May 1 '13 at 18:30