Getting Started Guide
Chapter 6
Getting Started with Impress
Presentations in LibreOffice
This document is Copyright © 2010–2016 by the LibreOffice Documentation Team. Contributors are listed below. You may distribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), version 3 or later, or the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), version 4.0 or later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.
Peter Schofield | Jean Hollis Weber | Hazel Russman |
Kevin O’Brien | Ron Faile Jr. | Olivier Hallot |
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Published 23 July 2016. Based on LibreOffice 5.1.
Windows or Linux | Mac equivalent | Effect |
Tools > Options menu selection | LibreOffice > Preferences | Access setup options |
Right-click | Control+click and/or right-click depending on computer setup | Open a context menu |
Ctrl (Control) | ⌘ (Command) | Used with other keys |
F5 | Shift+⌘+F5 | Open the Navigator |
F11 | ⌘+T | Open the Styles and Formatting window |
You can start Impress in several ways, as described in Chapter 1 Introducing LibreOffice.
When you start Impress for the first time, the Presentation Wizard may be shown. See “Creating a new presentation using the Presentation Wizard” on page 13. Otherwise, the main Impress window is displayed.
You can turn the Presentation Wizard on and off in Tools > Options > LibreOffice Impress > General > New document by selecting or deselecting the Start with wizard option.
The main Impress window (Figure 1) has three parts: the Slides pane, Workspace, and Sidebar. Additionally, several toolbars can be displayed or hidden during the creation of a presentation.
Tip
You can close the Slides pane or the Sidebar by clicking the X in the upper right corner of each pane or go to View > Slide Pane or View > Sidebar on the Menu bar to deselect the pane. To reopen a pane, go to View on the Menu bar and select Slide Pane or Sidebar again.
You can also maximize the Workspace area by clicking on the Hide/Show marker in the middle of the vertical separator line (highlighted in Figure 1). Using the Hide/Show marker hides, but does not close, the Slide pane or Sidebar. To restore a pane, click again on its Hide/Show marker.
The Workspace below the View buttons changes with the chosen view. The workspace views are described in “Workspace views” on page 9.
•Mark a slide as hidden so that it will not be shown as part of the presentation.
•Delete a slide from the presentation if it is no longer needed.
The Status bar (Figure 2), located at the bottom of the Impress window, contains information that you may find useful when working on a presentation. For details on the contents and use of these fields, see Chapter 1 Introducing LibreOffice in this guide and the Impress Guide Chapter 1 Introducing Impress.
From left to right, you will find:
Example selection | Examples of information shown |
Text area | Text Edit: Paragraph x, Row y, Column z |
Charts, spreadsheets | Embedded object (OLE) “ObjectName” selected |
Graphics | Bitmap with transparency selected |
To place a slide in the slide design area (Normal view) (Figure 1 on page 6), click the slide thumbnail in the Slides pane or double-click it in the Navigator (see Chapter 1 Introducing LibreOffice and the Impress Guide for more information on the Navigator).
Outline view (Figure 3) contains all the slides of the presentation in their numbered sequence. It shows topic titles, bulleted lists, and numbered lists for each slide in outline format. Only the text contained in the default text boxes in each slide is shown, so if your slide includes other text boxes or drawing objects, the text in these objects is not displayed. Slide names are not included either.
Use Outline view for the following purposes:
–Adding and deleting the text in a slide as in the Normal view.
–Moving the paragraphs of text in the selected slide up or down by using the up and down arrow buttons (Move Up or Move Down) on the Text Formatting toolbar (highlighted in Figure 4).
–Changing the outline level for any of the paragraphs in a slide using the left and right arrow buttons (Promote or Demote) on the Text Formatting toolbar.
–Moving a paragraph and changing its outline level at the same time using a combination of these four arrow buttons.
•Comparing slides with your outline (if you have prepared one in advance). If you notice from your outline that another slide is needed, you can create it directly in the Outline view or you can return to the Normal view to create it.
Use the Notes view (Figure 5) to add notes to a slide. These notes are for your information and are not seen by the audience when the presentation is shown.
Use this view also to customize the information printed on the handout. Refer to the Impress Guide Chapter 10 Printing, E-mailing, Exporting, and Saving Slide Shows for instructions on printing slides, handouts, and notes.
