An animated portable network graphic (.APNG) image allows you to show
simplistic animations on your webpage. The .APNG file works by rotating
several PNG images back to back, repeatedly, to give the illusion of
movement. The difference between using an animated PNG and an animated
GIF is that the .APNG file supports 24 bit images and 8 bit
transparencies -- both of which an animated GIF is incapable of
supporting. However, an animated PNG will have a much bigger file size
than its GIF counterpart.
Instructions
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1
Launch your animated PNG
creating program. You can use GIMP, APNG Anime Maker, or Paint.NET. Note
that there may be some minor differences in the steps required to
complete the task with each program.
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2
Click "Open" and select the PNG
images you want to be part of the animation. You can use any amount of
images you want -- but note that the more images you use, the larger the
resulting APNG file will be. In other programs, you might need to use
the "Layers" option and place each PNG image into a separate layer.
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3
Click "File" then "Save" to save
your file. When prompted, save your file as an ".APNG" file. This will
tell the program that opens the file that it's supposed to rotate
through the different PNG images.
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4
Open your .APNG file in a program that supports .APNG files such as Firefox or Google Chrome.
