Outputing the contents of Artboards from Illustrator as gif files in preparation to creating an animated GIF file written in an ExtendScript Illustrator Script.
// Define the GIF export options
var gifOptions = new ExportOptionsGIF();
gifOptions.colorReductionColorCount = 256;
gifOptions.colorReductionDither = ColorDitherMethod.NOISE;
gifOptions.colorReductionMethod = ColorReductionMethod.SELECTIVE;
gifOptions.ditherPercent = 50;
gifOptions.interlaced = false;
gifOptions.transparency = true;
// Loop through all artboards and export each one as a GIF file
for (var i = 0; i < app.activeDocument.artboards.length; i++) {
// Set the active artboard
app.activeDocument.artboards.setActiveArtboardIndex(i);
gifOptions.artboardRange = i.toString();
ExportOptionsGIF.artBoardClipping = true;
// Set the file name for the GIF file
var fileName = "c:\Gif Files\artboard" + (i + 1) + ".gif";
// Export the active artboard as a GIF file
app.activeDocument.exportFile(new File(fileName), ExportType.GIF, gifOptions);
}
The main option that will need to be changed in this Illustrator script on your system will be the location of the output folder. This was created on a Windows machine and the folder is “c:\Gif Files\artboard”. This could be changed to be in the same location as the current Illustrator document. This can be achieved with:
var doc = app.activeDocument;
var filePath = doc.fullName;
The filePath will then need to be truncated to provide the folder name. Here is a routine to allow this to be done:
function getFolderName(filePath) {
// Get the last index of the "/" character
var lastSlashIndex = filePath.lastIndexOf("/");
// Return the string up to the last "/" character (this will be the folder name)
return filePath.substring(0, lastSlashIndex);
}
When the file is passed back from doc.fullName it is a device dependent path so this routine should work on both the Mac and Windows. So Macintosh HD:Gif Files:Test.ai(Mac) and c:Gif FilesTest.ai would both be returned as /Macintosh HD/Gif Files/Test.ai and /c/Gif Files/Test.ai
