Getting Started Guide

Chapter 6
Getting Started with Impress

Presentations in LibreOffice

What is Impress?

Impress is LibreOffice’s presentations (slide show) program. You can create slides that contain many different elements, including text, bulleted and numbered lists, tables, charts, clip art, and a wide range of graphic objects. Impress also includes a spelling checker, a thesaurus, prepackaged text styles, and attractive background styles.

This chapter includes instructions, screenshots, and hints to guide you through the Impress environment while designing your presentations. Although more difficult designs are mentioned throughout this chapter, explanations for creating them are in the Impress Guide. If you have a working knowledge of how to create slide shows, we recommend you use the Impress Guide for your source of information.

To use Impress for more than very simple slide shows requires some knowledge of the elements which the slides contain. Slides containing text use styles to determine the appearance of that text. Graphic objects are created the same way that drawings are created in Draw. For this reason, we recommend that you also see Chapter 3, Using Styles and Templates, and Chapter 7, Getting Started with Draw, in this book. You may also wish to consult the Draw Guide for details.

Starting Impress

You can start Impress in several ways:

• From the LibreOffice Start Center, if no component is open.

• From the system menu or the LibreOffice Quickstarter. Details vary with your operating system; see Chapter 1, Introducing LibreOffice, for more information.

• From any open component of LibreOffice. Click the triangle to the right of the New icon on the main toolbar and select Presentation from the drop-down menu or choose File → New → Presentation from the menu bar.

When you start Impress for the first time, the Presentation Wizard is shown. Here you can choose from the following options:

• Empty presentation, which gives you a blank document

• From template, which is a presentation designed with a template of your choice

• Open existing presentation

If you prefer not to use the wizard in future, you can select Do not show this wizard again.

Click Create to open the main Impress window.

For detailed instructions about how to use the wizard, see “Creating a new presentation” on page 13.

Parts of the main Impress window

The main Impress window (Figure 1) has three parts: the Slides pane, Workspace, and Tasks pane. Additionally, several toolbars can be displayed or hidden during the creation of a presentation.

Slides pane

The Slides pane contains thumbnail pictures of the slides in your presentation, in the order they will be shown (unless you change the slide show order). Clicking a slide in this pane selects it and places it in the Workspace. When a slide is in the Workspace, you can apply to it any changes desired.

Several additional operations can be performed on one or more slides simultaneously in the Slides pane:

• Add new slides to the presentation.

• 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.

• Rename a slide.

• Duplicate a slide (copy and paste) or move it to a different position in the presentation (cut and paste).

It is also possible to perform the following operations, although there are more efficient methods than using the Slides pane:

• Change the slide transition following the selected slide or after each slide in a group of slides.

• Change the sequence of slides in the presentation.

• Change the slide design.

• Change slide layout for a group of slides simultaneously.

Tasks pane

The Tasks pane has five sections. To expand the section you wish to use, click on the right-pointing triangle to the left of the caption. Only one section at a time can be expanded.

Master Pages

Here you define the page style for your presentation. Impress contains prepackaged Master Pages (slide masters). One of them—Default—is blank, and the rest have a background.

Layout

The prepackaged layouts are shown here. You can choose the one you want, use it as it is or modify it to your own requirements. At present it is not possible to create custom layouts.

Table Design

The standard table styles are provided in this pane. You can further modify the appearance of a table with the selections to show or hide specific rows and columns, or to apply a banded appearance to the rows and columns.

Custom Animation

A variety of animations for selected elements of a slide are listed. Animation can be added to a slide, and it can also be changed or removed later.

Slide Transition

Many transitions are available, including No Transition. You can select the transition speed (slow, medium, fast), choose between an automatic or manual transition, and choose how long the selected slide will be shown.

Workspace

The Workspace has five tabs: Normal, Outline, Notes, Handout, and Slide Sorter. These five tabs are called View buttons. The Workspace below the View buttons changes depending on the chosen view.

Toolbars

Many toolbars can be used during slide creation; they can be displayed or hidden by clicking View → Toolbars and selecting from the menu.

You can also select the icons that you wish to appear on each toolbar. For more information, refer to Chapter 1, Introducing LibreOffice, in this book.

Many of the toolbars in Impress are similar to the toolbars in Draw. Refer to the Draw Guide for details on the functions available and how to use them.

Status bar

The Status bar, 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 book and Chapter 1 (Introducing Impress) in the Impress Guide.

