Impress Guide

4

Chapter
Adding and Formatting
PicturesThis PDF is designed to be read onscreen, two pages at atime. If you want to print a copy, your PDF viewer shouldhave an option for printing two pages on one sheet ofpaper, but you may need to start with page 2 to get it toprint facing pages correctly. (Print this cover page
separately.)CopyrightThis document is Copyright © 2007–2010 by its contributors as listed
in the section titled Authors. You may distribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either the GNU General Public License, version 3 orlater, or the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 3.0 or
later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Authors
Nicole Cairns
Peter Hillier-Brook
Jean Hollis Weber
Claire Wood
Michele Zarri

Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:authors@documentation.openoffice.org

Publication date and software version
Published 2 November 2010. Based on OpenOffice.org 3.2.1.

You can download
an editable version of this document fromhttp://oooauthors.org/english/userguide3/published/

Contents
Copyright............................................................................................... 2
Introduction........................................................................................... 4
Inserting pictures................................................................................... 4
Inserting a picture from a file.............................................................4
Inserting a picture from a scanner.....................................................6
Inserting a picture from the Gallery...................................................6
Positioning the Gallery..................................................................... 7
Managing the Gallery themes................................................................8
Adding images to the Gallery..............................................................8
Deleting images from the Gallery.......................................................9
Adding a new theme to the Gallery.....................................................9
Formatting pictures.............................................................................10
Moving a picture............................................................................... 10
Resizing a picture.............................................................................10
Rotating a picture.............................................................................11
Formatting using the Picture toolbar................................................12
Applying filters..............................................................................12
Changing the graphics mode.........................................................14
Adjusting the color......................................................................... 14
Setting the object transparency.....................................................14
Adjusting the line, area and shadow settings................................14
Cropping pictures..........................................................................15
Deleting a picture.............................................................................16
Creating an image map........................................................................17

Adding and Formatting Pictures3

Introduction
Pictures are often used in presentations as they can convey a large
amount of information more quickly than the written word. They canalso give the presentation a professional look by adding a company
logo. You may also want to use Impress to create a presentationconsisting only of pictures, such as a slideshow of holiday snapshots toshare with friends.
This chapter describes how to insert and format pictures.

Inserting pictures
This section describes several ways to insert a picture from an externalsource into the presentation. Once the picture has been inserted, it canbe formatted extensively as explained later in this chapter.

Inserting a picture from a file
Inserting a picture from a file is quick and easy. If the layout of theslide already contains a placeholder for a graphic, double-click
anywhere in the graphics frame. This opens a dialog box for selecting
the file to be inserted. The detailed procedure is given below.

Figure 1: Slide with automatic layout including
a placeholder for graphic object

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Adding and Formatting Pictures

Whether you are using an AutoLayout for the placement of the picture,or you are just inserting a picture, follow these steps:
1) Choose Insert > Picture. (When using an AutoLayout, doubleclick in the graphics frame instead.)2) In the Insert Picture dialog box, navigate to the directory
containing the desired picture.
3) Select the file. OOo recognizes a large number of image types
and, if Preview is selected, a thumbnail of the selected file will be
displayed in the preview pane on the right (not shown below).
4) Click Open to place the picture on the current (selected) slide.
The picture is now displayed on the slide with green resizing
handles around it.

Figure 2: Inserting a picture from a file
Notice in the Insert picture dialog box the two options Link andPreview. Their position is determined by the operating system, butthey are normally in the bottom-left part of the dialog box.
Select the Link option to insert the picture as a link to the file rather
than embedding the file itself. In general it is preferable to embed
images so that the presentation can be copied to other computers,
however on some occasions it makes sense to link the image rather
than embed it. These include:• When the image file is quite large (linking rather than embedding
will dramatically reduce the size of the presentation file)

Inserting pictures5• When the same image file is used in many presentations (forexample when using the same background image for all thepresentations created)• When the linked file will be available when loading thepresentation (for example if the presentation is a slide show ofholiday pictures)

