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I'm attempting to create an animated GIF in Adobe Fireworks CS4 that includes multiple text blocks. I would like to have each of these text blocks fade in at different times then remain visible while the rest of them fade in as well.

For example: Consider three text blocks - "Happy", "Birthday", and "To You".

  1. "Happy" fades in and becomes solid. Neither "Birthday" or "To You" are visible.
  2. "Birthday" fades in while "Happy" remains visible. "To You" is still not visible.
  3. "To You" fades in while both "Happy" and "Birthday" remain visible.
  4. At the end of the animation, all three text blocks are visible.

After a bit of research, I've been able to create a fade-in effect for one block of text (Opacity 0-100 over 10 frames), but I'm not able to figure out how to 1) start the next block fading in after (or near the end of) the first animation, or 2) keep the first block visible in subsequent frames.

For starting a new text fade-in, I've tried going to the last frame of the original animation and adding the text (as explained on the Adobe Help page about "How to create a fade-in/fade-out animation in Fireworks 4") through either typing it in or copying it from a "master" image I created, but it seems to always place my new text in the first frame no matter what I do.

For keeping the text visible after it's faded in, I've created a bunch of additional frames after the first 10 and tried to distribute the animation symbol to the other frames. I've tried creating a second copy of the animation symbol and going to the last frame of the first animation to drop it in there before adjusting the animation. It still seems to put everything in the first frame and I can't get it moved down in the "timeline".

Obviously, I'm not well-versed in this area. I've used Adobe Fireworks for years to create simple, static images for Web sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), but I've never really tried to create anything with animation before. Do I need to add additional layers or pages? Is there some setting that I've overlooked that will allow me to specify the starting "state" or frame for an animation? If you need further clarification of my goals, please let me know. Thank you.

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    Realize that Fireworks CS4 is more than 12 years old and Fireworks died completely nearly 9 years ago. Getting assistance for tools no one uses any more will be difficult.
    – Scott
    Mar 30, 2020 at 22:13
  • That well may be, and if there is no help to be had, then I suppose I'll have to leave this task alone for now. Perhaps it's time to start looking into learning newer tools, but I've never really needed anything other than Fireworks for creating/editing the images I've wanted (until now). Thank you for helping to set expectations, though. I appreciate it.
    – G_Hosa_Phat
    Mar 30, 2020 at 22:22
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    Please be aware I'm not devaluing older software. I still prefer CS6 in many, many ways and have been dragging my feet regarding OS upgrades simply due to that fact. I think it's important to realize that Fireworks was a niche market when it was alive. Now that it's been dead a while it's even more niche. Hopefully someone can assist.
    – Scott
    Mar 30, 2020 at 22:25

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