PUB98: Animated GIFs Only Animate in Programs Supporting Animation

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CompuServe Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) version 89a supports storing multiple pictures in a single .gif file. If a .gif file contains several pictures, each with slight variations from one picture to another, that file is referred to as an "animated GIF."

Many Web browsers, (including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, are designed so that when they display a .gif file that contains multiple pictures, they display the individual pictures in sequence.

Unlike the Microsoft Video for Windows (.avi) and Apple QuickTime Movie formats, the GIF format is designed primarily to display static pictures, not animated images. The most common reason to create an animated GIF is to incorporate multimedia effects in HTML documents on the World Wide Web. For this reason, programs that display animation effects fall into one of these categories:

• Web browsers.
• Animated GIF editing programs (such as Microsoft GIF Animator, which ships with Microsoft FrontPage 98).
• Media cataloging programs (such as Microsoft Clip Gallery 4.0, which ships with Microsoft Publisher 98).

Very few programs not in one of these categories display animated GIF files as animated.