How can I combine multiple GIFs into one GIF file?

How can I combine multiple GIFs into one GIF file? I just want to display the images side by side.

blue-sky

Posted 2011-03-23T09:38:40.503

Reputation: 465

2What do you mean by combine? Into an animated gif? Tiled? Overlayed? – Benjol – 2011-03-23T09:39:47.737

Answers

GIMP can work with gif files, they appear just like normal images but each frame in their own layer.

If you're looking for a programmable solution, I've had good experiences with ImageMagick.

Best of all, both are free and open source! :-)

jho

Posted 2011-03-23T09:38:40.503

Reputation: 868

Thanks for that, there seems to be many options, where do I convert multipls gifs into one ? – None – 2011-03-23T10:01:17.380

1@user470184: That really, really depends on the already asked question: What do you specifically want to do? Tile the gifs? Have them play one after another? Play them overlayed? etc.

But with GIMP you can do almost anything you like, the gifs show up as an image with a bunch of layers, and you can create more layers, remove them, edit their contents, timing, etc... – jho – 2011-03-23T10:21:50.433

I just want to display the images side by side – None – 2011-03-23T10:23:57.893

@user470184: GIMP can do that. Just grow the layers enough so that you can fit both images side by side, and copy the images for each layer from the source gif into the combined one. – jho – 2011-03-23T10:27:35.953

Can GIMP preserve the animations when used like this? It did not for me, but I could be doing it wrong. – Frank Schwieterman – 2012-10-13T00:44:07.830

Given this question is asked on SO, I'm going to go with: GdiPlus exposes an API on Windows you can use to read, and write GIF files (amongst other file formats). You will be able to combine an arbitrary number of source images into an animated gif.

Chris Becke

Posted 2011-03-23T09:38:40.503

Reputation: 201

You can check out some of the CSS Sprite generators out there. These are designed to combine multiple image files into a single file to reduce the number of connections needed to load a website.

Some examples are:
http://csssprites.com/
http://spritegen.website-performance.org/
http://csssprites.org/

jmohr

Posted 2011-03-23T09:38:40.503

Reputation: 2 167

BTW, if you've never heard of a "sprite" generator before, you may want to read this: Sprite (computer graphics)

– Lisa Beck – 2017-09-07T19:41:36.797

BTW, @jmohr, that first site was fantastic. It put my two GIFs side by side and it was super fast and easy. The thing is, both my GIF images are actually animated GIFs, and I was hoping to find an editor/generator that could have them run in one image, simultaneously, side by side. If that wasn't already asking for too much, I'm also looking for one that I can find online & for free. & if that isn't asking for too much, I'm also looking for 1 that allows me to add a caption to it. I'll look at your other 2 links to see if they do that, but, if not, do you have any suggestions/recommendations? – Lisa Beck – 2017-09-07T20:08:31.147

If you have Photoshop you can combine multiple Gifs into 1 file pretty easily. Take a look on Youtube

how to combine 2 or more animated gifs into 1 single animated gif file

Ken

Posted 2011-03-23T09:38:40.503

Reputation: 1

The link, "how to combine 2 or more animated gifs into 1 single animated gif file" no longer appears to be good, but this one should work for you:Photoshop Tutorial - How to Combine 2 or more Animated Gifs Together into 1 File

– Lisa Beck – 2017-09-07T19:38:22.547