Figure 5: Navigator

The Navigator displays all objects contained in a document. It provides another convenient way to move around a document and find items in it. To display the Navigator, click its icon on the Standard toolbar, choose View → Navigator on the menu bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+F5.

The Navigator is more useful if you give your slides and objects (pictures, spreadsheets, and so on) meaningful names, instead of leaving them as the default “Slide 1” and “Slide 2” shown in Figure 5.

Workspace views

Each of the workspace views is designed to ease the completion of certain tasks; it is therefore useful to familiarize yourself with them in order to quickly accomplish those tasks.

Normal view

Normal view is the main view for working with individual slides. Use this view to format and design and to add text, graphics, and animation effects.

To place a slide in the slide design area (Normal view), click the slide thumbnail in the Slides pane or double-click it in the Navigator.

Outline view

Outline view 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 also not included.

Use Outline view for the following purposes.

1. Making changes in the text of a slide:

• Add and delete the text in a slide just as in the Normal view.

• 
  Move 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.

• Change the outline level for any of the paragraphs in a slide using the left and right arrow buttons (Promote or Demote).

• Both move a paragraph and change its outline level using a combination of these four arrow buttons.

2. Comparing the 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.

Notes view

Use the Notes view to add notes to a slide.

1. Click the Notes tab in the Workspace.

2. Select the slide to which you want to add notes.

• Click the slide in the Slides pane, or

• Double-click the slide’s name in the Navigator.

3. In the text box below the slide, click on the words Click to add notes and begin typing.

You can resize the Notes text box using the green resizing handles which appear when you click on the edge of the box. You can also move the box by placing the pointer on the border, then clicking and dragging. To make changes in the text style, press the F11 key to open the Styles and Formatting window.

Handout view

Handout view is for setting up the layout of your slide for a printed handout. Click the Handout tab in the workspace, then choose Layouts in the Tasks pane. You can then choose to print 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, or 9 slides per page.

Use this view also to customize the information printed on the handout. Refer to Chapter 10 of the Impress Guide for instructions on printing slides, handouts, and notes.

Select from the main menu Insert → Page Number or Insert → Date and Time and in the dialog box that opens click on the Notes and Handouts tab (see Figure 9). Use this dialog to 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

Slide Sorter view contains all of the slide thumbnails. Use this view to work with a group of slides or with only one slide.

Customizing Slide Sorter view

To change the number of slides per row:

1. Check View → Toolbars → Slide View to make the Slide View toolbar visible.

2. Adjust the number of slides (up to a maximum of 15).

Moving a slide using Slide Sorter

To move a slide in a presentation in the Slide Sorter:

1. Click the slide. A thick black border is drawn around it.

2. Drag and drop it to the location you want.

• As you move the slide, a black vertical line appears to one side of the slide.

• Drag the slide until this black vertical line is located where you want the slide to be moved.

Selecting and moving groups of slides

To select a group of slides, use one of these methods:

• Use the Control (Ctrl) key: Click on the first slide and, while keeping the Control key pressed, select the other desired slides.

• Use the Shift key: Click on the first slide, and while pressing the Shift key, click on the final slide in the group. This selects all of the other slides in between the first and the last.

• Use the mouse: Click slightly to the left of the first slide to be selected. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse pointer to a spot slightly to the right of the last slide to be included. (You can also do this right to left.) A dashed outline of a rectangle forms as you drag the cursor through the slide thumbnails and a thick border is drawn around each of the selected slides. Make sure the rectangle includes all the slides you want to select.

To move a group of slides:

1. Select the group.

2. Drag and drop the group to their new location. A vertical black line appears to show you where the group of slides will go.

Working in Slide Sorter view

You can work with slides in the Slide Sorter view just as you can in the Slide pane.

To make changes, right-click a slide and choose any of the following from the pop-up menu:

• Add a new slide after the selected slide.

• Rename or delete the selected slide.

• Change the slide layout.

• Change the slide transition.

• For one slide, click the slide to select it. Then add the desired transition.

• For more than one slide, select the group of slides and add the desired transition.

• Mark a slide as hidden. Hidden slides will not be shown in the slide show.

• Copy or cut and paste a slide.

Renaming slides

Right-click on a thumbnail in the Slides pane or the Slide Sorter and choose Rename Slide from the pop-up menu. In the Name field, delete the old name of the slide and type the new name. Click OK.