Go to Insert > Page Number, Insert > Fields, or Insert > Header and Footer on the Menu bar and the Header and Footer dialog opens. Click on the Notes and Handouts tab (Figure 7) and select the elements you want to appear on each handout page and their contents. More details on how to use this dialog are provided in the Impress Guide.
Slide Sorter view (Figure 8) contains all of the slide thumbnails. Use this view to work with a group of slides or with only one slide.
To change the number of slides per row:
1)Go to View > Toolbars and select Slide Sorter and Slide View to show or hide the Slide Sorter and Slide View toolbars (Figure 9).
2)Adjust the number of slides (up to a maximum of 15).
To move a slide in a presentation in the Slide Sorter:
2)Drag and drop the slide to the location you want.
To select a group of slides, use one of these methods:
To move a group of slides, select them and then drag and drop the group to their new location.
•New Slide – adds a new slide after the selected slide (see “New slide” on page 16).
•Duplicate Slide – creates a duplicate of the selected slide and places the new slide immediately after the selected slide (see “Duplicate slide” on page 17).
•Delete Slide – deletes the selected slide.
•.Rename Slide – allows you to rename the selected slide.
•.Slide Layout – allows you to change the layout of the selected slide.
•.Slide Transition – allows you to change the transition of one or a group of selected slides.
•.Hide Slide – any slides that are hidden are not shown in the slide show.
•.Cut – removes the selected slide and saves it to the clipboard.
•.Copy – copies the selected slide to the clipboard without removing it.
•.Paste – inserts a slide from the clipboard after the selected slide.
This section describes how to start a new presentation using the Presentation Wizard.
When you start Impress, the Presentation Wizard may appear (Figure 10).
1)In step 1, under Type, choose one of the options. These options are covered in the Impress Guide.
–Empty presentation creates a blank presentation.
–From template uses a template design already created as the basis for a new presentation. The wizard changes to show a list of available templates. Choose the template you want.
–Open existing presentation continues work on a previously created presentation. The wizard changes to show a list of existing presentations. Choose the presentation you want.
2)Click Next. Figure 11 shows the Presentation Wizard step 2 as it appears if you selected Empty Presentation at step 1. If you selected From template, an example slide is shown in the Preview box.
3)Choose a design under Select a slide design. The slide design section gives you two main choices: Presentation Backgrounds and Presentations. Each one has a list of choices for slide designs. If you want to use one of these other than <Original>, click it to select it.
–The types of Presentation Backgrounds are shown in Figure 11. When you select a presentation background, you will see a preview of the slide design in the Preview window.
–<Original> is for a blank presentation slide design.
a)Choose the desired slide transition from the Effect drop-down menu.
b)Select the desired speed for the transition between the different slides in the presentation from the Speed drop-down menu. Medium is a good choice for now.
c)Select the presentation type. For most purposes, choose Default; you can change this later. For details on the choices under Automatic, see the Impress Guide.
7)Click Next. In step 5, the Presentation Wizard shows a preview of what your presentation will look like (Figure 14). If the preview does not appear, select Preview.
8)If you want to create a summary of your presentation, select Create summary.
9)Click Create and your new presentation is created.
Tip
You can accept the default values for both Effect and Speed unless you are skilled at creating presentations. Both of these values can be changed later while working with slide transitions and animations. These two features are explained in more detail in the Impress Guide Chapter 9 Slide Shows.
A new slide can be inserted into a presentation as follows:
2)A new slide is inserted after the selected slide in the presentation.
1)Select the slide you want to duplicate from the Slides Pane.
2)Go to Slide on the Menu bar and select Duplicate Page/Slide.
3)A duplicate slide is inserted after the selected slide in the presentation.
You can choose the type of content by clicking on the corresponding icon that is displayed in the middle of the content box as shown in Figure 16. If you intend to use the content box for text, click on Click to add text.
To remove any unwanted element:
To add text to a slide that contains a text frame, click on Click to add text in the text frame and then type your text. The Outline styles are automatically applied to the text as you insert it. You can change the outline level of each paragraph as well as its position within the text by using the arrow buttons on the Text Formatting toolbar (see Figure 4 and “Outline view” on page 9) or using the Tab key while positioning the cursor at the beginning of the paragraph. For more information on text, see “Adding and formatting text” on page 20.
To add any objects to a slide, for example a picture, clipart, drawing, photograph, or spreadsheet, click on Insert then select from the drop down menu what type of object you want to insert. For more information, see “Adding pictures, tables, charts, and media” on page 25.
