Impress Guide
Presentations in OpenOffice.org

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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
Michele Zarri
Jean Hollis Weber
Dan Lewis
Agnes BelzuncePeter Hillier-Brook
Gary Schnabl
Claire Wood
Rachel Kartch
Jared Kobos
Martin J. Fox
Nicole Cairns
Hazel Russman
Paul Miller

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

Publication date and software version
Published 20 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
Chapter 1
Introducing Impress....................................................................7
What is Impress?..................................................................................8
The main Impress window....................................................................8Workspace views................................................................................12
Creating a new presentation..............................................................17
Formatting a presentation..................................................................22
Running the slide show......................................................................27
Using Impress on a Mac.....................................................................28
Chapter 2
Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates.............................29
Designing a presentation....................................................................30
What are slide masters?.....................................................................30
Working with slide masters................................................................31
Modifying a slide master....................................................................34
Working with styles in Impress..........................................................44
Working with templates......................................................................45
Chapter 3
Adding and Formatting Text......................................................52
Introduction........................................................................................53
Working with text boxes.....................................................................53
Inserting text......................................................................................56
Introduction to formatting text..........................................................59
Using styles to format text.................................................................60
Formatting characters........................................................................62
Formatting paragraphs.......................................................................66
Creating bulleted and numbered lists................................................69
Using tables........................................................................................76
Using fields.........................................................................................82
Using hyperlinks.................................................................................83

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Chapter 4
Adding and Formatting Pictures...............................................87
Introduction........................................................................................88
Inserting pictures...............................................................................88
Managing the Gallery themes............................................................92
Formatting pictures............................................................................94
Creating an image map....................................................................101
Chapter 5
Managing Graphic Objects......................................................103
Introduction......................................................................................104
Creating lines and shapes................................................................107
Grouping shapes together................................................................108
Moving graphic objects....................................................................109
Resizing graphic objects...................................................................110
Applying special effects....................................................................111
Aligning shapes.................................................................................116
Snapping objects to grid or snap guides..........................................116
Arranging shapes..............................................................................119
Working with connectors..................................................................119
Working with 3D shapes...................................................................121
Converting an object to a different type..........................................123
Setting up interaction with a shape.................................................124
Animating images.............................................................................125
Using Fontwork................................................................................127
Chapter 6
Formatting Graphic Objects....................................................132
Formatting objects............................................................................133
Formatting lines................................................................................133
Formatting the fill area....................................................................138
Creating new area fills.....................................................................143
Formatting text.................................................................................155
Formatting connectors.....................................................................158
Working with graphics styles...........................................................158
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Chapter 7
Including Spreadsheets, Charts, and Other Objects..............164
Using spreadsheets in Impress........................................................165
Inserting a chart...............................................................................172
Inserting other objects.....................................................................182
Inserting the contents of a file.........................................................187
Chapter 8
Adding and Formatting Slides, Notes, and Handouts............188
Introduction......................................................................................189
Adding, renaming, and removing slides...........................................190
Creating slides from an outline........................................................194
Modifying slides................................................................................197
Adding comments.............................................................................201
Adding and formatting notes............................................................203
Creating handouts............................................................................209
Chapter 9
Slide Shows..............................................................................214
Putting together a slide show...........................................................215
Using slide transitions......................................................................221
Using slide animation effects...........................................................223
Using interactions............................................................................233
Running a slide show........................................................................234
Chapter 10
Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows..........236
Introduction......................................................................................237
Quick printing...................................................................................237
Controlling printing..........................................................................237
Printing a brochure..........................................................................242
Exporting to PDF..............................................................................242
Exporting as a Flash file...................................................................249
Exporting as web pages (HTML files)..............................................250
E-mailing a presentation..................................................................254
Opening and saving a PowerPoint file..............................................256
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Chapter 11
Setting Up and Customizing Impress.....................................258
Choosing options that affect all of OOo...........................................259
Choosing options for Impress...........................................................261
Customizing the user interface........................................................267
Adding functionality with extensions...............................................277
Appendix A
Keyboard Shortcuts.................................................................280
Introduction......................................................................................281
Function keys for Impress................................................................282
Other shortcut keys for Impress......................................................283
Shortcut keys in the Normal view....................................................284
Shortcut keys in slide shows............................................................285
Navigating in the Slide Sorter..........................................................285
Index...........................................................................................286

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1

ChapterIntroducing Impress

What is Impress?
Impress is OpenOffice.org’s presentation (slide show) component. You
can create slides that contain text, bulleted and numbered lists and awide range of OLE objects. Impress has access to the spelling checker
and thesaurus and comes with pre-packaged text styles, backgroundstyles, and a handy online help.
This chapter introduces the Impress user interface and describes how
to create a simple slide show using the Presentation Wizard.
The rest of this guide illustrates many other features available in
Impress that can be used to create more sophisticated slide shows.
Note

Drawings are created in the same way with Impress as they arewith Draw. Refer to the Draw Guide for details on how to use thedrawing facilities.

Note for Mac users
Some keystrokes and menu items on a Mac are different from thosegiven in this book. Please see “Using Impress on a Mac” on page 28
for a list of differences.

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

Tip

You can remove the Slides pane or the Tasks pane from view byclicking the X in the upper right corner of each pane. You canalso show or hide these panes using View > Slide Pane or View
> Task Pane.

Slides pane
The Slides pane on the left hand side of the screen contains thumbnail
pictures of the slides in your presentation, in the order they will beshown—unless you change the order, as described in Chapter 9 (Slide
Shows). Clicking a slide in this pane selects it and places it in theWorkspace. When a slide is in the Workspace, you can apply to it any
changes desired.

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Figure 1: Main window of Impress
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 thepresentation.
• 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, as you will seein this chapter:• 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.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress9

Tasks pane
The Tasks pane on the right hand side of the screen has five sections:
Master Pages, Layouts, Table Design, Custom Animation, andSlide Transition.
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 and styled text.

Tip

Press F11 to open the Styles and Formatting window, where you
can modify the styles used in any slide master to suit yourpurposes. This can be done at any time. See Chapter 2 for more
information.

Layouts
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 hidespecific rows and columns, or to apply a banded appearance to therows and columns. Refer to Chapter 3 (Adding and Formatting Text)
for details on how to work with tables.
Custom Animation
A variety of animations for selected elements of a slide are listed.
See Chapter 9 (Slide Shows) for an overview of how to add andcustomize animations.
Slide Transition
Many transitions are available, including No Transition, whichmakes the next slide simply replace the existing one. You can selectthe transition speed (slow, medium, fast). You can also choose
between an automatic or manual transition, and how long theselected slide should be shown (automatic transition only).

Workspace
The Workspace (normally in the center) has five tabs: Normal,
Outline, Notes, Handout, and Slide Sorter. These five tabs are also
called View buttons.
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Figure 2: Workspace tabs
The Workspace below the View buttons changes depending on thechosen view. The workspace views are described in detail on page 12.

Toolbars
Many toolbars can be used during slide creation; they can be displayedor 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 11 (Setting Up and Customizing
Impress).
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.

Figure 3: Left end of the Impress status bar

Figure 4: Right end of Impress status bar
From left to right, you will find:• A general information area, which changes depending on theselection. For example:–
Text area—”TextEdit: Paragraph x, Row y, Column z”–
Charts, spreadsheets—”Embedded object (OLE) ‘ObjectName’selected”–
Graphics—”Bitmap with transparency selected”
Chapter 1 Introducing Impress11• The position of the cursor or of the top left corner of the selection

•
•
•
•

measured from the top left corner of the slide, followed by thewidth and height of the selection or of the text box where thecursor is located.
A modified flag, showing a star when the file needs saving.
A flag indicating whether the document is digitally signed.
The slide number currently displayed in the workspace, and thetotal number of slides in the presentation.
The slide master or page style associated with the slide, handout,or notes page currently in the Workspace.

• The zoom slider and zoom level (percent) of the Workspace.

Tip

By right-clicking on the slide master area of the Status bar, you
can quickly apply a different slide master to the current slide.

You can hide the information in the Status Bar by selecting View >Status Bar from the main menu.

Navigator
The Navigator (Figure 5) displays all
objects contained in a document. It
provides another convenient way tomove around a document and finditems in it. To display the Navigator,
click its iconon the Standard
toolbar, choose View > Navigator on
the menu bar, or press Ctrl+Shift+F5.
The Navigator is more useful if you
give your objects (pictures,
spreadsheets, and so on) meaningful
names, instead of leaving them as thedefault “Object 1” and “Shape 1”
shown in the example.
Figure 5: Navigator

Workspace views
Each of the workspace views is designed to ease the completion ofcertain tasks; it is therefore useful to familiarize yourself with them inorder to quickly accomplish those tasks.
12

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide• Normal view is the main view for creating individual slides. Use

•

•
•

•

this view to format and design slides and to add text, graphics,
and animation effects.
Outline view shows topic titles, bulleted lists, and numbered lists
for each slide in outline format. Use this view to rearrange theorder of slides, edit titles and headings, rearrange the order of
items in a list, and add new slides.
Notes view lets you add notes to each slide; these notes are notseen when the presentation is shown.
Handout view lets you print your slides for a handout. You canchoose from several layouts from Tasks pane > Layouts.
Thumbnails can be re-arranged in this view by dragging anddropping them.
Slide Sorter view shows a thumbnail of each slide in order. Use
this view to rearrange the order of slides, produce a timed slide
show, or add transitions between selected slides.

Normal viewTo place a slide in the slide design area (Workspace) of the Normalview (Figure 1), either click the slide thumbnail in the Slides pane or
double-click it in the Navigator (page 12).

Outline view
Outline view contains all of the slides of the presentation in their
numbered sequence. Only the text in each slide is shown. Slide names
are not included.

Figure 6: Outline view
Use Outline view for the following purposes.
1) Making changes in the text of a slide:•
Add or delete text in a slide just as in the Normal view.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

13

•

•
•

Move the paragraphs of text in the selected
slide up or down by using the up and downarrow buttons (Move Up or Move Down) on
the Text Formatting toolbar.
Change the outline level for any of the paragraphs in a slideusing 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 isneeded, you can create it directly in the Outline view, or you canreturn 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 Slide 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.

Figure 7: Adding notes in Notes view
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You can resize the Notes text box using the green resizing handles andmove it by placing the pointer on the border, then clicking anddragging. 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 thelayout for a printed handout. Click the
Handout tab in the workspace, thenchoose Layouts in the tasks pane. You
can then choose to print 1, 2, 3, 4, 6,
or 9 slides per page.
Figure 8: Handout layouts

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

Figure 9: Slide Sorter view

Customizing Slide Sorter viewTo change the number of slides per row:
1) Check View > Toolbars > Slide View to show or hide the Slideview toolbar.
Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

15Figure 10: Slide Sorter and Slide View toolbars
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 using the Slide Sorter:
1) Click the slide. A thick 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 sideof 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, whilepressing Control, select the other desired slides.
• Use the Shift key: Click on the first slide, and while pressing theShift key, select the final slide in the group. This selects all of theother 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 mousepointer 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 arectangle forms as you drag the pointer through the slide
thumbnails and a thick border is drawn around the selected
slides. Make sure the rectangle includes all the slides you want toselect.
To move a group of slides:
1) Select the group.
2) Drag and drop the group to their new location. A vertical blackline 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.

16

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideTo make changes, right-click a slide and chose 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 desiredtransition.
–
For more than one slide, select the group of slides and add thedesired transition.
• Mark a slide as hidden. Hidden slides will not be shown in theslide show.
• Copy or cut and paste a slide.

Renaming slides
Right-click on a thumbnail in the Slides pane or the Slide Sorter andchoose 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 shows you how to set up a new presentation using the
Presentation Wizard.

Planning the presentation
The first thing to do is decide on the purpose of the presentation.
Simply putting a group of digital photos together requires very little
planning. However, using a presentation to teach others about yourtopic requires much more planning. Although you can make changes as
you go, having an idea of who the audience will be, the structure, thecontent, and how the presentation will be delivered, will save you a lotof time from the start.

Using the Presentation Wizard
You can start Impress in several ways:• If no component of OOo is open, from the Start Center: click on
the Presentation icon.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress17• From the system menu or the OpenOffice.org Quickstarter.