Creating a new presentation

This section describes how to start a new presentation using the Presentation Wizard.

When you start Impress, the Presentation Wizard appears.

1. Select Empty Presentation under Type. It creates a presentation from scratch.

• 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.

Both of these options are covered in the Impress Guide.

2. Click Next. Figure 13 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 13. By clicking an item, you will see a preview of the slide design in the Preview window. Impress contains three choices under Presentations: <Original>, Introducing a New Product, and Recommendation of a Strategy.

• <Original> is for a blank presentation slide design.

• Both Introducing a New Product and Recommendation of a Strategy have their own prepackaged slide designs. Each design appears in the Preview window when its name is clicked.

4. Select how the presentation will be used under Select an output medium. Most often, presentations are created for computer screen display. Select Screen. You can change the page format at any time.

   Note	The Screen page is optimized for a 4:3 display (28cm x 21cm) so it is not suitable for modern widescreen displays. You can change the slide size at any time switching to Normal view and selecting Format → Page.

5. Click Next. The Presentation Wizard step 3 appears.

• Choose the desired slide transition from the Effect drop-down menu.

• 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.

6. Click Create. A new presentation is created.

Formatting a presentation

A new presentation contains only one empty slide. In this section we will start adding new slides and preparing them for the intended contents.

Inserting slides

This can be done in a variety of ways; take your pick.

• Insert → Slide.

• Right-click on the present slide, and select Slide → New Slide from the pop-up menu.

• Click the Slide icon in the Presentation toolbar.

Sometimes, rather than starting from a new slide you want to duplicate a slide you have already inserted. To do so select the slide you want to duplicate from the Slides pane and then choose Insert → Duplicate Slide.

Selecting a layout

In the Tasks pane, select the Layout drawer to display the available layouts. The Layouts differ in the number of elements a slide will contain, spanning from the empty slide (Blank Slide) to a slide with 6 contents boxes and a title (Title, 6 contents).

The Title Slide (which also contains a section for a subtitle) or Title Only are suitable layouts for the first slide, while for most of the slides you will probably use the Title, Contents layout.

Several layouts contain one or more content boxes. Each of these boxes can be configured to contain one of the following elements: Text, Media clip, Picture, Chart or Table.

You can choose the type of contents by clicking on the corresponding icon that is displayed in the middle of the contents box as shown in Figure 16. If instead you intend to use the contents box for text, just click anywhere on the box to get a cursor.

To select or change the layout, place the slide in the work area and select the desired layout from the layout drawer in the Task Pane.

If you have selected a layout with one or more contents boxes, this is a good time to decide what type of contents you want to insert.

Modifying the slide elements

At present each slide will contain only the elements that are present in the slide master you are using such as background images, logos, header, footer and so on. It is however unlikely that the predefined layouts will suit all your needs. Although Impress does not have the functionality to create new layouts, it allows you to resize and move the layout elements. It is also possible to add slide elements without being limited to the size and position of the layout boxes.

To resize a contents box, click on the outer frame so that the 8 resizing handles are displayed. To move it place the mouse cursor on the frame so that the cursor changes shape. You can now click the left mouse button and drag the contents box to its new position on the slide.

At this step you may also want to remove unwanted frames. To do this:

• Click the element to highlight it. (The green resizing handles show it is highlighted.)

• Press the Delete key to remove it.

Adding text to a slide

If the slide contains text, click on Click to add an outline in the text frame and then type your text. The Outline styles from 1 to 10 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 using the arrow buttons on the Text Formatting toolbar. See “Adding and formatting text” on page 18 for more information.

Modifying the appearance of all slides

To change the background and other characteristics of all slides in the presentation, it is best to modify the slide master or choose a different slide master as explained in the section Working with slide masters and styles on page 25.

If all you need to do is to change the background, you can take a shortcut:

1. Select Format → Page and go to the Background tab.

2. Select the desired background between solid color, gradient, hatching and bitmap.

3. Click OK to apply it.

A dialog box will open asking if the background should be applied to all the slides. If you click yes, Impress will automatically modify the slide master for you.

Modifying the slide show

By default the slide show will display all the slides in the same order as they appear in the slide sorter, without any transition between slides, and you need some keyboard or mouse interaction to move from one slide to the next.