Inserting a picture from a scanner
Inserting an image from a scanner is normally fairly straightforward.
Make sure that the scanner is supported by the SANE system if you arerunning the Linux (or other UNIX-like) operating system, or TWAIN if
you are using a Windows version, and that it is already configured on
the machine on which OOo is running. In case more than one scanneror equivalent devices are present, select the source from Insert >Picture > Scan > Select Source.
To insert an image from the scanner:
1) Prepare the image in the scanner and make sure that the scanneris ready.
2) Choose Insert > Picture > Scan > Request.
3) The rest of the procedure depends on the scanner driver andinterface. You will normally be required to specify the resolution,a scan window and other parameters. Consult the scanner’s
documentation for more information.
4) When the image is ready, Impress places it in the slide. At thispoint it can be edited as any other image.

Inserting a picture from the Gallery
The Gallery contains a collection of images that you can use in apresentation. You can also add your own images to the Gallery, making
it an essential tool for creating presentations quickly and with aconsistent look. The Gallery is available in all components of
OpenOffice.org. For an introduction to the Gallery, see Chapter 11(Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork) in the Getting Started guide.
Choose Tools > Gallery or click the Gallery icon
toolbar.

on the Drawing

The Gallery displays categories of themes with images stored undereach category. Select a theme from the left pane and then scroll as
necessary through the right pane to find a suitable image. Click on theimage and drag it onto the workspace. Figure 3 shows an example.
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Adding and Formatting Pictures

At this point the image will be in your slide, but may not be of asatisfactory size; if necessary, resize it as described in “Resizing a
picture” on page 10.

Figure 3. Inserting an image from the Gallery

Positioning the Gallery
To expand the Gallery, position the pointer over the line that divides itfrom the top of the workspace. When the pointer changes to parallellines with arrows, click and drag downward. The workspace will resize
in response.
By default, the Gallery is docked above the Impress workspace. To
undock it , hold down the Control key and double-click on the upper
part of the Gallery next to the View icons. Double-click in the same
area to dock it again (restore it to its position over the workspace).
When the Gallery is docked, to hide it and view the full Impress
workspace, click the Hide/Show button in the middle of the thin bar
separating the Gallery from the workspace (see Figure 4). The
Hide/Show button lets you keep the Gallery open for quick accesswhile you create your slide show, yet out of the way when you need it
to be.
Inserting pictures7

Figure 4: The Gallery with the Hide/Show selector circled

Managing the Gallery themes
Graphics in the Gallery are grouped by themes, such as Bullets, Rulers,and 3D Effects. The box on the left of the gallery window lists theavailable themes. Click on a theme to see its graphics displayed in theGallery window.
The default themes are locked; no items can be added or deleted fromthese themes. The locked themes are easily recognizable by rightclicking on them; the only available option in the pop-up menu is
Properties.
In a default installation, only the My themes theme is customizable,you
can add your own graphics to this gallery oradd new themes as
explained on page 9.

Adding images to the Gallery
You can add new images to existing themes which you created or thatcan be edited. There are two ways to add an image to an existing
theme.
Method 1 (selecting a file):
1) Right-click on the theme name in the list of themes and choose
Properties from the pop-up menu.
2) Click the Files tab, if necessary.
3) Click Add.
4) Select a file and click Open. The image is added to the theme.

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Adding and Formatting Pictures

Method 2 (drag and drop):
1) Open the document containing an image you want to add to theGallery, and display the Gallery theme to which you want to add
it.
2) Position the mouse pointer above the image, without clicking.
3) If the mouse pointer changes to a hand symbol, the image refers
to a hyperlink. In this case, press the Alt key while you click theimage, to select it without executing the respective link. If themouse pointer does not change to a hand symbol, you can simply
click the image to select it.
4) The image is selected when the green selection handles are
displayed around it. Release the mouse button then click again on
the image, keeping the mouse button pressed down, drag theimage into the document. Release the mouse button.

Deleting images from the Gallery
To delete an image from a theme:
1) Right-click on the image in the Gallery window.
2) Choose Delete from the pop-up menu. A message appears, asking
if you want to delete this object.
3) Click Yes.
Note

The image is deleted from the Gallery only. The original image
file is not deleted.

