I need to make animated GIFs loop in Microsoft PowerPoint but when I present the slideshow the GIFs are static do not animate. I have looked for ways to change this behaviour but the advice is often to download specific software. Is there a way I can make a GIF animated in PowerPoint?
How to make a GIF loop endlessly in Microsoft PowerPoint
animated gifgifmicrosoft-powerpoint
Related Solutions
1) Are the .gif files in the same directory as the PowerPoint presentation? If you're working in Windows and you move the PowerPoint file after you've linked the files you may have issues - Windows doesn't do well with relative links.
2) Are the .gif files embedded or just linked? You may want to try embedding them into the file - you'll end up with a bigger PowerPoint file, but it may fix this.
3) How large are the file sizes? Remember, PowerPoint has to try and load each file as you enter the frame.
4) It sounds like you're running this on a laptop - have you tried looking at the presentation on a desktop? Check the system you're working on for RAM, processor speed, etc. to make sure you have enough horsepower to drive this.
5) It used to be that you needed at least 100M continuous space on the hard drive to run video files (so Windows could cache). I'm not sure if there's a similar requirement for .gifs but if it runs fine on another machine and not so well on your laptop you may wish to defragment your hard drive (if you're running on Windows).
Do you really need animated .gifs? Sometimes you do - I've used them effectively to demonstrate mechanical concepts, but the example you gave us, while nice looking, doesn't seem to do anything but demonstrate that you can have motion in a presentation. Remember that PowerPoint audience members are like deer - they'll immediately focus on motion to the exclusion of anything else - not helpful if you're trying to get them to pay attention to things like bullet points that say "Under no circumstances should you ever, ever push the shiny red 'Self-Destruct' switch on the Doomsday device". Seriously consider how important the animated .gifs are before tossing them in. I am even fairly conservative with transitions since I want people focusing on the bullet points, not the animations.
Use Camstudio. It's free, and it makes a video of your desktop, and whatever you choose to display.
So... start recording, record a short video of the animation, then edit the video and crop out everything you don't need. There. You've now got a video you can either embed in your presentation, or convert to an Animated GIF file.
EDIT Ok, so you want to embed the AVI file you made of this into the presentation. According to Microsoft...
Method 4: Insert the movie as a package
You can insert a movie file as a package in a PowerPoint presentation. To do this, follow these steps:
On the Insert menu, click Object.
Click Create new, and then click Package under Object type.
When you insert a movie as a package in a PowerPoint presentation, the movie file is kept inside a package that is embedded in the presentation. If you move the presentation to another location, the package is also moved to this location.
This method is the only way that you can embed a movie into a PowerPoint presentation. A package is an OLE2 wrapper object that embeds an OLE stream into a file. This file registers itself as a Packager object. When the Packager object is opened, the contents are read. Then, the appropriate extension verb is called. Typically, an .avi file is verb-activated with Windows Media Player.
You may want to use this option if you are not concerned about the size of the PowerPoint presentation or about the speed at which the presentation will play. When you use this method, make sure that all the content is in one file. If you use this method to insert larger .avi files, the computer may experience performance issues.
Movie playback
To make the Packager object function in a presentation, follow these steps:
Right-click the inserted object, and then click Action Settings.
Click Object Actions. Then, click Activate Contents in the Object Actions list.
When you click the Packager object in a presentation, the movie is played back in a separate window above the presentation.
That's from this Microsoft Article
Now, if you'd rather convert the AVI to a GIF file to make embedding it easier, you can use an online converter like Zamzar.
Best Answer
First, ensure you are inserting the GIF the way Microsoft recommends. This method is relevant for PowerPoint 2016, PowerPoint 2013 and PowerPoint 2010.
Select the slide that you want to add the animated GIF to.
In the Insert tab of the ribbon, click Pictures.
In the Insert Picture dialog box, navigate to the location of the animated GIF you want to add.
Select the file, and then click Insert or Open.
To play the animation, click the Slide Show view button on the task bar in the bottom bar of the PowerPoint window.
If your GIF does not loop or animate endlessly (i.e. it only loops once or a limited amount of times), then this might be because the internal setting of the GIF is only set to a limited number of animations (source). You will have to modify the GIF to change how many times the GIF loops. Microsoft recommends the online editor called https://ezgif.com/. Detailed instructions are here.