You can use the Slide Show menu to change the order of the slides, choose which ones are shown, automate moving from one slide to the next, and other settings. To change the slide transition, animate slides, add a soundtrack to the presentation, and make other enhancements, you need to use functions in the Task pane. See the Impress Guide for details on how to use all of these features.

Adding and formatting text

Many of your slides are likely to contain some text. This section gives you some guidelines on how to add text and how to change its appearance. Text in slides is contained in text boxes.

There are two types of text boxes that you can add to a slide:

• Choose a predefined layout from the Layouts section of the Tasks pane and do not select any special contents type. These text boxes are called AutoLayout text boxes.

• Create a text box using the text tool in the Drawing toolbar.

Using text boxes created from the Layout pane

In Normal view:

1. Click in the text box that reads Click to add text, Click to add an outline, or a similar notation.

2. Type or paste your text in the text box.

Using text boxes created from the text box tool

In Normal view:

1. Click on the Text icon on the Drawing toolbar. If the toolbar with the text icon is not visible, choose View → Toolbars → Drawing.

2. Click and drag to draw a box for the text on the slide. Do not worry about the vertical size and position—the text box will expand if needed as you type.

3. Release the mouse button when finished. The cursor appears in the text box, which is now in edit mode (gray hashed border with green resizing handles shown in Figure 17).

4. Type or paste your text in the text box.

5. Click outside the text box to deselect it.

You can move, resize, and delete text boxes. For more information, see Chapter 3 in the Impress Guide.

Quick font resizing

Impress has convenient buttons on the Formatting toolbar to increase or decrease font size of selected text . The amount by which the font size changes depends on the standard sizes available for the font in use.

Pasting text

You can insert text into a text box by copying it from another document and pasting it into Impress. However, the pasted text will probably not match the formatting of the surrounding text or that of the other slides in the presentation. This may be what you want on some occasions; however in most cases you want to make sure that the presentation does not become a patchwork of different paragraph styles, font types, bullet points and so on. There are several ways to ensure consistency; these methods are explained below.

Pasting unformatted text

It is normally good practice to paste text without formatting and apply the formatting later. To paste without formatting, either press Control+Shift+V and then select Unformatted text from the dialog that appears, or click on the small black triangle next to the paste symbol in the standard toolbar and select Unformatted text. The unformatted text will be formatted with the outline style at the cursor position in an AutoLayout text box or with the default graphic style in a normal text box.

Formatting pasted text

If you are pasting the text into an AutoLayout area, you need to apply the appropriate outline style to the text to give it the same look and feel as the rest of the presentation.

1. Paste the text in the desired position. Do not worry if it does not look right; it will in a minute.

2. Select the text you have just pasted.

3. Select Format → Default formatting from the menu bar.

4. Use the four arrow buttons in the Text Formatting toolbar to move the text to the appropriate position and give it the appropriate outline level. The button with the arrow pointing left promotes the list entry by one level (for example from Outline 3 to Outline 2), the right arrow button demotes the list entry by one level, the up and down arrow buttons move the list entry.

5. Apply manual formatting as required to sections of 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 quickly format the text. Note that one and only one graphic style can be applied to the copied text. To do that:

1. Paste the text in the desired position.

2. Select the text you have just pasted.

3. Select the desired graphic style.

4. Apply manual formatting as required to sections of the text.

Creating bulleted and numbered lists

The procedure to create a bulleted or numbered list is quite different depending on the type of text box used, although the tools to manage the list and customize the appearance are the same.

In text boxes created automatically by Impress (called AutoLayout), the outline styles available are by default bulleted lists, while for normal text boxes an additional step is required to create a bulleted list.

Creating lists in AutoLayout text boxes

Every text box included in the available layouts is already formatted as a bulleted list, therefore to create a bulleted list the only necessary steps are:

1. From the Layout pane, choose a slide design that contains a text box. Those are easily recognizable from the thumbnail.

2. Click in the text box that reads Click to add an outline.

3. Type the text, then press Enter to start a new bulleted line.

   The methods for switching between bulleted and numbered lists are explained in “Changing the appearance of the list” on page 22.

Creating lists in other text boxes

To create a list in a text box, follow these steps:

1. Place the cursor in the text box.

2. Click the Bullets On/Off button on the text formatting toolbar. If the text formatting toolbar is not showing, enable it by selecting View → Toolbar → Formatting from the menu bar.