To change the background and other characteristics of all slides in the presentation, you need to modify the master page or choose a different master page as explained in “Working with slide masters and styles” on page 28.
A Slide Master is a slide with a specified set of characteristics that acts as a template and is used as the starting point for creating other slides. These characteristics include slide background, objects in the background, formatting of any text used, and any background graphics.
Note
LibreOffice uses three terms for a slide that is used to create other slides: master slide, slide master, and master page. This book uses the term slide master, except when describing the user interface.
Impress has a range of slide masters and these are found in the Master Pages section of the Sidebar. You can also create and save additional slide masters or add more from other sources. See the Impress Guide Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates for more information on creating and modifying slide masters.
If all you need to do is to change the background, you can use a shortcut:
1)Select Slide > Page/Slide Properties... and go to the Background tab on the Page Setup dialog that opens.
2)Select the desired background between solid color, gradient, hatching, and bitmap.
3)Click OK to apply it.
4)A dialog opens asking if the background should be applied to all the slides. Click Yes if you want all the slides modified and Impress will automatically modify the master page for you.
Note
Inserting and correctly formatting a background is beyond the scope of this chapter, but you can find all the information you need in the Draw Guide Chapter 4 Changing Object Attributes or in the Impress Guide Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects.
You can add two types of text boxes to a slide:
4)Release the mouse button when finished. The cursor appears in the text box, which is now in edit mode (a colored border shown in Figure 19).
5)Type or paste your text in the text box.
6)Click outside the text box to deselect it.
You can move, resize, and delete text boxes. For more information, see the Impress Guide Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text.
Impress has an Increase Font icon and a Decrease Font icon on the Text Formatting toolbar (highlighted in Figure 20) to increase or decrease the font size of selected text. The amount by which the font size changes depends on the standard sizes available for the font in use.
4)Use the four arrow buttons on the Text Formatting toolbar (highlighted in Figure 4 on page 9) to move the text to the appropriate position and give it the appropriate outline level.
–Left arrow promotes a list entry by one level (for example from Outline 3 to Outline 2). You can get the same result by placing the cursor at the beginning of the paragraph and pressing the Shift + Tab keys.
–Right arrow button demotes a list entry by one level. Press the Tab key to get the same result after placing the cursor at the beginning of the paragraph.
–Up arrow moves a list entry up in the list order.
–Down arrow moves a list entry down in the list order.
5)Apply any necessary manual formatting to the text to change font attributes, tabs, and so on.
If you are pasting text in a text box, you can still use styles to format the text quickly. Only one graphic style can be applied to the pasted text, as follows:
1)Paste the text in the desired position.
2)Select the text you have just pasted.
3)Select the desired graphical style to format the text.
4)Apply any necessary manual formatting to the text to change font attributes, tabs, and so on.
1)From the Layout pane, choose a slide design that contains a text box.
3)Type your text and press the Enter key to start a new bulleted point.
The default list type is a bulleted list. Methods for changing the appearance of a list are explained in “Changing list appearance” on page 24.
Tip
Create a bulleted list in a text box as follows:
The default list type is a bulleted list. Methods for changing the appearance of a list are explained in “Changing list appearance” on page 24.
In AutoLayout text boxes, create a new outline level as follows:
For the entire list:
1)Select the entire list or click on the border of the text box so that the resizing handles are displayed.
3)The Bullets and Numbering dialog (Figure 23) contains five pages: Bullets, Numbering type, Image, Position, and Customize.
–If a bullet list is needed, select the desired bullet style from the default styles available on the Bullets page.
–If a graphics style is needed, select one from those available on the Image page.
–If a numbered list is needed, select one of the default numbering styles on the Numbering type page.
–Use the Position page to set the indent and numbering spacing and alignment of your list.
–Use the Customize page to customize the numbering, color, relative size, and character used for your list.
4)For a single list entry, click anywhere in the text and then follow steps 2 and 3 above.
If the list was created in an AutoLayout text box, then an alternative way to change the entire list is to modify the Outline styles. Changes made to the outline style will apply to all the slides using them.
To add a picture to a contents box:
1)Go to Insert > Image on the Menu bar and then select either From file or Scan.