Details vary with your operating system; see Chapter 1 in theGetting Started guide if you need more information.
• From any open component of OOo, click the triangle to the rightof the New icon on the main toolbar and select Presentation fromthe drop-down menu.

Figure 11: Opening the presentation wizard• From any open component of OOo, choose File > New >Presentation on the menu bar.

When you start Impress, the Presentation Wizard appears.

Figure 12. Choosing the type of presentation

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Tips

If you do not want the wizard to start every time you start
Impress, select the Do not show this wizard again option. You
can enable the wizard again later under Tools > Options >OpenOffice.org Impress > General > Wizard, and select theStart with wizard option.
Leave the Preview option selected, so templates, slide designs,
and slide transitions appear in the preview box as you choosethem.

1) Select Empty presentation under Type. This creates apresentation from scratch.
•
From template uses a template design already created as thebasis for a new presentation. The wizard changes to show alist of available templates. Choose the template you want.
More details can be found in Chapter 2.
•Open existing presentation continues work on a previously
created presentation. The wizard changes to show a list of
existing presentations. Choose the one you want.
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 designsection 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 toselect it.
The types of Presentation Backgrounds are shown in Figure 13.
When you click an item, a preview of the slide design appears in
the Preview window. <Original> is an empty background.
Impress contains three choices under Presentations:•<Original> is for a blank presentation slide design.
•
Both Introducing a New Product and Recommendation of aStrategy have their own prepackaged slide designs. Eachdesign appears in the Preview window when its name isclicked.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

19Figure 13. Selecting a slide design
To start with a blank presentation, select <Original>. Click an
item to see a preview of the slide design in the Preview window.

Note

Introducing a New Product and Recommendation of a Strategy
are pre-packaged presentation templates. They can be used tocreate a presentation by choosing From template in the firststep (Figure 12).

4) Select how the presentation will be used under Select an output
medium. Most often, presentations are created for computer
screen display, so you would select Screen. You can change thepage format at any time5) Click Next. The Presentation Wizard step 3 appears.
In this step you can choose the desired slide transition from the
Effect drop-down menu. Select the desired speed for thetransition between the different slides in the presentation fromthe Speed drop-down menu. Medium is a good choice for now.

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Figure 14: Selecting a slide transition effect6) Click Create. A new presentation is created.

Tip

You might want to accept the default values for both Effect andSpeed unless you are skilled at creating presentations. Both ofthese values can be changed later while working with slide
transitions and animations. These two are explained in moredetail in Chapter 9 (Slide Shows).

Note

If you selected From template on step 1 of the Wizard, the Next
button will be active on step 3 and other pages will be available.

Caution

Remember to save frequently while working on the presentation,
to prevent any loss of information should something unexpectedoccur. You might also want to activate the AutoRecovery function(Tools > Options > Load/Save > General). Make sure Save
AutoRecovery information every is selected and that you haveentered a recovery frequency.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

21Formatting a presentation
A new presentation only contains one empty slide. In this section wewill start adding new slides and preparing them for the intended
contents.

Creating the first slide
The first slide is normally a title slide. Decide which of the layouts will
be best for this first slide. You can use the pre-packaged layouts
available in the Layout section of the Tasks pane. Suitable layouts are
Title Slide (which also contains a section for a subtitle) or Title Only;
however, all but one layout (the blank one) contain a title section, so
you are not restricted to the two layouts described here.

Tip

If you do not know the names for the pre-packaged layouts, you
can use the tooltip feature. Position the cursor on an icon in the
Layout section (or on any toolbar icon) and its name will be
displayed in a small rectangle.
If the tooltips are not enabled, you can enable them from themain menu: choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org >General > Help and select the Tips option. If the Extended
tips option is also selected, you will get more detailed tooltip
information, but the tooltip names themselves will not beprovided.

Select a layout in the Layouts section of the Tasks pane by clicking on
it; the slide in the Workspace is updated to show the chosen layout
elements. To create the title, click on Click to add title (assuming theBlank Slide layout was not used) and then type the title text. To adjust
the formatting of the title, modify the Title presentation style; see
Chapter 2 (Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates) for
instructions.
If you are using the Title Slide layout, click on Click to add text to add
a subtitle. Proceed as above to make adjustments to the formatting if
required modifying the Subtitle presentation style instead.

Inserting additional slides
The steps for inserting additional slides are the same as for selecting
the title page. You need to repeat the process for each slide. Unless
you are using more than one slide master, your only concern is the
Layouts section of the Tasks pane.

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Figure 15: Choosing a slide layout
First, insert all the slides your outline indicates you will need. After
this you can begin adding special effects such as custom animation andslide transitions.
1) Insert a new slide. This can be done in a variety of ways—takeyour pick.
•
Insert > Slide.
•
Right-click on the present slide, and select Slide > New Slidefrom the pop-up menu.
•
Click the Slide icon in the Presentation toolbar.

Figure 16: Presentation toolbar
2) Select the layout slide that bests fits your needs.
3) Modify the elements of the slide. At this stage, the slide consistsof everything contained in the slide master, as well as in thechosen layout slide; you may want to remove unneeded elements
and add objects (such as pictures), as well as insert text.
CautionChanges to any of the pre-packaged layouts should only be madeusing View > Normal. Attempting to make changes by modifying
a slide master may result in unpredictable results and requires
extra care.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

23Modifying slides
1) To remove any element on the slide that is not required, click theelement to highlight it. The green squares show it is highlighted;
press the Delete key to remove it.

Figure 17: Deleting an element of a slide

Tip

Sometimes you will accidentally select the wrong layout slide or
decide to change the layout. This may change the appearance ofthe slide, but it does not cause loss of the contents already on
the slide.

2) To add any pictures or objects to the slide. follow these steps:a) To add a picture to the clipart frame:i. Double-click the picture within the frame. The Insert
picture dialog box opens.
ii. Browse to the location of the picture you want to include.
To see a preview of the picture, check Preview at thebottom of the Insert picture dialog box.
iii. Select the picture and click Open.
iv. Resize the picture as necessary. Follow the directions in
the Caution note below.
b) To add pictures from graphic files to places other than the
clipart frame:i. Insert > Picture > From File. The Insert picture dialog
box opens.
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ii. Browse to the graphic file. To see a preview of the picture,check Preview at the bottom of the Insert picture dialog
box. Select a picture and click Open.
iii. Move the picture to its location.
iv. Resize the picture, if necessary.
c) To add OLE Objects, refer to Chapter 7 (Inserting
Spreadsheets, Charts, and Other Objects) where thisadvanced technique is described.

CautionWhen resizing a graphic, right-click the picture. Select Position
and Size from the context menu and make sure that Keep ratio
is selected. Then adjust the height or width to the size you need.
(As you adjust one dimension both dimensions will change.)
Failure to do so will cause the picture to become distorted.
Remember also that resizing a bitmap image will reduce its
quality on screen, even though the original image is unchanged(Impress stores the original file). A better approach is to create
an image of the desired size outside of Impress and then import it
into the presentation.

3) If you need to add text to a slide that contains a text frame, clickon Click to add an outline in the text frame and then type yourtext. The Outline styles are automatically applied to the text as
you insert it. You can change the outline level of each paragraphas well as its position within the text by using the arrow buttons
on the Text Formatting toolbar (see “Outline view” on page 13).
4) To create additional slides, repeat steps 1–3.

Modifying the appearance of slides
To change the background and other characteristics of all slides in thepresentation, you need to modify the slide master or choose a different
slide master.
A Slide Master is a slide with a specified set of characteristics that acts
as a template and is used as the beginning point for creating otherslides. These characteristics include the background, objects in the
background, formatting of any text used, and any backgroundgraphics.

Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

25

Note

OOo uses three interchangeable terms for this one concept.
Master slide, slide master, and master page all refer to a slidethat is used to create other slides. This book, however, will use
only the term slide master, except when describing the userinterface.

Impress has a range of pre-packaged slide masters, found in the
Master Pages section of the Tasks pane. You can also create and save
additional slide masters or add more from other sources. See Chapter
2 for information on creating and modifying slide masters.

Modifying the slide show
Now review the entire presentation and answer some questions. Run
the slide show at least once (see “Running the slide show” on page 27)
before answering them. You might want to add some questions of yourown.
1) Are the slides in the correct order? If not, some of them will need
to be moved.
2) Is the information well spaced and visible to members of an
audience at the back of a large room? They may not be able to see
information at the bottom of a slide, so you may need to design
your presentation to fit the top three-quarters of the screen.
3) Would an additional slide make a particular point clearer? If so,another slide needs to be created.
4) Do some of the slides seem unnecessary? Hide or delete them.
5) Would custom animations help some of the slides? (Advanced
technique.)6) Should some of the slides have a different slide transition thanothers? The transition of those slides should be changed.

Caution

If one or more slides seem to be unnecessary, hide the slide orslides, and view the slide show a few more times to make surethey aren't needed. To hide a slide, right-click the slide in the
Slides pane and select Hide Slide in the pop-up menu. Do notdelete a slide until you have done this; otherwise you may haveto create that slide again.

Once you have answered these and your own questions, make thenecessary changes. This is done most easily in the Slide Sorter view(see page 15). If you need one or more new slides, create them using
the steps listed in “Inserting additional slides” on page 22.

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Custom animations
If you wish to add a custom animation to a slide, do it now. Custom
animations are found on the Tasks pane. This is an advanced techniqueand is explained in Chapter 9 (Slide shows).

Slide transitions
Your first slide show should probably have the same slide transition for
all slides. Setting Advance slide to On mouse click is the default. If
you want each slide to be shown for a specific amount of time, click
Automatically after and enter the number of seconds. Click Apply toall slides.
Transition choices are found on the Tasks pane. For more information
about slide transitions, see Chapter 9 (Slide Shows).

Tip

The Slide transition section has a very useful option: Automatic
preview. With this option selected, when you make any changes
in a slide transition, the new slide is previewed in the Slide
Design area, including its transition effect.

Running the slide show
To run the slide show, do one of the following:• Click Slide Show > Slide Show on the main menu bar.
• Click the Slide Show button on the Presentation toolbar (Figure16) or the Slide Sorter toolbar (Figure 10).
• Press F5 or F9. (F5 only on a Mac.)If the slide transition is Automatically after x seconds, let the slide
show run by itself.
If the slide transition is On mouse click, do one of the following tomove from one slide to the next.
• Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to go to the next slide or togo back to the previous one.
• Click the mouse button to advance to the next slide.
• Press the Spacebar on the keyboard to advance to the next slide.
When you advance past the last slide, the message Click to exit
presentation... appears. Click the mouse or press any key to exit thepresentation.
To exit the slide show at any time, including at the end, press the Esc
key.
Chapter 1 Introducing Impress

27

Using Impress on a Mac
Some keystrokes and menu items are different on a Mac from thoseused in Windows and Linux. The following table gives some common
substitutions for the instructions in this book. For a more detailed list,
see the application Help.
Windows/LinuxMac equivalent

EffectTools > Options
menu selection

OpenOffice.org >Preferences

Access setup options

Right-click

Control+click

Open context menu

Ctrl (Control)z (Command)

Used with other keys

F5

Shift+z+F5

Open the Navigator

F11

z+T

Open the Styles andFormatting window

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2

Chapter
Using Slide Masters,
Styles, and Templates

Designing a presentation
In addition to careful planning of the content (as discussed in Chapter1), you need to plan the appearance of the presentation. It is best to do
this after you have developed an outline, because the outline will
determine some of the requirements for the slides’ appearance. For
example:• What color combinations (background and text) will both look
•
•
•
•

•

good and be easy for your audience to see?
Would a picture help your audience understand the contents
better?
Do you want particular text and a picture to appear on all theslides? (for example a company name and logo.)
Would the audience benefit from having the slides numbered sothat they can quickly refer to one of them?
Do you want a background graphic or gradient? If so, you need topick something that does not interfere or clash with your content,
for example, colors used in charts.
Will you need one slide master or more than one? If one slide
design does not suit all of the content, you might need more than
one slide master.

You can change the appearance of slides as you develop thepresentation, but planning ahead will save you time in the long run.

What are slide masters?
A slide master is a slide that is used as the starting point for otherslides. 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.

Note

OOo uses three terms for this one concept. Master slide, slide
master, and master page all refer to a slide which is used tocreate other slides. This book uses the term slide master, except
when describing the user interface.

