Turn Google Slides into an Animated GIF with this Free Tool

I recently came across an awesome tool that can take a Google Slideshow and save it as an animated GIF (thanks to Infinitely Teaching for the tip!) This free tool is called Tall Tweets (odd name, I know) and is created by the awesome Amit Agarwal.

With Tall Tweets you can import a Google Slideshow, set the duration for each slide (as well as some other options), and then create and download an animated GIF version of your slideshow.

This can be used with many Google Slides projects to export the final product, including:

• Creating Stop Motion Animation with Google Slides - Resource link
• Creating Online Comic Strips with Google Slides - Resource link
• Student Created Storybooks with Google Slides - Resource link
• Or just saving any slideshow as a GIF!

There are many tools that can make animated GIFs, but it is always helpful to find one that is free and super easy to use. See below for detailed directions on how to use this great tool…


Create Your Slideshow

First you need to finish creating the Google Slideshow that you want to convert into an animated GIF. For helpful tips of making the slideshow, see any of my activities linked earlier in this post.

Note: A key thing to remember is you may want some slides to last longer, and some to last shorter, when playing as a GIF later. Although you can't make a specific slide last longer, you can make it look like it does. One way to do this is to make multiple copies of the slide, without making any changes to it, so it looks like the scene is lasting longer.

• Select the slide you want to last longer.
• Make a copy of the slide by clicking "Slide" and "Duplicate slide", or copy and paste the slide, or press "Ctrl" and "D" (for duplicate).
• Repeat this multiple times to make 5 or 10 copies of the slide (for example).

Later when the slideshow gets converted into a GIF, it will look like the slideshow has paused on this slide for longer.

Note: From what I can tell, Tall Tweets has a limit of 100 slides when creating the animated GIF, so be sure your slideshow does not exceed that amount.


Convert with Tall Tweets

Now you can convert your Google Slideshow into an animated GIF at the Tall Tweets website.

• Go to https://talltweets.com
• Click the "Select Presentation" button.

• Browse your Google Drive to find and select the slideshow you want to convert.
• The site will now make a copy of each slide. This can take a while depending on how many slides are in your presentation.
• When the slides have all been loaded you can now enter your settings.

For "GIF Image Width (in pixels)" enter how large you want your GIF to be.
Note: The wider the GIF, the larger the file size will be. Very large GIFs will take longer to load on websites, and some services have limits on how large of a GIF you can post. For example the maximum file size for an animated GIF on Twitter is 5MB.

For "Slide Duration (in seconds)" enter a number for how long each slide should last.
Note: For some slideshow (such as comic strips or eBooks) you will want the slides to last long enough for people to read the content. However, for stop motion animation, you may want the slides to move much quicker, such as 0.1 or 0.25 seconds per slide.

The "Sequence of Slides (comma separated)" entry is completely optional. If you do not fill it out, the slides will be displayed in the order you created them. However, if you need to change the order, skip certain slides, or make some slides duplicate you can do so by entering the numbers such as "1,2,4,5,5,5,5,6,8".

• When ready click the "Create GIF" button.
• When done the animated GIF will display.
• You can save your own copy by clicking the "Save" button, or by simply right-clicking on the GIF and choosing "Save image as…"

Examples

In addition to the animated GIF I made for the title picture of this blog post, I also went ahead and converted some slideshows from my earlier posts on Stop Motion Animation and Creating eBooks.

Stop Motion Animation example:

Google Slides eBook example:

If you or your students make animated GIFs from your slideshows with this tool, I would love to see what you make!


Post by Eric Curts. Bring me to your school, organization, or conference with over 50 PD sessions to choose from. Connect with me on Twitter at twitter.com/ericcurts and on Google+ at plus.google.com/+EricCurts1