All the images in a gallery are actually linked files. From time to time itis beneficial to update the gallery theme to make sure that all the files
are still there. To do so, right-click on the theme where you added atleast one file and then select Update from the pop-up menu.

Adding a new theme to the Gallery
1) Click the New Theme button above the list of themes.
2) Click the General tab and type a name for the new theme.
3) Click the Files tab (Figure 5).
4) Click Find Files. The Select Path dialog box opens. Navigate to
the folder that contains the image files for the new theme andclick Select.

Managing the Gallery themes95) Back on the Files tab, either click on Add All to install all of thefiles in the selected folder, or use File Type and/or select one ormore files from the displayed list, and click on Add to install aselection of files to the new theme.
6) Click OK when finished.

Figure 5. Setting up a new theme in the Gallery

Formatting pictures
This section discusses the formatting of pictures inserted with one of
the methods explained in “Inserting pictures” on page 4.

Moving a picture1) Click the picture, if necessary, to show the green resizing handles.
2) Move the pointer over the picture until the pointer changes
shape. On most operating systems, the cursor associated withmoving objects is a four headed arrow, but it may also be a handor some other symbol.
3) Click and drag the picture to the desired position.
4) Release the mouse button.
For a more accurate placement of the picture, use the Position andSize dialog box described in Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects).

Resizing a picture1) Click the picture to show the green resizing handles.
2) Position the pointer over one of the green resizing handles. The
pointer changes shape giving a graphical representation of thedirection of the resizing.
10

Adding and Formatting Pictures3) Click and drag to resize the picture.
4) Release the mouse button when satisfied with the new size.
The corner handles resize both the width and the height of the graphic
object simultaneously, while the other four handles only resize one
dimension at a time.
Tip

To retain the original proportions of the graphic, Shift+click oneof the corner handles, then drag. Be sure to release the mousebutton before releasing the Shift key.

For more accurate resizing of the graphic object, use the Position andSize dialog box described in Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects).

CautionBe aware that re-sizing a bit-mapped (raster) image will
adversely affect the resolution, causing some degree of blurring.
It is better to use a specialized graphics manipulation program tocorrectly scale the picture to the desired size before inserting it
into your presentation. We recommend you use a tool such as
Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/).

Rotating a picture
As for the position of the image on the page, rotation of a picture canbe done manually or using a dedicated dialog box. The Rotation dialog
box is described in Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects). To rotate a
picture manually, do as follows:
1) Select the picture if necessary so that the green handles around itshow.
2) Click the Rotate buttonon the Drawing toolbar. This toolbar
is usually located at the bottom the screen, but it can be
undocked and used as a floating toolbar. If the toolbar is notshowing, select View > Toolbars > Drawing. The Drawing
toolbar is discussed in detail in Chapter 5 (Creating Graphic
Objects).
At this stage a black crosshair with acircle appears in the middle of thepicture: this represents the pivot
point for the rotation. Normally thecenter of the picture will be just fine,but on some occasions you may wish
to rotate around a corner or evenaround a point outside the picture; to Figure 6: Shape showing
the red rotating handles
Formatting pictures11

do that, click on the crosshair and drag it to the desired position
before applying the rotation, as shown in Figure 6.

Note

The icons representing the functions in the toolbars aredifferent, depending on the operating system used and onwhether OOo has been customized for the Linux distribution inuse or not. When in doubt, hover the mouse over the icons andwait for the tooltip to appear showing the name of the button.

3) Eight red circular handles replace the green square handles, as
shown in Figure 6. Move the mouse over one of the corner
handles and the mouse cursor shape will change. Click the mouseand move in the direction in which you want to rotate the picture.
4) When satisfied, release the mouse button.
To restrict the rotation angles to multiples of 15 degrees, press the
Shift key while rotating the graphic. This is very handy to rotate
pictures of right angles, for example from portrait to landscape or viceversa.

Formatting using the Picture toolbar
When a picture is selected, the Picture toolbar becomes available. This
toolbar provides a number of formatting options which are described inthis section. If the picture toolbar does not appear when an image isselected, display it by selecting View > Toolbars > Picture from themenu bar.