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

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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

All of the characteristics of slide masters are controlled by styles. The
styles of any new slide you create are inherited from the slide masterfrom 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 theslides based on that slide master; it is, however, possible to modify
each individual slide without affecting the slide master.

Note

Although it is highly recommended to use the slide masters
whenever possible, there are occasions where manual changes
are needed for a particular slide, for example to enlarge thechart area when the text and chart layout is used.

Slide masters have two types of styles associated with them:presentation styles and graphic styles. The pre-packaged presentationstyles can be modified, but new presentation styles cannot be created.
However, not only can the pre-packaged graphic styles be modified,but new graphic styles can also be created.
Presentation styles are discussed in detail in Chapter 3 (Working withText). The use of graphic styles is covered in Chapter 6 (Formatting
Graphic Objects). See also “Working with styles in Impress” on page
44.

Working with slide masters
Impress comes with 28 pre-packaged slide masters. They are shown in
the Master Pages section of the Tasks pane (Figure 18). This section
has three subsections: Used in This Presentation, Recently Used, andAvailable 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 tocollapse the subsection to hide the thumbnails.
Each of the slide masters shown in the Available for Use list is from atemplate of the same name. If you have created your own templates, oradded templates from other sources, slide masters from those
templates will also appear in this list. See “Working with templates” onpage 45 for more about templates.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates31Creating slide masters
You can create a new slide master in a similar way to modifying thedefault slide master.
To start, enable editing of slide masters by View > Master > Slide
Master. You can also right-click on the default slide master in the
Master Pages section of the tasks pane, and select Edit Master.
On the Master View toolbar, click the New
Master icon (highlighted in the figure).
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. To do that, rightclick on the slide in the Slides pane and select Rename master fromthe popup menu.
When you are done, close the Master View toolbar to return to normal
slide editing mode.

Applying a slide masterIn 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 ormore selected slides:
1) In the Slides 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 (the use of
templates is explained later in “Working with
Figure 18: Available
templates” on page 45). For example, you may master pages (slides)
need a completely different layout for the firstslide of the presentation, or you may want to add a slide from a
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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guidedifferent presentation to your presentation (based on a template
available on the hard disk).
The Slide Design dialog box makes this possible. Access this dialog box
either from the menu bar (Format > Slide design) or from the pop-up
menu that appears when right-clicking on a slide in the Slides pane.
The main window in the dialog box shows the slide masters alreadyavailable for use. To add more:
1) Click the Load button.
2) Select in the new dialog box the template from which to load theslide master. Click OK.
3) Click OK again to close the slide design dialog box.
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.

Figure 19: Loading slide masters from a presentation template

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates

33

Note

The slide masters you have loaded will also be available the nexttime you load the presentation. If you want to delete the unused
slide masters, click the corresponding checkbox in the Slide
Design dialog box.

Tip

To limit the size of the presentation file, you may want tominimize the number of slide masters used.

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 decorativegraphics)• Text attributes for the main text window and notes• Size, placement, and contents of header and footer elements toappear on every slide• Size and placement of default frames for slide titles and content
Refer to Figure 22 for a graphical representation of many of theseelements.
Before working on the slide master, make sure that the Styles andFormatting window is open. See page 40 for instructions on doing this.
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 thepre-packaged slide masters.
3) Click on the slide master you want to modify among the ones
available (Figure 18).
4) Make changes as described in this chapter, then click the Close
Master View icon on the Master View toolbar. Save the file
before continuing.

Caution34

Any changes made to one slide when in Master View mode willappear 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. Select View >Normal from the menu bar, or clicking Close Master View in
the Master View toolbar to return to the normal slide view.

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

The changes made to one of the slides in Normal view (for example,
changes to the bullet point style, 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: todo that, select that element and choose Format > Default
Formatting from the menu bar.
It is also possible to modify the default layout of the slide master, forexample by moving the title to the side; however, you are restricted tomodifications to the “Title, Text” layout (that is, the layout containing atitle box and a text box).
Sometimes, depending on the contents of the slide, you may want toapply a different layout. The title and text boxes will inherit theproperties of the slide master, but if you have changed the position ofthese text boxes in the slide master, the layout may appear corrupted
and you may need to re-position some of the layout elements manually.

Choosing and applying the background
Backgrounds can be applied to a number of elements in Impress: thepage, a default text area, a graphic object and so on. The procedures toapply a background are always the same.
The following procedure is used to apply a background to the page.
1) To begin, do one of the following:•
Select Format > Page from the menu bar. On the Page Setup
dialog box, choose the Background tab.
•Make sure the Presentation Styles icon is selected in the
Styles and Formatting window (Figure 23), right-click
Background and select Modify from the pop-up menu. This
opens the Background dialog box.
2) Select the type of fill you want for your background from the fivechoices: None, Color, Gradient, Hatching, or Bitmap.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates35Figure 20: Background choices
A list of choices for the selected fill type then appears (see Figure
21 for an example).

Figure 21: Background colors
3) Select one of the items on the list and click OK. The fill you havechosen is added to the slide master, replacing any previously
selected fill.

Tip

36

You can make custom additions to each type of background, withthe obvious exception of None. After you create new fills, they
are listed in the Background dialog box along with the fills
provided with OOo. For example, the last color in Figure 21, Test
Blue, is a custom color. See Chapter 6 for more information.

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

Adding background objects
This section describes how to add background objects and graphic
elements (such as a logo, decorative lines, and so on). OOo supports alarge number of picture formats.
Whenever you want the same graphic to appear on every slide of yourpresentation, the easiest and quickest solution is to use the slide
master. It saves time both while creating the presentation and also if
you decide to either modify or reposition it on the slide. If the graphic
was added to each slide, the same operations would have to be
performed on each individual slide of the presentation.
One of the most common activities when preparing a presentation is to
add a picture to the slide master. To insert a picture already available
on the hard disk, follow these steps:
1) Choose View > Master > Slide Master from the menu bar.
2) Select from the menu bar Insert > Picture > From File.
3) Navigate to the directory where your picture is and select it. If
you want to see a preview, select the corresponding checkbox in
the file browser dialog box.

CautionOOo offers the option to insert a picture as a link to the filerather than embedding it in the document. This can be usefulwhen a presentation is not intended to be distributed elsewhere,
and where it will remain in the same hierarchical directory
structure. For example, it could be created on a notebook
computer, from which the presentation will be given to, typically,a group of clients.
If the presentation file is to be distributed, however, the picture
should be embedded to avoid the “missing picture” syndrome
when the presentation is finally given on a different computer.

Once the picture is inserted, you need to move it to the background. To
do that, while the picture is still selected, right click on the picture andselect Arrange > Send to Back from the context menu. You may alsoneed to reposition it and modify its size. To do that see Chapter 4(Adding and Formatting Pictures).

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates

37

Tip

If you want the image to blend with the background, you can set
the background color of the picture as transparent. Select the
picture, then chose Tools > Eyedropper from the menu bar.
Select the first checkbox and then move the mouse cursor on the
picture and click on the color you want to make transparent. This
color appears next to the checkbox. Make sure that Replacewith... is set to Transparent and click Replace.

Tip

An easy way to make the picture lighter so that the text stands
out better against its background, is to increase the transparencyof the picture or change the gamma. Both these adjustments canbe quickly made from the Picture toolbar.

In addition to pictures you can add a number of other backgroundobjects, for example decorative lines, text and shapes. Figure 22 is an
example of a slide master with a custom background gradient, abackground picture, another picture in the top right corner, somedecorative lines and some customized presentation styles.

Figure 22: Example of a complex slide with several
modifications

Slide master styles
Within the slide master you can define a complete set of styles thatdefine the default appearance of text and graphic objects inserted inslides based on such background. If for example your slide master has
38

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guidea dark background, you may want to set the font color of the title andtext areas to be light. Rather than manually changing the font color for
every new slide you create, a time consuming operation prone toerrors and omissions, all you have to do is to modify the style in theslide master. Changes made to the styles in the slide master only apply
to the slides based on such slide master.
Styles in Impress are sub-divided into two main categories:
Presentation styles and Graphics styles.

Presentation styles
Presentation styles affect three elements of a slide master: thebackground, background objects (such as icons, decorative lines, andtext 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.
The pre-packaged presentation styles can be modified, but newpresentation styles cannot be created.

Graphics styles
Graphics styles apply to lines, shapes and text boxes created using the
Impress drawing tools and define the formatting of such objects.
There are 15 pre-packaged graphic styles to choose from. You cancreate additional styles or modify the pre-packaged styles.

Note

The presence of text and title styles both in the Presentation andGraphics styles may seem confusing. This apparent duplication isdue to the fact that Impress facilitates the operation of adding
structured text to the slides by means of special text boxes where
the Presentation styles apply (Autolayout boxes). The title andother text styles in the Graphics styles group continue to apply toother text boxes you may want to add, or to the text associated toshapes or lines.

The Styles and Formatting window
To work on the slide master styles start by opening the Styles andFormatting window shown in Figure 23. You can do that either bypressing F11 or by selecting Format > Styles and Formatting fromthe main menu.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates39

Figure 23: Styles and Formatting window

Tip

At the bottom of the Styles and Formatting window is a dropdown list. You can choose to show all styles or other groups ofstyles, for example applied styles or (in the case of Graphics
styles), custom styles.

You can dock or undock the Styles and Formatting window by holding
down the Control key while double-clicking the top of the window
between the icons (see Figure 23). Press F11 to close the Styles andFormatting window when you do not need it: OpenOffice.org willremember its position the next time you re-open it.

Modifying default text areas
When a slide master is opened for editing, it contains five areas, as
shown in Figure 24:• Title area for AutoLayouts• Object area for AutoLayouts• Date area
• Footer area
• Slide number area

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Figure 24: Slide master showing five editable areas
Click with the left mouse button on any of these areas to display eightgreen squares (handles) around the rectangle. Use these handles tomodify the size and position of the area.
1) To change the position, move the mouse towards one of theedges, away from the green handles, until the cursor changes
shape1, then click the left mouse button and drag the area to thedesired position.
2) To modify the shape and size of one of the rectangular areas, use
one of the 8 green handles: the ones in the corners modify boththe sides of the rectangle simultaneously; the handles in the
middle of the sides modify only one dimension at a time. The
shape of the mouse cursor usually changes when over the handle,
giving a clear visual indication of how it will affect the shape ofthe rectangular area.

Tip

To keep the ratio between the sides of the rectangular area
constant, move the mouse to one of the 4 green handles at thecorner of the area and keep the Shift key pressed while dragging
the handle with the mouse.

To accurately control the shape and size as well as the position of thedefault text area, instead of using the mouse it is better to use the
1 The shape of the cursor to move and resize objects is operating system specific.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates

41

Position and Size dialog box. First select the rectangular area byclicking on any point inside it, then press F4 or choose Format >Position and Size. The dialog box shown in Figure 25 is displayed.

Figure 25: The Position and Size dialog box
The functions of this dialog box are explained in the Draw Guide, so
only a short description of the most important fields is provided in thischapter.
Use the Position section to specify the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical)
position of the rectangular area. The values represent the distance ofthe base point (selected on the right hand side) relative to the top left
corner of the slide.
Use the Size section to specify the width and height of the rectangulararea. Select in the Base point section the part of the rectangular area
you do not want to move while resizing. The default setting (top left
corner) means that the when resizing the area, the position of the top
left corner of the area will have not changed after resizing.
You can also use the Rotation tab of the dialog box to rotate the default
text area. For example, you can place the footer area on the side byrotating each text area by 90 degrees and obtain a modern-looking
layout. In general it is preferable to use only right angles for ease ofediting, although the program does not impose restrictions on thevalues that can be used.

Further modifications to the default text areas
Besides the shape, size and position, it is also possible to modify otheraspects of the 5 areas of the slide master, such as the background,
42

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guideborder, alignment relative to the slide, and position relative to otherobjects.
While the background style and line style of an area can be accessedfrom the Format menu, in order to access the Alignment and Arrange
menus you need to either open the Drawing toolbar or use the context
menu. To display the Drawing toolbar (Figure 26), select it inView > Toolbars; to open the context menu, right-click on the edge ofthe rectangular area after selecting it. On the Drawing toolbar, click
the arrow next to the Alignment or Arrange icon (highlighted in Figure26) to display choices. See the Draw Guide for details.

