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Adding text frame by frame to animations is a time consuming process which isn't always successful. Sometimes the text will jump around the image because you weren't able to place it correctly, and sometimes you just give up before you even start because the animation contains just so many frames that it is likely to take forever. But guess what, there are easier ways to do it. The way described in this tutorial is the way that I will normally use, and that I have been using for well over a year.

This tutorial is for Animation Shop 3 (which you get when you buy or download Paint Shop Pro 7) from Jasc.com. It is pretty basic, so most users should be able to follow it. It can probably be applied to Animation Shop 2 with only small or no adjustments.

Some of the functions that you will learn:

In AS:
- Inserting and customising a text effect to multiple frames at once.
- Saving a transparent animation at best quality possible.

1. I will be using one of my own Kao animations for this tutorial. You should find your own animation to practice with. Any animation will do. Just remember that if it's not your own drawing/animation you are not really allowed to alter it so just use it for practicing and don't redistribute it. I'm using a transparent animation, but really, any animation in a gif file will do.

2. Open AS and locate and open your animation.

3. Hit ctrl+a to highlight all frames in the animation - like this (this image has been shrunken down, if you would like to see the full image click on it and a new window will open):

4. Use the dropper tool to pick one of the colours from the image that you want to use for the text. Just click on it and it will appear in your colour palette to the right (of course, you don't have to use a colour from the image but I like to do it just to have things match).

5. Effects > apply text effect.

6. A box will pop up. In the text field you can write the text that you want in the animation. I write 'Hello'.

7. Right click on the colour field at the right side of the box and chose the colour you defined before or any other colour that you want to use for the text.

8. In the effect field chose the 'drop shadow'.

9. Click the 'font' button and chose the fonts and font size that you want. Make sure that the 'antialias', 'underline' and 'strikeout' are NOT checked unless you want to use one of those effects. I chose the font 'lucida handwriting' in size 14. Click ok.

10. Then click 'customize' and chose these settings:

Notice the 'light properties' and 'light movement' settings. Click ok.

(Note: you have now chosen a text with drop shadow that will appear in all the frames at once. But because the drop shadow is so small and of so little intensity it will most likely not show in the animation. If it does it will only be a very few pixels and they are easy to get rid of with the eraser tool set to size 1. You will see if it's necessary to erase some pixels after you have saved the animation).

11. Look at the preview to see if the text is placed where you want it to be. If not, click 'customize' and in the 'text position' insert the coordinates that you want. You can go back and forth like this until you have the text placed exactly where you want it in the animation. I set 'text left' to 1 and 'text top' to 35.

12. Click ok and the animation should now appear with the text inserted in all the frames like this:

13. If you are satisfied with the result you are now ready to save the animation. File>save as. Name the animation and make sure to choose the gif option in the file type. Then hit save.

14. This window should appear:

15. Slide the handle all the way up to 'better image quality' and then hit the 'customize' button.

16. On the colors tab choose these settings:

17. On the 'optimizations' tab choose these settings:

18. And on the 'partial transparency' choose these settings:

19. Then just click ok and next until your animation has been saved. That is all!

This is my finished product. Of course, yours will probably look quite different. The thing to remember is that once you've learnt to insert text in animations like this it will be much faster and easier than doing it any other way.

(This entire tutorial © June 18th, 2002 by Guðrun Jacobsen)