Figure 7: The Picture toolbar

Applying filters
Use theicon on the toolbar to apply various
filters to the selected picture. The best way tojudge if a filter works for your picture is to try it .
To apply a filter:
1) Select the image so that the green handles
around are displayed.
2) Click on theicon in the Picture toolbar. Figure 8: The
The toolbar will expand to show the icons in graphic filters
Figure 8.
available in Impress
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Adding and Formatting Pictures

3) Select the filter to apply. To show the name of the filter, hover themouse pointer over the icon and wait for the tooltip to appear.
If you are not satisfied with the effect obtained or you want to try adifferent one, before doing anything else click the Undo button or
select Edit > Undo: Bitmap Graphic Filter from the menu bar orpress Control+Z.
Table 1 describes briefly each of the available graphic filters and theireffects. See the Draw Guide for examples of the effects.
Table 1: Graphic filters and their effects
Icon

Name

EffectInvertInverts the color values of a color image, or thebrightness values of a grayscale image.

SmoothSoftens the contrast of an image.

SharpenIncreases the contrast of an image.

Removenoise

Removes single pixels from an image.

Solarization

Mimics the effects of too much light in a picture. A
further dialog box opens to adjust the parameters.

Aging

Simulates the effects of time on a picture. Can beapplied several times. A further dialog box will
open to adjust the aging level.

Posterize

Makes a picture appear like a painting by reducing
the number of colors used.

Pop ArtModifies the picture dramatically.

Charcoal

Displays the image as a charcoal sketch.

Relief

A dialog box is displayed to adjust the light sourcethat in turn will create the shadow and hence therelief effect.

MosaicJoins groups of pixels into a single area of one
color.

Formatting pictures

13

Changing the graphics modeUse thegraphics mode drop-down list in the Picture
toolbar to change the mode of the image. Choose between:• Default: no changes to the graphic object.
• Grayscale: the image is converted to scales of gray.
• Black/White: each pixel of the image is converted to black orwhite depending on the brightness value.
• Watermark: adjusts the brightness of the image making itsuitable to be used as a watermark. For more information on
inserting watermarks in the presentation, refer to Chapter 2.

Adjusting the color
Clicking the color adjustment buttonon
the Picture toolbar opens the color adjustment
dialog box, shown in Figure 9.
Use this dialog box to modify the individualcolor components of the image (red, green,blue) as well as the brightness, contrast, andgamma of the image. If the result is notsatisfactory, press Control+Z to restore thedefault values.
Increasing the gamma value of a picture
makes it more suitable to be used as a
background or watermark as it will interfere
less with a dark text.

Figure 9: The color
adjustment dialog box

Setting the object transparency
Modify the percentage value in the Transparency box
on thePicture toolbar to make the image more transparent. Note that this isdifferent from the transparency settings for a line or a shape(described in Chapter 5). As for the gamma value, increasing thetransparency of a picture makes the picture blend more smoothly inthe background, making the overlay text easier to read.

Adjusting the line, area and shadow settings
These settings are not very commonly used for images, with the
exception of the shadow setting that applies a shadow to the image.

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Adding and Formatting Pictures

Cropping pictures
Impress provides two ways to crop a picture: interactively or using a
dialog box. The interactive method is easier to use, but the dialog box
provides more precise control. You can use both methods: first
cropping interactively, then using the dialog box to fine tune the result.
To crop a selected picture interactively, click the Crop iconon thePicture toolbar (Figure 7). A set of crop marks appears around thepicture (see Figure 10).