Figure 26: The Drawing toolbar
The date area and slide number area do not automatically appear on
every slide, even though you have defined them. In order to show
them, you need to close the Master View and select the desired fieldfrom the menu bar: Insert > Page number or Insert > Date andtime. This procedure is explained in detail in Chapter 8 (Adding andFormatting Slides, Notes, and Handouts).

Adding 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 aheader or a footer.
1) Choose View > Master > Slide Master from the menu bar.
2) On the Drawing toolbar (see Figure 26), select the Text icon.
3) Click once and drag in the master page to draw a text object, andthen type or paste your text into the object or add fields as
described below.
4) Choose View > Normal when you are finished.
To add a field, such as the date or page number, to a text object in theheader or footer, choose Insert > Fields. and select the required fieldfrom the submenu. If you want to edit a field in your slide, select it andchoose Edit > Fields.
The fields you can use in Impress are:
• Date (fixed).
• Date (variable) —updates automatically when you reload the file.
Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates43• Time (fixed).
• Time (variable)—updates automatically when you reload the file• Author—First and last names listed in the OpenOffice.org userdata.
• Page number (slide number).
• File name.

Tip

To change the number format (1,2,3 or a,b,c or i,ii,iii, etc.) forthe page number field, choose Format > Page and then select aformat from the list in the Layout Settings area.
To change the author information, go to Tools > Options >OpenOffice.org > User Data.

Working with styles in Impress
If you are familiar with styles in Writer, you will find both similarities
and differences in Impress. The presentation styles are similar toparagraph styles in Writer and are used in a very similar fashion. You
cannot create new presentation styles but you can fully configure theexisting ones. Note that, as with the Heading styles in Writer, theOutline styles are hierarchically linked, so that a change in the Outline
1 will cascade through all the other Outline levels.
In Impress you will also find the graphic styles very useful. They define
the characteristics of a graphic object (including a text object). If, forexample, you need to create a organization chart diagram in one of theslides of your presentation, you will likely want all of the boxes to havea consistent appearance, meaning the same line style, same font type,maybe the same shadow, and so on. The easiest way to achieve thisresult with the minimum effort is to create a graphic style for the boxes
and apply it to each box. The major benefit is that if later on you decideto modify, say, the background color of the boxes, all you need to do ismodify the style rather than each individual box.
Presentation styles are discussed in detail in Chapter 3 (Working withText). The use of graphic styles is covered in Chapter 6 (Formatting
Graphic Objects).

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Working with templates
All documents in OpenOffice.org (OOo) are based on templates.
However, Impress is a little different from other OOo components, inthat it starts with the Presentation Wizard unless you have elected toturn the Wizard off.
When you choose File > New > Presentation from the menu bar, if
the Presentation Wizard is active, the Wizard offers several choices fora new presentation, one of which is From template.
If you have turned the Presentation Wizard off, when you start a newpresentation by choosing File > New > Presentation from the menubar, OOo uses the default presentation template. If you have notdefined your own default template, OOo uses a blank template suppliedwith the program.

Using templates supplied with OOo
Impress comes with a set of predefined templates. Two are in the
Presentations folder and the others are in the Presentation
backgrounds folder. The difference between them is that“Presentation” templates include a series of slides with sample titles
and topics, while “Presentation background” templates have only
backgrounds and background objects. Both types have predefinedpresentation and graphics styles.
You can create a new presentation from a previously saved
presentation template by choosing File > New > Templates andDocuments from the menu bar. This opens the Templates andDocuments – Templates window. To open a new presentation based ona template, double-click that template’s name in the list.

Using templates from other sources
If you have created your own templates, or imported templates fromanother location, they are probably stored in the My Templates folder
in the Templates and Documents – Templates window. Templates
installed using the Extension Manager may be installed in their own
folders. You can use them in the same way as the templates installedwith Impress.
See page 50 for information on importing templates into OOo.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates

45

Installing templates using the Extension Manager
The Extension Manager provides an easy way to install collections oftemplates, graphics, macros, or other add-ins that have been“packaged” into files with a .OXT extension.
Although individual extensions can be found in different places, theofficial OpenOffice.org extension repository is at
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/. Some extensions are free ofcharge; others are available for a fee. Check the descriptions to see
what licenses and fees apply to the ones that interest you.
For more about the Extension Manager and some extensions ofinterest to Impress users, see Chapter 11 (Setting up and Customizing
Impress).
To install a collection of templates packaged as an extension:
1) Download the extension and save it anywhere on your computer.
2) In OOo, select Tools > Extension Manager from the menu bar.
In the Extension Manager dialog, click Add.
3) A file browser window opens. Find and select the extension you
want to install and click Open. The extension begins installing.
You may be asked to accept a license agreement.
4) When the installation is complete, the extension is listed in the
Extension Manager dialog.
The slide masters from the templates will now appear in the list of
Available Master Pages in the Tasks Pane (Figure 18).

Tip

To get extensions that are listed in the repository, you can open
the Extension Manager and click the Get more extensions
here link. You do not need to download them separately as instep 1 above. It is also advised that you use the Extension
Manager to check for any new Impress updates.

Creating your own templates
To create a template from a presentation:1) Open the presentation that you want to use for a template.
2) From the main menu, choose File > Templates > Save. The
Templates window opens (see Figure 27).
3) In the New template field, type a name for the new template.
4) In the Categories list, click the folder in which you want to store
the template. This is usually the My Templates folder, unless you
have created other folders.
46

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideTo learn more about template folders, see “Organizing templates”
on page 49.
5) Click OK. OOo saves the new template and the Templates windowcloses.

Figure 27. Saving a new template
Note

All the slide masters used in the template become available foruse in other presentations.

Setting a default template
You can set a custom presentation template to be the default template.
You can reset the default later if you choose. Following are instructions
about how to do this.

Setting a custom template as the default
You can set any template to be the default, as long as it is in one of thefolders displayed in the Template Management dialog box.
To set a custom template as the default:
1) From the main menu, choose File > Templates > Organize. The
Template Management dialog box (Figure 28) opens.
2) In the box on the left, double-click the folder containing thetemplate that you want to set as the default, then select the
template.
3) Click the Commands button.
4) From the drop-down menu, choose Set As Default Template.
The next time that you create a document by choosing File >New the document will be created from this template.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates

47

Figure 28. Template Management dialog box

Resetting the default to Impress’s built-in Default
template
To re-enable Impress’s Default presentation background template as
the default:
1) In the Template Management dialog box, in the box on the left,
click the Presentation Backgrounds folder.
2) Click the Commands button.
3) From the drop-down menu, choose Reset Default Template >Presentation.
Note

Use the instructions in this section only if you have customized
the presentation template.

Modifying a template
You can edit a template’s styles and content, and then, if you wish, you
can reapply the template’s styles to documents that were created fromthat template.
Note

You can only reapply styles. You cannot reapply content.

To edit a template:1) From the main menu, choose File > Templates > Edit. A
standard file browser window opens.
2) Find and select the template that you want to edit, and then click
Open. The selected template opens in Impress.
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3) Edit the template just as you would any other presentation. To
save your changes, choose File > Save from the main menu.
The next time that you open a presentation that was created from thechanged template, the following message appears.

Figure 29. Update styles message
Click Update Styles to apply the template’s changed styles to the
document. Click Keep Old Styles if you never want to apply the
template’s changed styles to the document. Whichever option you
choose, the message box closes and the presentation opens in Impress.

Organizing templates
OOo can only use templates that are in OOo template folders. You cancreate new OOo template folders and use them to organize yourtemplates. For example, you might have separate template folders fordifferent purposes or projects. You can also import and export
templates.
To begin, choose File > Templates > Organize from the main menu.
The Template Management dialog box (Figure 28) opens.
Note

All the actions made by the Commands button in the Template
Management window can be made as well by right-clicking on
the templates or the folders.

Creating a template folder
To create a template folder:1) In the Template Management dialog box, click any folder.
2) Click the Commands button and choose New from the dropdown menu. A new folder called Untitled appears.
3) Type a name for the new folder, and then press Enter. OOo saves
the folder with the name that you entered.

Chapter 2 Using Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates

49Deleting a template folder
You cannot delete the template folders supplied with OOo or installedusing the Extension Manager; you can only delete folders that you
have created.
To delete a template folder that you have created:
1) In the Template Management dialog box, select the folder thatyou want to delete.
2) Click the Commands button and choose Delete from the dropdown menu. A message box appears and asks you to confirm thedeletion. Click Yes.

Moving a template
To move a template from one template folder to another template
folder:1) In the Template Management dialog box, double-click the folderthat contains the template you want to move. A list of all thetemplates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder
name.
2) Click the template that you want to move and drag it to thedesired folder. If you do not have the authority to delete templates
from the source folder, this action copies the template instead ofmoving it.

Deleting a template
You cannot delete the templates supplied with OOo or installed using
the Extension Manager; you can only delete templates that you havecreated or imported.
To delete a template:1) In the Template Management dialog box, double-click the folderthat contains the template you want to delete. A list of all thetemplates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder
name.
2) Click the template that you want to delete.
3) Click the Commands button and choose Delete from the dropdown menu. A dialog box appears and asks you to confirm thedeletion. Click Yes.

Importing a template
If the template that you want to use is in a different location, you must
import it into an OOo template folder.
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To import a template into a template folder from another location on
your computer:1) In the Template Management dialog box, click the folder into
which you want to import the template.
2) Click the Commands button and choose Import Template fromthe drop-down menu. A standard file browser window opens.
3) Find and select the template that you want to import and click
Open. The file browser window closes and the template appears
in the selected template folder.
4) If you want, type a new name for the template, and then press
Enter.

Exporting a template
To export a template from a template folder to another location:1) In the Template Management dialog box, double-click the folderthat contains the template you want to export. A list of all thetemplates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder
name.
2) Click the template that you want to export.
3) Click the Commands button and choose Export Template. fromthe drop-down menu. The Save As window opens.
4) Find the folder into which you want to export the template andclick Save.

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3

Chapter
Adding and Formatting
TextIntroduction
This chapter describes the different ways to add text to slides andformat the text.
Text in slides is contained in text boxes.
There are two ways to add text boxes to a slide:• Choose a predefined layout from the Layouts section of the Taskspane, containing text elements as described in Chapter 1. These
text boxes are called AutoLayout text boxes.
• Create a text box using the text toolin the Drawing toolbar.

This chapter describes how to create, modify, use, and delete text
boxes; discusses the various types of text that can be inserted; andexplains how to format the text. It also provides information on how toinsert a numbered or bulleted list and a table, and how and when touse fields and hyperlinks.

Working with text boxes
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 anoutline, or a similar notation.
2) Type or paste your text in the text box.
These text boxes are known as AutoLayout text boxes. See also
“Creating bulleted and numbered lists” on page 69.

Using text boxes created from the text box tool
In Normal View:
1) Click on the Text iconon 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 notworry about the vertical size—the text box will expand if needed
as you type. To reposition the text box to a different part of theslide, see “Moving a text box” on page 54; to change thehorizontal size, see “Resizing a text box” on page 55.

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3) Release the mouse button when finished. The cursor appears in
the text box, which is now in edit mode (gray hashed border withgreen resizing handles shown in Figure 30).
4) Type or paste your text in the text box.
5) Click outside the text box to deselect it.

Figure 30: Selected text box showing thegreen resizing handles and text toolbar

Note

In addition to the normal text boxes where text is horizontallyaligned, it is possible to insert text boxes where the text isaligned vertically. This choice is available only when Asian
languages are enabled in Tools > Options > Language
Settings > Languages.
Click on theicon in the drawing toolbar to create a verticaltext box. Note that when editing the contents, the text is
displayed horizontally.

Moving a text box
In Normal view, notice how the pointer changes from an arrow to an Ibeam as you move it over the text in a text box.
1) Click when the pointer becomes an I-beam. The text box is now inedit mode. In this mode a gray border is visible around the text
box edges.
2) Move the I-beam (or pointer) over the gray border. Notice how itchanges shape, becoming a four-headed arrow (or a similar shapedepending on the operating system and user’s settings).