2)Alternatively, after inserting a new slide, click the Insert Image icon (Figure 16 on page 18) on the new slide and select the file from the Insert Image dialog that opens. To see a preview of the picture, select Preview at the bottom of the Insert Image dialog.
3)Move the picture to the desired location.
4)The picture will automatically resize to fill the area of the content box. Follow the directions in the note below when manually resizing a graphic.
Note
To add basic tables to a slide:
3)Alternatively, and after inserting a new slide into your presentation, click the Insert Table icon (Figure 16 on page 18).
4)Select the number of rows and columns required from the Insert Table dialog that opens.
6)Select a design style from the available options for your table in the Table Design deck in the Properties section of the Sidebar (Figure 24). If the Table Design section does not automatically open after inserting or selecting a table, click on the Properties icon at the side of the Sidebar.
Note
Selecting from any of the styles in the Table Design section in the Sidebar creates a table based on that style. If you create a table by another method, you can still apply a style of your choice later.
The Table toolbar in Impress offers the same functions as the Table toolbar in Writer, with the exception of the calculation functions Sort and Sum. To use Sum and Sort in your presentation, you have to insert a Calc spreadsheet.
After the table is created, you can modify it by adding and deleting rows and columns, adjusting width and spacing, adding borders, background colors and so on. For more information on working with tables see the Impress Guide Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text and the Writer Guide Chapter 9 Working with Tables.
2)Alternatively and after inserting a new slide, click on the Insert Chart icon (Figure 16 on page 18).
3)Impress will insert a default chart and open the Chart dialog. To modify the chart type, insert your own data and change the formatting, refer to the Impress Guide.
To insert media files, such as music and movie clips, in a slide:
2)Alternatively and after inserting a new slide, click on the Insert Audio or Video icon (Figure 16 on page 18).
3)A media player will open at the bottom of the screen and you can preview the media.
4)When an audio file is inserted, the contents box will show a loudspeaker image.
Impress comes with a collection of slide masters. These slide masters are shown in the Master Pages section of the Sidebar (Figure 25) and has three subsections: Used in This Presentation, Recently Used, and Available for Use. Click the + sign next to the name of a subsection to expand it to show thumbnails of the slides, or click the – sign to collapse the subsection to hide the thumbnails.
Each of the slide masters shown in the Available for Use list is from a template of the same name. If you have created your own templates, or added templates from other sources, slide masters from those templates will also appear in this list.
Creating a new slide master is similar to modifying the default slide master.
1)Enable editing of slide masters by selecting View > Slide Master on the Menu bar and the Master View toolbar opens (Figure 26). If the Master View toolbar does not appear, go to View > Toolbars and select Master View.
3)A new slide master appears in the Slides pane. Modify this slide master to suit your requirements.
4)It is also recommended that you rename this new slide master. Right-click on the slide in the Slides pane and select Rename master from the context menu.
5)When finished creating a slide master, click Close Master View on the Master View toolbar and return to normal slide editing mode.
To apply a slide master to all the slides in your presentation:
2)To apply one of the slide masters from the available selection to all slides in your presentation, right-click on it and select Apply to All Slides on the context menu.
To apply a different slide master to one or more selected slides:
1)In the Slide Pane, select the slide or slides where you want to use a new slide master.
2)In the Master Pages section on the Sidebar, right-click on the slide master you want to apply to the selected slides, and select Apply to Selected Slides on the context menu.
1)Go to Slide > Slide Design on the Menu bar or right-click on a slide in the Slides Pane and select Slide Design from the context menu to open the Slide Design dialog (Figure 27). This dialog shows the slide masters already available for use.
2)To add more slide masters, click the Load button to open the Load Slide Design dialog (Figure 28).
3)Select in the Load Slide Design dialog the template from which to load the slide master and click OK.
4)Click OK again to close the Slide Design dialog.
5)The slide masters in the template you selected to use are now shown in the Available for use subsection of Master Pages.
The following items can be changed on a slide master:
•Background objects (for example, a logo or decorative graphics)
•Size, placement, and contents of header and footer elements to appear on every slide
•Size and placement of default frames for slide titles and content
3)Select an object on the slide master in the Workspace and the Sidebar will display the property options that can be changed for the selected object. Figure 29 shows a graphic object selected with the Graphic properties section open on the Sidebar.
4)Make all necessary changes to the slide master, then click the Close Master View icon on the Master View toolbar or go to View > Normal on the Menu bar to exit from editing slide masters.