Figure 10: Interactive crop marks
When you place the cursor over any of the crop marks, the cursor
changes shape. Drag the mark to crop the picture. Click outside thepicture to deactivate cropping mode.
Press the Shift button while working on the crop marks to produce thefollowing effects:• For a corner mark, the two sides of the picture forming the cornerare cropped proportionally with the picture anchored to the
opposite corner mark.
• For a side mark, both dimensions are changed proportionally with
the image anchored to the opposite side mark.
The interactive crop mode operates in Keep Scale mode (see below).
To crop using the dialog box, right-click a selected picture and choose
Crop Picture (or choose Format > Crop Picture from the menu bar).
The Crop dialog box (Figure 11) has the following options:• Keep scale / Keep image size buttons: when Keep scale isselected (default), cropping the image does not alter the scale ofthe picture. When Keep image size is selected, cropping produces
enlargement (for positive cropping values), shrinking (fornegative cropping values), or distortion of the image so that theimage size remains constant.

Formatting pictures

15

Figure 11: The options available when cropping a picture• Left, Right, Top, and Bottom: the function of these boxes

changes according to the choice made between Keep scale andKeep image size. In both cases, when a value is entered in one ofthese boxes, the image is cropped by that amount. For example, avalue of 3cm in the Left box will cut 3cm from the left side of thepicture.
When Keep scale is selected, the size of the image also changes,
so in this example the width will be reduced by 3 cm. If Keep
image size is selected instead, the remaining part of the image isenlarged (positive values for cropping) or shrunk (negative values
for cropping) so that the width and height of the image remains
unchanged.
Note that the Width and Height fields change as you enter thevalues when in this mode. Use the thumbnail next to these fields
to determine the correct amount by which to crop.
• Scale Width and Height: specify in percentages the scaling of
the picture. The size of the image changes accordingly.
• Image size: specify the size of the image in your preferred unit ofmeasurement. The image enlarges or shrinks accordingly.
• Original size: when clicked, restores the original image size.

Deleting a picture1) Click on the picture, if necessary, to show the green resizing
handles.
2) Press Delete.

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Adding and Formatting Pictures

Creating an image map
An image map defines areas of the image (called hotspots) associatedwith a URL (a web address or a file on the computer). Hotspots are thegraphic equivalent of text hyperlinks. Clicking on a hotspot causes
Impress to open the linked page in the appropriate program (forexample, the default browser for an HTML page; OOo Writer for a.ODT file; a PDF viewer for a PDF file). You can create hotspots ofvarious shapes, and include several hotspots in the same image.
To use the image map tool:
1) Select the picture where the hotspots will be defined.
2) Choose Edit > ImageMap from the menu bar. The ImageMap
Editor dialog box opens. The main part of the dialog box shows
the image on which the hotspots will be defined. On this image anactive hotspot is indicated by a white shading, while an inactive
hotspot is identified by a red border but no shading.
3) Use the tools and fields in the dialog box to define the hotspots
and links necessary.
4) Click the Apply icon

to apply the settings.

5) When done, click the Save icon
to save the imagemap to a file,then click the X in the upper right corner to close the dialog box.

Figure 12: The dialog box to create image maps. The
last ‘o’ is set as an active hotspot
Creating an image map

17

The top part of the dialog box contains the following tools:• Apply button: click this button to apply the changes.
• Load, Save, and Select icons.
• Tools for drawing a hotspot shape: these tools work in exactly thesame way as the corresponding tools in the Drawing toolbar(described in Chapter 5).
• Edit, Move, Insert, Delete Points: advanced editing tools tomanipulate the shape of a polygon hotspot. Select the Edit Points
tool to activate the other tools.
• Active icon: toggles the status of the hotspot activating a
selected hotspot or deactivating it if active.
• Macro: associates a macro with the hotspot instead of justassociating an hyperlink.
• Properties: sets the hyperlink properties and adds the Nameattribute to the hyperlink.
Below the toolbar, specify for the selected hotspot:• Address: the address pointed by the hyperlink. You can also point
to an anchor in a document such as a specific slide number; to do
this, write the address in this format:
file:///<path>/document_name#anchor_name• Text: enter the text that will be displayed when the mouse is
moved over the hotspot.
• Frame: where the target of the hyperlink will open: pick among_blank (opens in a new browser window), _self (opens in theactive browser window), _top or _parent.
Tip

18

The value _self for the target frame will work just fine in the vast
majority of the occasions. It is therefore not recommended touse the other values unless absolutely necessary.

Adding and Formatting Pictures