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3) When the four-headed arrow appears, click and drag to move thetext box. A semi-transparent copy of the text box shows where
your text box will be placed.
4) Release the mouse button when the text box is in the desired
position. This also causes the grey border to disappear and be
replaced by green resizing handles. To return to the edit mode,
click outside the text box area and then repeat step 1) of thisprocedure.

Resizing a text box
In Normal view, enter the edit mode by clicking on the text box, thenmove the mouse to the gray edge of the text box. When the cursor
shape changes, click the left mouse button again. The text box should
now display the green resizing handles. Move the pointer over any
handle. Notice how the pointer changes shape, indicating in what
direction the text box will be resized. The corner handles change thetwo dimensions of the text area simultaneously while the four handles
in the middle of the sides modify only one of the dimensions.
When the two-headed arrow is displayed, click and drag to resize thetext box.
Tip

To maintain the proportions of a text box while resizing, press
and hold the Shift key, then click and drag. Make sure to release
the mouse button before releasing the Shift key.

OOo also provides a different type of text box which resizes
horizontally to automatically fit the text as it is inserted. To insert anauto-resizing text box, click on theicon in the text toolbar (seeFigure 30) and then click on the place in the slide where you want thefirst letter of the text to appear. If the text toolbar is not visible, choose
View > Toolbars > Text.
For more accurate control over the shape, size and position of the text
box, instead of using the mouse, use the Position and Size dialog box.
Select the text box, then press F4 or select Format > Position andSize from the menu bar. The use of this dialog box is explained in
Chapter 2.

Deleting a text box1) Click the text once to display the gray border.

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55

2) Move the cursor to the edge of the text box and click the left
mouse button. The gray border disappears, leaving only the green
resizing handles.
3) Press Delete.

Tip

Sometimes it is faster to to delete a text box by dragging a
selection rectangle around the text box and then hitting the
Delete key. Take care to avoid selecting and accidentally deletingother text boxes or shapes.

Inserting text
Pasting text
Text may be inserted into the text box by copying it from anotherdocument and pasting it into Impress. However, the pasted text willprobably not match the formatting of the surrounding text or that of
the other slides in the presentation. This may be what you want onsome occasions, however in most cases you want to make sure that thepresentation style is consistent. 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
box 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 anormal text box.

Formatting pasted text
If pasting the text into an AutoLayout area, then to give the pasted
text the same look and feel of the rest of the presentation apply theappropriate outline style to the text. To do so:1) Paste the text in the desired position. Do not worry if it does notlook right: it will in a minute.
2) Select the text you have just pasted (see “Selecting text” on page
60 for details on how to do that).
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3) Select Format > Default formatting from the menu bar. This
operation will assign one of the nine Presentation styles to thetext (depending on where the insertion is made).
4) Use the four arrow buttons in the Text Formatting toolbar
to move the text to the appropriate position andgive 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 thelist entry by one level, the up and down arrow buttons move thelist entry.
5) Apply manual formatting as required to sections of the text (tochange 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 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 (see “Selecting text” on page
60 for details).
3) Select the desired graphic style.
4) Apply manual formatting as required to sections of the text.

Tip

Presentation styles are very different from Writer styles andare applied in quite a different way. Refer to ”Using styles
to format text on page 60 for details.

Inserting special characters
To insert special characters, such as copyright, math, geometric, ormonetary symbols, or characters from another language:
1) Click in the place in the text where you want to insert thecharacter.
2) Choose Insert > Special Character. The Special Characters
dialog box appears. See Figure 31. Alternatively if theicon isvisible, you can click this to bring up the Special Characters
dialog box.

Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text

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Tip

To show toolbar buttons that are not visible, click on the small
down-arrow on the right end of the tool bar, move the cursor
over Visible Buttons and then click on the icon you wish to
make visible.

3) Choose the font and character subset from the Font and Subset
drop-down menus.
4) Click the character you want to insert. You may have to scroll tofind the one you want.
5) Click OK.
Any character selected will inserted in the order they were selected. If
you accidentally click the wrong character, clicking another character
will only add it to the ones being inserted. Click Delete (all thecharacters selected will be deleted), then click the correct characters.
Alternatively, you can also go ahead and insert all the selectedcharacters and delete any unwanted ones from the document as
special characters behave like any other character.

Figure 31: Insert special characters dialog box

Inserting non-breaking spaces and hyphens
Where it is not desirable for words separated by a space or by ahyphen to span over two lines, or where an optional hyphen is desired,
you can insert a special formatting mark.
To access the Formatting marks options, select from the menu bar
Insert > Formatting marks. Impress supports three formatting
marks:• Non-breaking space: A non-breaking space between two words
prevents these two words being separated over two lines. Press
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Control+Shift+Spacebar on the keyboard to insert a nonbreaking space.
• Non-breaking hyphen: A non-breaking hyphen keeps the twowords separated by the hyphen on the same line.
• Optional hyphen: An invisible hyphen that is activated (thusbreaking the word) only when the word is too long to fit on one
line.

Introduction to formatting text
The appropriate use of text formatting can give a presentation a
consistent look and a dynamic feel, and it can even enhance theaudience’s understanding of your message by preventing distracting
elements.
When you enter text, either in an AutoLayout text box or in a normal
text box, it is formatted with a style, that is, with a set of predefined
attributes. The style used is the outline level of the point where thetext was entered for AutoLayout text boxes (for example, if you areentering a level 2 item, Impress will format it according to the Outline
2 presentation style) or the Default Graphic style for text boxes.

Tip

Sometimes, as seen also in the “Pasting text” section on page 56,
it is very useful to re-apply the baseline style to a selection oftext, thus eliminating any manual formatting applied to it(particularly if you made a mistake and you do not know how to
undo it). To do this, select the manually formatted text, and thenselect Format > Default formatting from the menu bar.

Broadly speaking, formatting text may require some intervention inthree areas:• The character attributes (for example the font color)• The paragraph attributes (for example the alignment)• The list attributes (for example the type of bullet)
In some cases it is quicker and more efficient to apply manual
formatting; but in situations where you need to perform the same
modifications to many different parts of the presentation, the use ofstyles is recommended. Both these techniques are described here.

Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text

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Note

Unlike in Writer, where it is recommended to try to use styles
whenever possible, in Impress manual formatting needs to be
used more often. This is because presentation styles are fixed;
therefore it is not possible, for example, to have two different
level 1’s or different types of bullet points for the same outline
level.
Also, the lack of support for character styles forces the use ofmanual formatting to modify sections of the text.

Selecting text
Text must be selected before it can be formatted.
• To format all the text in a text box, click once on the text, thenclick once on the border of the text box. Only the green resizing
handles are displayed. Now any formatting changes will apply to
all the text in the text box.
• To format only part of the text, click once on the text, then selectthe text to be formatted by clicking and dragging (highlighting)over it. You can also use keyboard combinations to select text:
move the cursor where you want to begin your selection, press
Shift and then use the arrow buttons to extend your selection.
Formatting changes will apply only to the selected text.

Tip

To select text word by word, instead of by character, press theControl key and Shift key together. To speed up the selection
even further, you can combine the Shift key with the Home keyor the End key to extend the selection up to the start or end of
the line in which the cursor is positioned, respectively.

Using styles to format text
Impress has two categories of styles: the presentation styles and thegraphics styles. Presentation styles are used on text inserted into an
AutoLayout area, slide master backgrounds, and background objects.
However, for text inserted in a text box or a graphic object, you need toapply a graphic style.
In this chapter we focus mostly on Presentation styles. For information
on graphic styles, see Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects).

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Modifying a presentation style
To modify a presentation style, follow these steps:
1) Open the Styles and Formatting window by pressing F11 or
selecting Format > Styles and Formatting from the menu bar.
2) Select the style category by clicking on either the Presentation
Styles icon
at the top of the Style and Formatting window.
3) Right-click on the style to be modified and select Modify from the
pop-up menu.
The top portion of the dialog box for a presentation style is shown in
Figure 32.

Figure 32: The dialog box for a presentation style
This dialog box consists of 14 pages, which can be divided in two
groups: those that determine the formatting of the text and those that
determine the properties of the slide master background and thebackground objects.
There is no difference between the parameters that characterize astyle and the attributes given manually to portions of text; in fact thepages that open when applying formatting manually are the same thatyou configure in the style dialog box. Therefore once you master theformatting of text, you will know how to create and modify a style. In
particular:• For the Font and Font Effects style pages, refer to “Formatting
characters” on page 62.
• For the Indents and Spacing, Alignment, and Tabs style pages,
refer to “Formatting paragraphs” on page 66.
• For the Bullet and numbering type, Graphics, Customize style
pages, refer to “Creating bulleted and numbered lists” on page69.
The other tabs of the Presentation Style dialog box are all related toformatting the background and background objects and are describedin detail in Chapter 6.

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Updating a style from a selection
To update a style from a selection:
1) Select an item that has the format you want to adopt as a style.
2) In the Styles and Formatting window, select the style you want to
update, and then click the Update Style icon (see Figure 33).

Figure 33. Updating a style from a selection

Applying a presentation style
To apply a presentation style, move the paragraph to the appropriate
outline level as described in “Changing the order of the outline levellines” on page 75—unlike in Writer, where you select the desired style
from the Styles and Formatting window.

Formatting characters
To view the character formatting options, select Format > Characteror click the Character buttonon the Text Formatting toolbar. (If atoolbar with the text icon is not visible, choose View > Toolbars >Text Formatting.) The Character dialog box appears. Note thatcharacter styles do not exist in Impress.

Font pageUse the Font page, shown in Figure 34, to select the desired font type,its base attributes (Italic, Bold, etc.) as well as the size. A sample of the
font is displayed in the lower part of the dialog box. You can also
specify the language of this style.

Tip

62

When writing a presentation in multiple languages, you canmake the best of the language setting by creating two styles that
only differ in the language but are otherwise the same. This
allows you to check the spelling of all of the contents without
affecting the appearance.

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

Figure 34: The dialog box to set the basic fontattributes
This page is available when creating or modifying a presentation styleor a graphics style.
If Asian language support has been enabled (Tools > Options >Language Settings > Languages), the Font page looks like
Figure 35.

Figure 35: The Font page when Asian language support
is enabled
The page is divided into three parts. The top and bottom parts have thesame functionality as described above, while in the middle part you
can specify the Asian text font and its attributes.
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Font Effects pageUse the Font Effects page, shown in Figure 36, to apply special effects
to the text, such as overlining and underlining, color, shadow and soon. As for the Font page, a sample of the text is displayed in the lower
part of the dialog box allowing a quick visual check of the effects
applied.
This page is available when creating or modifying a presentation styleor a graphics style.

Figure 36: Advanced options for the character can be set in
the Font Effects page

Position page
The Position page, shown in Figure 37, has advanced options tocustomize text. This page is not available when creating or modifying apresentation style or a graphics style.
Use this page to set the text position relative to the baseline when you
need to insert subscripts or superscripts.
To create a superscript or a subscript do the following:
1) Select Superscript or Subscript as applicable.
2) Specify the amount by which the text should be raised(superscripts) or lowered (subscripts).
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3) Specify the dimension of the character relative to the baselinecharacter size (in percentage).
The amount by which the text is raised or lowered can be set toautomatic by selecting Automatic.

Figure 37: Setting the character position attributes
Two more position attributes can be set on this page:• The (width) scaling of the text, which specifies the percentage ofthe font width by which to compress or expand the individual
characters of the selected text.
• The spacing between the characters of the font, which can be
defined in number of points. Selecting the Pair kerning
checkbox causes OOo to automatically adjust the spacing
between certain pairs of characters to visually improve theappearance. For example, when writing a V followed by an A (VA)
the spacing between the two letters is reduced (strong kerning)as can be easily seen when compared with, say, VS which is not akerning pair.

Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text

65Formatting paragraphs
To view the paragraph formatting options, select Format >Paragraph or click the Paragraph buttonon the Text Formatting
toolbar. If a toolbar with the text icon is not visible, choose View >Toolbars > Text Formatting. The Paragraph dialog box (Figure 38) isshown.
This dialog box contains three pages that are described in detail below.
If Asian language support has been activated, a page called Asian
Typography is also displayed.