5)Save your presentation file before continuing.
Note
Any changes made to one slide when in Master View mode will appear on all slides using this slide master. Always make sure you Close Master View and return to Normal view before working on any of the presentation slides.
1)Go to View > Slide Master on the Menu bar to open Master View (Figure 30).
2)On the Drawing toolbar, select the Text icon or press the F2 key.
3)Click and drag in the master page to draw a text object and then type or paste your text into the text object.
4)Go to View > Normal on the Menu bar or click on Close Master View on the Master View toolbar when you have finished entering text objects that you want to appear on every slide in your presentation.
To add a footer to your slides:
1)Go to View > Slide Master on the Menu bar to open Master View (Figure 30).
2)Go to Insert > Field or Insert > Page Number on the Menu bar and time to open the Header and Footer dialog (Figure 31).
3)Select the type of date and time and type in the footer text and slide number from the available options in the dialog.
5)Alternatively, you can add the date/time, footer text and slide number directly into their respective areas as shown in Figure 30.
Note
Normally only footers are used on a slide. To create a header, you can use a text box as explained in “Text” on page 33.
The fields you can use in Impress are as follows:
•Time (variable): updates automatically when you reload a file
•Author: first and last names listed in the LibreOffice user data
To change the author information, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > User Data on the Menu bar.
Impress supports comments similar to those in Writer and Calc.
In Normal View, go to Insert > Comment on the Menu bar to open a blank comment (Figure 32). A small box containing your initials appears in the upper left-hand corner of the slide, with a larger text box beside it. Impress automatically adds your name and the current date at the bottom of the text box.
Type or paste your comment into the text box. You can optionally apply some basic formatting to the comment by selecting it, right-clicking, and choosing from the context menu that opens. This menu allows you to apply formatting to selected text, delete the current comment, delete all comments from the same author, or delete all comments in the presentation.
To show or hide the comment markers, choose View > Comments.
Select Tools > Options > User Data to configure the name you want to appear in the comment.
As mentioned in “Modifying the slide show” on page 20, Impress allocates reasonable default settings for slide shows, while at the same time allowing for customizing many aspects of the slide show experience. This section covers only some aspects; more advanced techniques are explained in the Impress Guide Chapter 9 Slide Shows.
Most of the tasks are best done in Slide Sorter view where you can see most of the slides simultaneously. Go to View > Slide Sorter on the Menu bar or click the Slide Sorter tab at the top of the Workspace.
If you want to create a custom slide show from the same presentation:
1)Go to Advance slide and select the Automatically after option.
2)Enter the required amount of time in seconds that each slide will be displayed.
3)Click on the Apply to All Slides button to apply the same display time to all slides.
To apply a different display time to each slide in your presentation:
To restart a slide show automatically after the last slide has been displayed:
To run a slide show, do one of the following:
If the slide advance is set to Automatically after X sec, let the slide show run by itself.
•Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to go to the next slide or to go back to the previous one.
•Press the spacebar on the keyboard to advance to the next slide.
To exit the slide show at any time including when the slide show has ended, press the Esc key.
LibreOffice Impress has a Presenter Console function that can be used when an extra display for presentation has been connected to your computer. The Presenter Console (Figure 33) provides extra control over slide shows by using different views on your computer display and on the display that the audience sees. The view you see on your computer display includes the current slide, the upcoming slide, any slide notes, and a presentation timer.
For more information and details about using the Presenter Console, see the Impress Guide Chapter 9 Slide Shows.
Once the pairing is established, your mobile device is ready to control your presentation.
An Impress slide show with remote control is not enabled by default. To enable it, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice Impress > General and select Enable Remote Control checkbox in the Presentation area of the dialog (Figure 34).
To run a slide show using Impress Remote, follow these steps:
1)On both devices, make sure Bluetooth is already enabled and configured.
2)On your computer, open the presentation you would like to present.
b)To select your computer, tap its name. The presentation opened on the computer begins automatically (Figures 36 and 37).
To advance the presentation
Tap the slide thumbnail or use the phone’s physical volume up button.
To go backwards
Double-tap the slide thumbnail or use the phone’s physical volume down button.
To skip slide animations and transitions
Swipe left to go to the next slide, or swipe right to go backwards.
To end the presentation, use the Back button of the phone, or open the menu and select Stop slide show.