3. Type the text and press Enter to start a new bulleted line.

4. The default list type is a bulleted list. Methods for changing the appearance of the list are explained on page 22.

Creating a new outline level

1. If necessary, press Enter to begin a new line.

2. Press Tab. Each time you press Tab the line indents to the next outline level. Pressing Enter creates a new line at the same level as the previous one. To return to the previous level, press Shift+Tab.

In the AutoLayout text boxes, promoting or demoting an item in the list corresponds to applying a different outline style, so the second outline level corresponds to Outline 2 style, the third to Outline 3 style, and so on.

Changing the appearance of the list

You can fully customize the appearance of a list, changing the bullet type or numbering for the entire list or for single entry. All of the changes can be made using the Bullets and Numbering dialog, which is accessed by selecting Format → Bullets and Numbering or by clicking on the Bullets and Numbering icon on the text formatting toolbar.

For the entire list:

1. Select the entire list or click on the gray border of the text box so that the green resizing handles are displayed.

2. Select Format → Bullets and Numbering or click on the Bullets and Numbering icon .

3. The Bullets and Numbering dialog contains five tabs: Bullets, Numbering type, Graphics, 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 Graphics page.

• If a numbered list is needed, select one of the default numbering styles on the Numbering type page.

For a single line in the list:

1. Click anywhere in the line to place the cursor in it.

2. Follow steps 2–4 of the previous instruction set.

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. Sometimes this is what you want; sometimes it is not, so some care must be taken.

Adding pictures, tables, charts and media

As we have seen, besides text a contents box can contain also pictures, tables, charts or media clips. This section provides a quick overview of how to work with these objects, however for a more detailed description you are invited to consult the Impress Guide.

Adding pictures

To add a picture to a contents box:

• Click the Insert Picture icon.

• Use the file browser to select the picture file you want to include. To see a preview of the picture, check Preview at the bottom of the Insert picture dialog.

• Click Open.

The picture will resize itself to fill the area of the contents box. Follow the directions in the Caution note below when resizing it by hand.

Adding tables

For displaying tabular data, you can insert basic tables directly into your slides by choosing the Table contents type. It is also possible to add a table outside a contents box in a number of ways:

• Choose Insert → Table from the menu bar

• With the Table button on the main toolbar

• With the Table Design button on the table toolbar

• Select a Style option from the Table Design section of the Tasks pane.

Each method opens the Insert Table dialog. Alternatively, clicking on the black arrow next to the Table button displays a graphic that you can drag and select the number of rows and columns for your table.

With the table selected, the Table toolbar should appear. If it does not, you can access it by selecting View → Toolbars → Table. The Table toolbar offers many of the same buttons as the table toolbar in Writer, with the exception of functions like Sort and Sum for performing calculations. For those functions, you need to use a spreadsheet inserted from Calc (discussed below).

After the table is created, you can modify it in much the same ways as you would modify a table in Writer: adding and deleting rows and columns, adjusting width and spacing, adding borders, background colors and so on. Detailed information on working with tables and the Table Properties dialog can be found in Chapter 9 of the Writer Guide.

By modifying the style of the table from the Table Design section of the Tasks pane, you can quickly change the appearance of the table or any newly created tables based on the Style options you select. You can choose to add emphasis to a header and total row as well as the first and last columns of the table, and apply a banded appearance to the rows and columns.

Having completed the table design, entering data into the cells is similar to working with text box objects. Click in the cell you wish to add data to, and begin typing. To move around cells quickly, use the following key options:

• The arrow keys move the cursor to the next table cell if the cell is empty, otherwise they move the cursor to the next character in the cell.

• The Tab key moves to the next cell, skipping over the contents of the cell; Shift+Tab move backwards in this manner.

Adding charts

To insert a chart in a slide you can either use the Insert Chart feature or select Chart as type for one of the contents box. In both cases Impress will insert a default chart. To modify the chart type, insert your own data and change the formatting refer to the Impress Guide.

Adding media clips

You can insert various types of music and movie clips into your slide by selecting the Insert Movie button in an empty contents box. A media player will open at the bottom of the screen and you can preview the media. In case of an audio file, the contents box will be filled with a loudspeaker image.

Adding graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects

Graphics such as shapes, callouts, arrows, and so on are often useful to complement the text on a slide. These objects are handled much the same as graphics in Draw. For more information, see Chapter 7, Getting Started with Draw, the Draw Guide, or Chapters 4, 5, and 6 in the Impress Guide.