Figure 38: The paragraph formatting dialog box

Indents and Spacing pageThe Indents and Spacing page, shown in Figure 39, has four sections:• Indent: modifies the indentation of the text (before and after) as
well as the indentation of the first line.
• Spacing: defines the space before and after each paragraphformatted with the style.
• Line spacing: determines the spacing between two lines
formatted with the style. Note that selecting Proportional spacing
requires specifying the percentage of a line to be used as spacing;
100% corresponds to a single line, 200% to a double line, 50% to
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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guidehalf a line. If Leading is selected, specify the amount of line
spacing in your default unit of measurement.
Tip

Setting the line spacing to less than 100% is a good method tocram a lot of text into a text box, however care must be taken as
too small a value will make the text hard to read.

Tip

You can change the default unit of measurement, for example
from inches to centimeters, from Tools > Options >OpenOffice.org Impress > General.

• Preview area: provides a visual representation of the settings

before you apply them.

Figure 39: Insert and Spacing settings for the selectedparagraph or style
The Indents and Spacing page is also available when creating or
modifying a graphics style or when modifying a presentation style.

Alignment pageUse the Alignment page to determine the text alignment: Left, Right,
Center, or Justified. A preview shows the effects of the changes.
The same choices can be accessed from the Text Formatting toolbar.
This page is also available when creating or modifying a graphics style,or modifying a presentation style.
Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text

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Figure 40: Alignment tab of paragraph style

Tabs pageUse the Tabs page, shown in Figure 41, to set tab stops. To delete one
existing tab stop, select it in the list and click the Delete button. To
delete all the tab stops, click the Delete All button.

Figure 41: Tabs page in a paragraphTo create a new tab stop:
1) Set the size of the tab stop in the edit box on the left.
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2) Select the type. If you set the type to Decimal, specify in the box
below the character to be considered the decimal point.
3) Select a fill character which will be drawn from the tab insertion
point up to the tab stop. You can choose any character to act as
fill character.
4) Click the New button to apply the new tab stop.
This page is available in the Format > Paragraph dialog box (seeFigure 38) and in the Graphics Styles dialog box.

Asian Typography pageUse the Asian Typography page, shown in Figure 42, to set thefollowing properties relative to line changes:• Apply list of forbidden characters to the beginning and end oflines• Allow hanging punctuation• Apply spacing between Asian, Latin and Complex text
The use of these options is self-explanatory.

Figure 42: The Asian Typography page

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), theoutline styles available are by default bulleted lists, while for normal
text boxes an additional step is required to create a bulleted list.

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Creating lists in AutoLayout text boxes
Every text box included in the available layouts is already formatted asa 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 default list type is a bulleted list. To customize the list appearance
or to change from bulleted to numbered and vice versa, refer to“Changing the appearance of the list ” on page 71.

Tip

Press Shift+Enter to start a new line without creating a newbullet or number. The new line will have the same indentation as
the previous line. Click the bullets icon on/off on the text
formatting toolbar for a line without bullet. If the text formatting
toolbar is not showing, enable it by selecting View > Toolbar >Formatting in the menu bar.

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 buttonin the text formatting toolbar.
3) Type the text and press Enter to start a new bulleted line.
The method to change the appearance of the list is explained on page
71.

Creating a new outline level1) If necessary, press Enter to begin a new line.
2) Press Tab or click the indentation arrows in the Text Formatting
toolbar. Each time you press Tab or click the right arrow,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 theprevious level, press Shift+Tab or click the left arrow.
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

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on. As a consequence, a change in the level also produces otherchanges (for example font size, bullet type, and so on).
Caution

Unlike styles in Writer, do not try to change the outline level by
selecting the text and then clicking the desired outline style. Dueto the way the presentation styles work, it is not possible toapply them in this way.

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 the changes
can be made using the Bullets and Numbering dialog box, which isaccessed by selecting Format > Bullets and Numbering or byclicking on the Bullets and Numbering icon
formatting toolbar.

on the text

Selecting the entries
For the entire list:
1) Select the entire list or click on the gray border of the text box sothat just 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 box (Figure 43) contains fivetabs: Bullets, Numbering type, Graphics, Position, and Customize.
•
If a bulleted list is needed, select the desired bullet style fromthe six 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 6 default
numbering styles on the Numbering type page.
Later in this section is an explanation on how to add further bullets
and numbering styles to the existing ones.
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 so be
Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text71

careful before using this command. The pages related to list
management are described below.

Figure 43: The Bullets and Numbering dialog box

Position pageUse the Position page, shown in Figure 44, to fine tune the indentationand spacing of the bullet point and its text. This page is particularly
effective when used in combination with the Customize page.
To set up an outline level, first select it from the list on the left handside of the page. Select level 1 – 10 to modify all the levels
simultaneously. Then set the Indent, which is the spacing between thebullet or number and the text. If you select the Relative option, theindent value will be measured relative to the previous level and notfrom the margin.
The numbering alignment is only useful when creating a numbered list;
use it to specify the alignment of the numbers. For example, you may
want to align them to the right to line up one- and two-digit numbers ina pleasing way.

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Figure 44: The Position page used to set list indentation

Tip

To fully appreciate how the Numbering alignment works, try tocreate a numbered list with more than 10 elements and makesure that enough room has been made for a two (or more) digit
number using the Width of numbering field.

The Position page is not available if you are modifying a presentationstyle or graphics style, however the same effects can be obtained byusing the Indents and Spacing page of the dialog box for creating or
modifying a slide (see Figure 39).

Customize pageUse the Customize page, shown in Figure 45, to alter the style of all
the outline levels.
The options available on this page depend on the type of marker
selected for the list. Select first the level you want to modify on the left
hand side of the box. To modify all levels at once, select 1 – 10 as thelevel. Because the levels are arranged in a hierarchical structure,changing for example the font attribute of one of the levels ripples
through all the lower levels.

Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text73

Figure 45: The Customize page for the list outline
Depending on the numbering style selected in the Numbering box(bullet, graphic, numbering), some of the following options become
available on the page:• Before: Enter any text to appear before the number (for example,
Step).
• After: Enter any text to appear after the number (for example, apunctuation mark).
• Color: Pick the color for the list marker (number or bullet
character).
• Relative size: Specify the size of the number relative to the sizeof the characters in the paragraph of the list.
• Start at: Enter the first value of the list (for example, you mightwant the list to start at 4 instead of 1).
• Character button: Click this button to select the character forthe bullet.
• Graphics selection button: Opens a gallery of available
graphics or allows the selection of a file on the hard disk to be
used as a marker.
• Width and Height: Specify the dimensions of the graphic
marker.
• Keep ratio checkbox: If selected, the ratio between the width
and the height of the graphic marker is fixed.
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The right hand side of the screen shows a preview of the modifications
made. To revert to the default values, click the Reset button in thebottom right corner.
Using the Customize page, you can create complex structured layouts,
for example a nested list with numbering followed by bullets, as in
Figure 46.

Figure 46: Nested list with mixture of numbers andbullets

Changing the order of the outline level lines
Click once in a line of text to place the cursor in it, then click on the
Outline tab (to the right of the Normal tab) in the Workspace and use
the Promote/Demote buttons in the Text Formatting toolbar to movethe 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 rightarrow button demotes the list entry by one level, the up and downarrow buttons move the list entry. Numbering adjusts automatically.
Tip

You can also use the Tab key and Shift + Tab keys to promoteand demote the outline level of a line in a list.

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Using tables
Tables are a powerful mechanism toconvey structured information quickly, sothey represent an important tool whencreating a presentation. You can createtables directly in Impress; there is no needto embed a Calc spreadsheet or a Writer
text table, although in some circumstances
it makes sense to do so as the functionality
provided by a Calc spreadsheet is far
superior to those provided by an Impress
table.
Many predefined table designs areavailable in the Table design section of thetask pane.

Creating a table
When working with tables it is beneficial
to know the number of rows and columns
needed as well as the look and feel. The
parameters can be adjusted later, but ismore laborious than setting the correcttable dimensions from the beginning.
Figure 47: The Table
To insert a table, proceed as follows:
Design task pane
1) Position the slide which will containthe table in the work area. If
necessary modify the slide layout in order to reserve the place forthe table.
2) If the task pane is already open select Table Design. If the task
pane is not visible, select View > Task pane, then select theTable Design task.
3) Select one of the predefined styles, which only differ in the color
scheme. You will be able to change the table colors later on,
however, it is recommended that you select a color scheme
similar to the one you want to obtain. Selecting a style opens the
dialog box of Figure 48 where you can specify the number of rows
and columns.

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Figure 48: Insert Table dialog box
The table is placed at the center of the slide, but you can move it byselecting it then dragging it in the new position or by using the method
described in “Position and size” on page 81.
You can also create a table directly by selecting Insert > Table fromthe main menu or with the Insert Table button in the Standard
toolbar. When using this method, the default style and settings areapplied to the newly created table. The use of the Insert Table button is
described more in detail later in this section.

Modifying a table
Once the table is added to the slide, you can control its appearance,
size, position and so on using a combination of the task pane options,the table toolbar and the Table properties dialog box.

Task pane options
The following options are available in the Show section of the taskpane:
• Header Row: selected by default, it adds a first row with adifferent background from the rest of the table.
• Total Row: the opposite of Header row, if selected changes the
background of the last row to make it stand out from the otherrows.
• Banded Rows: selected by default, this option colors alternate
rows with different backgrounds making it easier to ready data
presented in rows.
• First Column: highlights the first column of the table by allocating
a darker background to it.
• Last Column: same as first column, only applied to the lastcolumn.
• Banded Columns: when selected, alternate columns are coloreddifferently.

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Table toolbar
When a table is selected (you can tell by the presence of 8 blue square
handles around the edges), the Table toolbar should be displayed. If
necessary, you can open the toolbar using View > Toolbars > Table.
By default the toolbar will float, but you can at any time dock it to theside or top of the work area.

1 Create Table

7 Merge Cells

13 Insert Row

2 Line Style

8 Split Cells

14 Insert Column

3 Line Color (border)

9 Optimize

15 Delete Row

4 Borders

10 Top alignment

16 Delete Column

5 Area style filling

11 Center alignment

17 Table design

6 Available fillings

12 Bottom alignment

18 Table properties

Figure 49: The Table Toolbar
The Table toolbar contains the majority of the tools you need tomanipulate a table; these are described below.
Table
Use to create a new table on the selected slide. Opens the Insert
Table dialog box where you can select the desired number of rows
and columns. Click on the small black triangle next to the button to
open the graphic tool for inserting a table. To use the tool, move themouse to the right and down in the grid until you reach the cell you
want to be the last and click there.

Figure 50: Creating a 5x4 tablewith the graphic tool78

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideNote

Any newly inserted table is given a set of default attributes suchas color scheme, banded rows, header row and so on. Currently
such defaults are hard coded in OOo and cannot be changed.

Line Style
Use to change the style of the line of the selected cells. Opens a new
dialog box where you can choose from a range of predefined styles.
Line Color
Open a color swatch dialog box where you can select the color of thelines for the selected cells.
Borders
Use to select among some predefined border configurations. The
borders are applied to the selected cells. If the desired borderpattern is not available, you will need to use the Table properties
dialog box.
Area filling
Choose first in the drop-down menu how the selected cells should be
filled: Invisible, Color, Gradient, Hatching, or Bitmap. Depending on
the selection, the Available Fillings drop-down menu is populatedwith the available schemes. Refer to Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic
Objects) for details on how to manage area filling styles.
Merge cells
Merges the selected cells. Note that the contents of the merged cells
are also merged.
Split cells
The opposite operation of Merge cells. Make sure that the cursor ispositioned on the cell you want to split, then click to open the Split
Cells dialog box.

Figure 51: Split cell dialog box
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Select the number of resulting cells from the split as well as whether
the cell should be split horizontally or vertically. When splitting
horizontally, you can select the “into equal proportions” option to get
all cells of equal size. The contents of the split cell are kept in theoriginal cell.
Optimize
Evenly distributes the selected cells either horizontally or vertically.
If you want to optimize the whole table, you can evenly distributerows or columns by right-clicking on the table edge and selecting
Row > Space Equally or Column > Space Equally from the popup menu.
Vertical Alignment
You can select the vertical alignment of the text on a cell by cellbasis between Top, Center and Bottom. The chosen setting only
applies to the selected cells. The alignment commands can beapplied to all the cells of the table by right-clicking on the edge ofthe table, choosing Cell from the pop-up menu, and then choosing
the required alignment.
Insert or delete rows and columns
Use the Table toolbar to insert or delete rows and columns of yourtable. Rows and columns are inserted below and to the right of theselected cell. You can insert rows and columns at the end of thetable using the pop up menu that opens by right clicking on the edgeof the table. The insert commands are under the Row or under the
Column menu.
Table Design
The only purpose of this button is to open the Table Design pane in
the task pane.