Spreadsheets embedded in Impress include most of the functionality of spreadsheets in Calc and are therefore capable of performing extremely complex calculations and data analysis. If you need to analyze your data or apply formulas, these operations are best performed in a Calc spreadsheet and the results displayed in an embedded Impress spreadsheet or even better in a native Impress table.

Alternatively, choose Insert → Object → OLE Object from the menu bar. This opens a spreadsheet in the middle of the slide and the menus and toolbars change to those used in Calc so that you can start adding data, though you may first need to resize the visible area on the slide. You can also insert an already existing spreadsheet and use the viewport to select the data that you want to display on your slide.

Impress offers the capability of inserting in a slide various other types of objects such Writer documents, Math formulas, or even another presentation. For details on using these objects, refer to Chapter 7 of the Impress Guide.

Working with slide masters and styles

A slide master is a slide that is used as the starting point for other slides. It is similar to a page style in Writer: it controls the basic formatting of all slides based on it. A slide show can have more than one slide master.

A slide master has a defined set of characteristics, including the background color, graphic, or gradient; objects (such as logos, decorative lines, and other graphics) in the background; headers and footers; placement and size of text frames; and the formatting of text.

Styles

All of the characteristics of slide masters are controlled by styles. The styles of any new slide you create are inherited from the slide master from which it was created. In other words, the styles of the slide master are available and applied to all slides created from that slide master. Changing a style in a slide master results in changes to all the slides based on that slide master, but you can modify individual slides without affecting the slide master.

Slide masters have two types of styles associated with them: presentation styles and graphic styles. The prepackaged presentation styles can be modified, but new presentation styles cannot be created. In the case of graphic styles, you can modify the prepackaged ones and also create new ones.

Presentation styles affect three elements of a slide master: the background, background objects (such as icons, decorative lines, and text frames), and the text placed on the slide. Text styles are further divided into Notes, Outline 1 through Outline 9, Subtitle, and Title. The outline styles are used for the different levels of the outline to which they belong. For example, Outline 2 is used for the subpoints of Outline 1, and Outline 3 is used for the subpoints of Outline 2.

Graphic styles affect many of the elements of a slide. Notice that text styles exist in both the presentation and graphic style selections.

Slide masters

Impress comes with several prepackaged slide masters. They are shown in the Master Pages section of the Tasks pane. This section 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 slide master

Creating a new slide master is similar to modifying the default slide master.

To start, enable editing of slide masters by View → Master → Slide Master.

On the Master View toolbar, click the New Master icon.

A second slide master appears in the Slides pane. Modify this slide master to suit your requirements. 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 pop-up menu.

When you are done, close the Master View toolbar to return to normal slide editing mode.

Applying a slide master

In the Tasks Pane, be sure the Master Pages section is showing.

To apply one of the slide masters to all slides in your presentation, click on it in the list.

To apply a different slide master to one or more selected slides:

1. In the Slide Pane, select the slides you want to change.

2. In the Tasks Pane, right-click on the slide master you want to apply to the selected slides, and click Apply to Selected Slides on the pop-up menu.

Loading additional slide masters

Sometimes, in the same set of slides, you may need to mix multiple slide masters that may belong to different templates. For example, you may need a completely different layout for the first slide of the presentation, or you may want to add to your presentation a slide from a different presentation (based on a template available on the hard disk).

The Slide Design dialog makes this possible. Access this dialog either from the menu bar (Format → Slide design) or by right-clicking on a slide in the Slides pane.

The main window in the dialog shows the slide masters already available for use. To add more:

1. Click the Load button.

2. Select in the new dialog the template containing the slide master. Click OK.

3. Click OK again to close the slide design dialog.

The slide masters in the template you selected are now shown also in the Master Pages section of the Tasks pane in the Available for use subsection.

Modifying a slide master

The following items can be changed on a slide master:

• Background (color, gradient, hatching, or bitmap)

• Background objects (for example, add 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

Before working on the slide master, make sure that the Styles and Formatting window is open.

To select the slide master for modification:

1. Select View → Master → Slide Master from the menu bar. This unlocks the properties of the slide master so you can edit it.

2. Click Master Pages in the Tasks pane. This gives you access to the pre-packaged slide masters.

3. Click on the slide master you want to modify among the ones available (Figure 16).

4. Make changes as required, then click the Close Master View icon on the Master View toolbar. For details, see Chapter 2 of the Impress Guide

5. Save the file before continuing.

The changes made to one of the slides in Normal view (for example changes to the bullet point style or the color of the title area and so on...) will not be overridden by subsequent changes to the slide master. There are cases, however, where it is desirable to revert a manually modified element of the slide to the style defined in the slide master: to do that, select that element and choose Format → Default Formatting from the menu bar.

Using a slide master to add text to all slides

Some of the supplied slide masters have text objects in the footer. You can add other text objects to the master page for your slides to act as a header or a footer.

1. Choose View → Master → Slide Master from the menu bar.

2. On the Drawing toolbar, select the Text icon.

3. Click once and drag in the master page to draw a text object, and then type or paste your text into the object or add fields as described below.

4. Choose View → Normal when you are finished.

The Impress slide master comes with three pre-configured areas for date, footer and page number.

Select Insert → Page Number or Insert → Date and Time to open a dialog box where you can configure these three areas.

To add a other information, such as the Author of the presentation or the name of the file, choose Insert → Fields. and select the required field from the submenu. If you want to edit a field in your slide, select it and choose Edit → Fields.

The fields you can use in Impress are:

• Date (fixed)

• Date (variable)—updates automatically when you reload the file

• Time (fixed)

• Time (variable)—updates automatically when you reload the file

• Author—First and last names listed in the LibreOffice user data

• Page number (slide number)

• File name

Adding comments to a presentation

Impress supports comments similar to those in Writer and Calc.

In Normal View, choose Insert → Comment from the menu bar. 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 parts of the text by selecting it, right-clicking, and choosing from the pop-up menu. (From this menu, you can also delete the current comment, all the comments from the same author, or all the comments in the document.)

You can move the small comment markers to anywhere you wish on the page. Typically you might place it on or near an object you refer to in the comment.

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 Author field of the comment, or to change it.

If more than one person edits the document, each author is automatically allocated a different background color.

Setting up the slide show

As mentioned in “Modifying the slide show” on page 18, 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; advanced techniques are explained in Chapter 9 (Slide Shows) in the Impress Guide.

Most of the tasks are best done in Slide Sorter view where you can see most of the slides simultaneously. Choose View → Slide Sorter from the menu bar or click the Slide Sorter tab at the top of the workspace.

One slide set – multiple presentations

In many situations, you may find that you have more slides than the time available to present them or you may want to provide a rapid overview without dwelling on the details. Rather than having to create a new presentation, you can use two tools that Impress offers: hiding slides and custom slide shows.

To hide a slide, right-click on the slide thumbnail either in the Slide pane or in the work area if you are using the Slide Sorter view and choose Hide Slide from the pop-up menu. Hidden slides are marked by a slashed slide number.

If you want to reorder the presentation, choose Slide Show → Custom Slide Show. Click on the New button to create a new sequence of slides and save it.

You can have as many slide shows as you want from a single slide set.

Slide transitions

Slide transition is the animation that is played when a slide is changed. You can configure the slide transition from the Slide Transition drawer in the Tasks pane. Select the desired transition, the speed of the animation, and whether the transition should happen when you click the mouse (preferred) or automatically after a certain number of seconds. Click Apply to all slides unless you prefer to have different transitions in the presentation.

Automatic slides advance

You can set the presentation to automatically advance to the next slide after a set amount of time (for example kiosk mode or carousel) from the Slide Show → Slide Show Settings menu or to advance automatically after a pre-set amount of time different for each slide. To set up the latter, choose Slide Show → Rehearse Timings. When using this tool, start the slide show; a small timer is displayed in the bottom left corner. When you are ready to advance to the next slide, click on the timer. Impress will memorize the timings and at the next slide show will advance automatically after the timer expires.

Running the slide show

To run the slide show, do one of the following:

• Click Slide Show → Slide Show.

• Click the Slide Show button on the Presentation toolbar.

• Press F5 or F9 on the keyboard.

If the slide transition is Automatic after x seconds, let the slide show run by itself.

If the slide transition is On mouse click, do one of the following to move from one slide to the next:

• Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to go to the next slide or to go back to the previous one.

• Click the mouse to move to the next slide.

• Press the spacebar on the keyboard to advance to the next slide.

Right-click anywhere on the screen to open a menu from which you can navigate the slides and set other options.

To exit the slide show at any time including at the end, press the Esc key.