Table properties
Click the Table Properties icon to open the Format Cells dialog box,
which contains the following pages:• Font: see “Font page” on page 62 for a description of the available

options.
• Font Effects: see “Font Effects page” on page 64 for a descriptionof the available options.

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Figure 52: The Format Cells dialog box showing the Borders page
• Borders: here you can set advanced properties not available fromthe Table Toolbar, such as the spacing between the text and theborder as well as setting the style of each individual border of thetable separately. This page also provides the same options as theline style, line color buttons of the Table Toolbar.
Note

Note that is currently not possible to define diagonal borders for
Impress tables.

• Background: changes the background of the selected cells andprovides the same functionality as the Area Style Filling and
Available Filling drop down menus of the Table Toolbar.
Note

The Table Properties dialog box can also be accessed from the
pop-up menu that opens when right-clicking on the table.

Position and size
Tables are treated in Impress just like any other graphic object; it istherefore possible to modify their position on the slide as well as theirsize either using the mouse or, for more accurate control, with the
Position and size dialog box. You can open the dialog box by pressing
F4 when the table is selected or by right-clicking on the table and thenselecting Position and Size from the pop-up menu. The functionalities
provided in this dialog are described in Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic
Objects).
Note

Unlike other graphic objects, it is not possible to rotate a table.

Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text

81Deleting a table
To delete a table, select it and then press the Delete key on the
keyboard.

Using fields
Fields allow the insertion of text automatically in the slide. Rather thantext, think of a field as a kind of formula which is calculated when the
document is loaded or printed, where the result of the formula iswritten to the document. Fields are commonly used when creating
templates and slide masters, as explained in Chapter 2. Examples offields include: date/time, slide number, file name and author.

Inserting a field
To insert a field in a slide, move the cursor where the field will be andthen select from the menu bar Insert > Fields followed by one ofthese choices:• Date (fixed): inserts the date at time of inserting the field.
• Date (variable): upon loading the file, the field is updated andcontains the date at the time of opening the file.
• Time (fixed): a field displaying the time of insertion.
• Time (Variable): a field which is updated at time of opening thefile.
• Author: The author of the presentation. This information isderived from the value recorded in the general options. To modify
this information go to Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org
section then select User Data.
• Page number: inserts the page number of the slide.
• File name: a field with the name of the file.
By default, the fields are displayed with a gray background. To remove
the shading, go to View in the menu bar and deselect Field Shading;alternatively, press Control+F8.

Customizing fields
The appearance of all the fields, excluding the page number field, canbe customized from the corresponding field editor. To access the fieldeditor (Figure 53):
1) Move the cursor to the field and select it.
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2) Select Edit > Fields from the menu bar.
3) Select the desired format in the dialog box that appears.
4) Click OK when satisfied.
Tip

A similar list of format choices can be accessed by selecting thefield and right-clicking.

Figure 53: Setting the Time format for a time field
Modifications to the page number fields can be done in two different
ways:• Select the field and apply the formatting manually.
• Switch to the slide master editing mode (View > Master > Slide
Master), then modify the Background object style as desired.
Once back in Normal view, insert the page numbers from theInsert > Page Number box. See Chapter 2 for more information
about editing a slide master.

Using hyperlinks
When inserting text (such as a website address or URL) that can beused as a hyperlink, Impress formats it automatically, creating thehyperlink and applying to the text a color and underlining. If you do
not want Impress to do that, select Edit > Undo Insert from the menu
bar or press Control+Z immediately after the formatting has been
applied.
You can also insert hyperlinks manually.

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Tips

To prevent OOo from automatically turning website addresses(URLs) into hyperlinks, go to Tools > AutoCorrect > Options
and deselect the URL Recognition checkbox.
To change the color of hyperlinks, go to Tools > Options >OpenOffice.org > Appearance, scroll to Unvisited links and/orVisited links, select the checkboxes, pick the new colors andclick OK. Caution: this will change the color for all hyperlinks inall components of OpenOffice.org—this may not be what you
want.

To insert a hyperlink, or to customize the appearance of a hyperlink,select Insert > Hyperlinks from the menu bar. The dialog box shownin Figure 54 opens.

Figure 54: Dialog box to edit hyperlinks
On the left hand side, select one of the four types of hyperlinks:• Internet: a web address, normally starting with http://• Mail & News: for example an email address.
• Document: the hyperlink points to another document or toanother place, commonly referred to as a bookmark, in thepresentation.
• New document: the hyperlink creates a new document.
The top right part of the dialog box changes according to the choicemade for the hyperlink type. A full description of all the choices, andtheir interactions, is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here is asummary of the most common choices used in presentations:84

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide• For an Internet type hyperlink, choose the type of hyperlink(choose between Web, FTP or Telnet), and enter the required web
address (URL).
• For a Mail and News type hyperlink, specify whether it is a mailor news link, the receiver address and for email, also the subject.
• For a Document type hyperlink, specify the document path (theOpen File button opens a file browser); leave this blank if you
want to link to a target in the same presentation. Optionallyspecify the target in the document (for example a specific slide).
Click on the Target icon to open the Navigator where you canselect the target, or if you know the name of the target, you cantype it into the box. Note that for navigation within a presentation
it is generally better to use the object interaction menu that you
can find either in the Drawing toolbar or in the pop-up menu that
opens when right clicking on an object.
• For a New Document type hyperlink, specify whether to edit the
newly created document immediately or just create it (Edit later)
and the type of document to create (text, spreadsheet, etc.). For apresentation, Edit now is the more likely choice. The Selectpath button opens a directory picker.
The Further settings section in the bottom right part of the dialog box
is common to all the hyperlink types, although some choices are more
relevant to some types of links.
• Set the value of Frame to determine how the hyperlink will open.
This applies to documents that open in a Web browser.
• Form specifies if the link is to be presented as text or as a button.
See “Working with hyperlink buttons” for more information.
• Text specifies the text that will be visible to the user.
• Name is applicable to HTML documents. It specifies text that will
be added as a NAME attribute in the HTML code behind thehyperlink.
• Event button: this button will be activated to allow OOo to react
to events for which the user has written some code (macro). Thisfunction is not normally needed in Impress.

Editing text hyperlinks
To edit a text hyperlink, select it (by dragging across the text, notclicking on it), then choose Edit > Hyperlink from the main menu bar.
Make changes as needed and click Apply when done. If you need toedit several hyperlinks, you can leave the Hyperlink dialog box open
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85

until you have edited all of them. Be sure to click Apply after each one.
When you are finished, click Close.

Working with hyperlink buttons
A hyperlink button is inserted in the center of the current slide.
In most cases, that is not where you want it to appear. To edit
the text or size of a hyperlink button, or to move it to anotherplace on the slide, first display the Form Controls toolbar (View> Toolbars > Form Controls). Select the Design Mode
On/Off icon (upper right corner of the toolbar).
Now you can click on the button and drag it to anotherposition, or right-click to open a dialog box where you canchange the text on the button, the size of the button, and otherproperties.
When you have finished editing the button, click the Design
Mode On/Off icon again to make the button active again. For adetailed description of the button properties and on how to work with
Form Controls refer to the Writer Guide.

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4

Chapter
Adding and Formatting
Pictures

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 55: Slide with automatic layout including
a placeholder for graphic object

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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 56: 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)

Chapter 4 Adding and Formatting Pictures89• 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 57 shows an example.
90

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide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 94.

Figure 57. 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 58). 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.
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91

Figure 58: The Gallery with the Hide/Show selector
circledManaging 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 or add new themes as
explained on page 93.

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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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 59).
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.

Chapter 4 Adding and Formatting Pictures93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 59. 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 88.

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.
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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 60: Shape showing
the red rotating handles
Chapter 4 Adding and Formatting Pictures95

do that, click on the crosshair and drag it to the desired position
before applying the rotation, as shown in Figure 60.

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 60. 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 61: 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 62: The
The toolbar will expand to show the icons in graphic filters
Figure 62.
available in Impress
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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.

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97

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 63.
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 63: 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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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 61). A set of crop marks appears around thepicture (see Figure 64).

Figure 64: 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 65) 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.

Chapter 4 Adding and Formatting Pictures99

Figure 65: 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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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 66: The dialog box to create image maps. The
last ‘o’ is set as an active hotspot
Chapter 4 Adding and Formatting Pictures

101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

102

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.

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

5

ChapterManaging Graphic
Objects
Moving, rotating, distorting, and positioning
objects; animations; Fontwork

Introduction
This chapter describes how to manage graphic objects and inparticular how to rotate, distort, arrange, and position them on theslide. Though this chapter focuses on the shapes that can be createdwith the available tools in Impress, some of the techniques describedin this chapter are also applicable to images imported into slides.
The Drawing toolbar contains the majority of the tools normally used tocreate graphic objects. If this toolbar is not showing, select View >Toolbars > Drawing from the main menu bar.
The toolbar can be divided into two parts. The first part contains
drawing objects, as shown in Figure 67. The second part of the toolbar,
shown in Figure 69 on page 106, contains more generic tools.

1 Select
2 Line3 Arrow

4 Rectangle
5 Ellipse
6 Text7 Vertical text
8 Curve
9 Connector

10 Basic shapes
11 Symbol shapes
12 Block arrows

13 Flowcharts
14 Callouts
15 Stars

Figure 67: First section of Drawing toolbar
The tools in the first part of the Drawing toolbar are:• Select: selects objects. To select a group of objects, click on the
top left object and, drag the mouse to the bottom right object of
the intended selection while keeping the mouse button pressed. A“marching ants” rectangle identifying the selection area isdisplayed. It is also possible to select several objects by pressing
the Shift button while selecting the individual objects.
• Line: draws a straight line from the point where you click themouse, to the point where you drag the mouse pointer andrelease the mouse button. Press the Shift key to restrict the angleof the line to multiples of 30°; use the Control key to detach theend point of the line from the grid (see “Snapping objects to gridor snap guides“ on page 116).
• Arrow: draws a straight line ending with an arrowhead. The
arrowhead is placed where you release the mouse button. The
Shift and Control keys have the same effect as for the Line tool.

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•
•
•

•

top left to the bottom right corner. Press the Shift button to draw
a square.
Ellipse: draws an ellipse. Press the Shift button to draw a circle.
Text: creates a text box with text aligned horizontally.
Vertical text: creates a text box with text aligned vertically. This
tool is available only when Asian language support has beenenabled in Tools > Options > Language Settings >Languages.
Curve: draws a curve. Click the black triangle formore options. Note that the title of the submenu
when undocked is Lines.

• Connectors: draws a connector line between two

figures. Click the black triangle for additional
connectors. Their use is described in “Working withconnectors“ on page 119.

• Basic Shapes, Symbol Shapes, Block Arrows, Flowcharts,

Callouts, Stars: click the black triangle to open a toolbar
showing the available shapes in that category. The default shapes
are shown in Figure 68. Select the desired shape, then draw it bydragging the mouse to define an enclosing rectangle. Keep the
Shift key pressed to obtain a shape where the height and width
are equal.

Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

105Figure 68: Available shapes for Impress

1 Edit Points
2 Glue Points
3 Fontwork

4 From File
5 Gallery
6 Rotate

7 Alignment
8 Arrange
9 Extrusion On/Off

10 Interaction
11 Visible buttons

Figure 69: The second section of the drawing toolbar with utility tools
The tools in the second part of the Drawing toolbar are:• Edit points: to edit the individual points that form the shape orline, select this tool, and then select a shape or a line.
• Glue points: to edit the glue points of a graphic object, selectthis tool. Glue points are the positions where connector lines
terminate or start. See “Managing glue points” on page 120 for
instructions.
• Fontwork: opens the Fontwork gallery. See “Using Fontwork” onpage 127 for further information.
• From file: equivalent to Insert > Picture > From file on themain menu. See Chapter 4 for details.
• Gallery: opens the gallery. Equivalent to Tools > Gallery on themain menu. See Chapter 4 for details.
• Rotate: select this tool to rotate an object. As rotation isconsidered a formatting attribute; this is discussed in chapter 6 ofthis book.
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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide• Align object: see “Aligning shapes“ on page 116.
• Arrange object: see “Arranging shapes“ on page 119.
• Extrusion On/Off: switches 3D effects on or off for the selected

object. Clicking this button also opens the 3D settings toolbar.
See “Working with 3D shapes” on page 121 for details.
• Interaction: opens a dialog box where you can specify theinteraction between the user and the object. See “Setting up
interaction with a shape” on page 124.
• Visible buttons: use the black triangle on the far right of thetoolbar to open a menu from which you can add or subtract
buttons on the toolbar. See Chapter 1 (Introducing Impress) for
more information.

Creating lines and shapes
To create shapes and lines:
1) Select the desired line or shapetool.
2) Click and drag to create theobject on the slide.
When drawing a freehand polygon (thatis, when you create a shape segment bysegment), keep the Shift key pressed to
Figure 70: Creating a shape
restrict the angle between thesegments to multiples of 45 degrees. To finish drawing a polygon,
double-click on the last part of the segment. If a closed polygon was
selected, OOo draws the line connecting the last point to the startpoint and fills the inside area with the default color.
When drawing certain shapes, one or more yellow dots are displayed
along with the green resizing handles. These dots perform a different
function according to the shape they are applied to. With the basic
shapes the yellow dot (or dots) is used for the following purposes:• Rounded rectangle and Rounded square shapes: use the yellow
dot to change the size of the curve replacing the corners.
• Circle Pie: use the two yellow dots to change the size of the filled
sector.
• Isosceles triangle: move the yellow dot on one vertex to modify
the triangle type.
• Trapezoid, Parallelogram, or Octagon: move the yellow dot tochange the angle between the sides.
Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

107• Cross: use the yellow dot to change the thickness of the four
•
•
•
•
•

sides.
Ring: use the yellow dot to change the internal diameter.
Block arc: use the yellow dot to change both the internal diameterand the size of the filled area.
Cylinder and Cube: use the yellow dot to change the perspective.
Folded corner: use the yellow dot to change the size of the corner.
Frame: use the yellow dot to change the internal rectangle
diagonal.

Grouping shapes together
It is often convenient to group shapes together so that they are treatedas a single shape by Impress. A group of shapes can be formatted as if
it was a single shape, moved, rotated, deleted and so on. To groupshapes together, do as follows:
1) Select the shapes to be grouped. To do this, use the selection toolon the drawing toolbar and draw a rectangle around the shapes tobe grouped, or click on each shape to be added to the group whilepressing the Shift key.
2) When the green resizing handles show, select Format > Group >Group or press Control+Shift+G on the keyboard.
Once the group is defined, click on any of the shapes in the group to
select the group. To edit only the shapes in the group, press F3 when
the group is selected or select Format > Group > Enter group fromthe menu bar. Notice that any shapes not part of the group are grayedout and that only the shapes belonging to the group can be edited. Use
this function when you need to apply a particular format to a single
member of the group. To exit from group mode, press Control+F3 orselect Format > Group > Group from the menu bar.
For more about working with grouped objects, see Chapter 5(Combining Multiple Objects) in the Draw Guide.
To ungroup objects:
1) Select the group of shapes.
2) When the green resizing handles show, select Format > Group >Ungroup from the menu bar.

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If you use the group and ungroup commands often, why not add
them to one of the toolbars shown by default so that thecommands are readily available? To do so, you will need tocustomize the selected toolbar. See Chapter 12 of the Getting
Started guide.

Moving graphic objects
1) Click the graphic object, if necessary, to show the green resizing
handles.
2) Move the pointer over the graphic object until the pointerchanges shape. On most operating systems, the cursor associatedwith moving objects is a four-headed arrow, but it may also be ahand or some other symbol.
3) Click and drag the graphic object to the desired position (you canalso use the arrow keys).
4) Release the mouse button.

Tip

By default Impress makes the objects snap to the grid. If you
need to position the object between two points of the grid, holddown the Control key, then click on the object and move it to thedesired position.
Alternatively, you can modify the grid resolution from Tools >Options > OpenOffice.org Impress > Grid.

For a more accurate placement of the graphic object, use the Position
and Size dialog box shown in Figure 71. First select the graphic object
by clicking on it; when the resizing green handles are displayed, eitherpress F4 or select Format > Position and Size from the menu bar.
Use the Position section of the dialog box to specify the X (horizontal)
and Y (vertical) position of the graphic object. The values represent the
distance of the base point (selected on the right hand side of the
dialog box) relative to the top left corner of the slide.
To prevent accidental modification of the position of the graphic object,select the Position option in the Protect section (bottom left) of the
dialog box.
The unit of measurement for this and the other dialog boxes in thissection is set in Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Impress >General.

Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

109Figure 71: Fine adjustment of position and size of thegraphic object

Resizing graphic objects
1) Click the graphic object 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.
3) Click and drag to resize the graphic object.
4) Release the mouse button to complete resizing.
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 (Figure 71). Select as the base point the part of thegraphic object that you would like to anchor to the page. The default
setting (top left corner) means that the when resizing, the position of
the top left corner of the object will not change. Now modify either the
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Width value or the Height value of the object. To maintain the
proportions between width and height, select the Keep ratio option
before modifying any value. When Keep ratio is selected, changes to
one of the dimension result in automatic changes to the other.
To prevent accidental modifications of the size, make sure that theSize option is selected in the Protect section in the bottom left part ofthe dialog box.

Applying special effects
Besides the basic actions of moving and resizing an object, a number of
special effects can also be applied to the objects in Impress. Several ofthese effects are readily available in the Mode toolbar. If the Mode
toolbar is not showing, select it from View > Toolbars > Mode.

1 Rotate

4 Set in Circle (perspective)

7 Transparency

2 Flip5 Set to Circle (slant)

8 Gradient

3 In 3D Rotation Object

6 Distort

Figure 72: Mode toolbar
This section describes how to rotate, flip, distort and two ways ofsetting an object in a circle. The transparency and gradient tools thatare more specific to formatting are discussed in Chapter 6.

Rotating graphic objects, Rotation of an object can be carried out manually or using a
dedicated dialog box, just like changing object position and size. To
rotate a graphic manually:
1) Select the graphic object if necessary so that the green handles
show around it.
2) Click the Rotate button
toolbar.
Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

in the Drawing toolbar or in the Mode

111

Note

The icons representing the functions in the toolbars are different
depending on the operating system used and on whether OOo
has been customized for the Linux distribution in use or not.
When in doubt, hover the mouse over the icons and wait for thetooltip to appear showing the name of the button. The tooltip forthe sub-toolbar containing the Rotate function is Effects.

3) Eight red handles replace the green square handles, as shown in
Figure 73. Move the mouse over one of the corner handles andthe mouse cursor shape will change. Click the mouse and move inthe direction in which you want to rotate the graphic object.
4) When satisfied release the mouse button.

Figure 73: Shape showing the red rotating handles. Only
the corner ones are active. The black crosshair indicatesthe rotation pivot.
At step 2) a black crosshair with a circle 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 even around a point outside thepicture; to do that, click on the crosshair and drag it to the desired
position.
To restrict the rotation angles to multiples of 15 degrees, press the
Shift key while rotating the graphic. This is very handy for rotating
pictures through a right angle, for example from portrait to landscapeor back.
Instead of rotating a graphic object manually, you can use the
Rotation dialog box shown in Figure 74. To display this dialog box,
select the graphic object so that the green resizing handles are shown,then press F4 or select Format > Position and Size and select the
Rotation page.
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Figure 74: The Rotation page of the Position and Sizedialog box
In the upper part of the dialog box, select the position of the pivot
point relative to the top left corner of the page. The default position of
the pivot point is the center of the figure.
In the lower part of the dialog box select the angle by which to rotate
the graphic object. To the right of the Angle text box, 8 default rotation
values can be easily selected.

Flip an object
Select an object and click on the Flip icon
. You will
see a dashed line through the middle of the object.
This dashed line is the axis of symmetry. The object
will be reflected about this line. Move one or both endsof the line with your mouse to set the orientation of theaxis.
Then, grab any one of the eight green handles and moveit across to the other side of the dashed line. The newposition of the figure is shown faintly until the mouse isreleased.

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113

Note

If you press the Shift key while moving the line, the line will
rotate in 45-degree increments.

Mirror copies
This useful command does not exist in Draw or Impress. It can,however, be easily emulated.
Move the axis of symmetry to the desired location of the mirror axis.
Copy the object to the clipboard. Flip the object, then click on an
empty area of the page in order to deselect the object. Paste from the
clipboard to put a copy of the object in its original location and now
you have a mirror copy.

Figure 75: Making a mirror copy of an object

Distorting an image
Three tools on the Mode toolbar let you drag the corners and edges ofan object to distort the image.
The Distort tool distorts an object in perspective, the Set to Circle(slant) and Set in Circle (perspective) tools both create a pseudo
three-dimensional effect. In all three cases you are initially asked if you
want to transform the object to a curve. This is a necessary first step,
so click Yes. Then you can move the object handles to produce thedesired effect.
The results of using these tools are shown in the following figures.

Distort an object
Select an object and click on the Distort icon . After converting to a
curve as requested, move the handles to stretch the object.
The corner handles distort, as shown in Figure 76. The vertical
midpoint handles distort the figure horizontally and the horizontal ones
distort it vertically.
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Figure 76: Distort an image

Set in circle (perspective)
Select an object and click on the Set in Circle (perspective)
icon.
After converting to a curve , move the object handles to give a pseudo
three-dimensional perspective).

Figure 77: Set an image in a circle with perspective

Set to circle (slant)
Select an object and click on the Set to Circle (slant)
icon. After
converting to a curve, move the object handles to give a pseudo threedimensional slant perspective.

Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

115Figure 78: Set an image to a circle with slant perspective
NoteTransforming an object into a curve is a safe operation, but it
cannot be reversed other than by clicking the Undo button.

Aligning shapes
Use the alignment tools to adjust the relative position ofa graphic object compared to another object. Clicking
on the arrow beside the Alignment icon in the Drawing
toolbar opens the extended toolbar. The same alignment
options are available from the right-click menu.
The toolbar has six icons. The first three determine thehorizontal alignment of the selected objects (Left,
Center, Right); the other three determine the vertical alignment of theselected objects (Top, Middle, Bottom). If only one object is selected, it
is aligned to the page; however when several objects are selected
together, single objects are aligned to the group selection border.

Snapping objects to grid or snap guides
Sometimes it is important to align objects to specific points of the pageor to make sure that objects that appear on multiple slides are placedin exactly the same position. For this purpose Impress provides two
mechanisms: the Grid and the Snap Guides (also called Snap Lines).

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Using the grid
Options for the grid are available in the menu that opens by rightclicking on an empty part of the page in Normal view and choosing
Grid or by selecting View > Grid from the menu bar. In both cases a
submenu with three options opens:• Visible Grid: displays the grid.
• Snap to Grid: the anchor points of an object will always beplaced on a grid when the object is moved or resized.
• Grid to Front: displays the grid in the foreground.
To set up the grid spacing and snapping options, choose Tools >Options > OpenOffice.org Impress > Grid from the menu bar.

Using snap guides
Options for the guides are available in the menu that opens by clicking
on an empty part of the page in Normal view and choosing Snap Linesor by selecting View > Guides from the menu bar. A submenu withthree options opens:• Display Guides (Snap Lines Visible): the guides are shown on
the slide.
• Snap to Guides (Snap to Snap Lines): the anchor points of theobjects snap to the guides when the object is moved or resized.
• Guides to Front (Snap Lines to Front): the guides are brought
to the foreground and cover the objects.
Note

The main menu uses the term Guides, but the pop-up menu
refers to Snap Lines.

To create a new guide:
1) Right-click on an empty part of the work area and select Insert
Snap Point/Line from the pop-up menu.
2) In the dialog box that appears, specify the type (Point, Verticalline, or Horizontal line).
3) Depending on the choice made, the two edit fields X and Y
become active; enter the position of the guide.
4) Click OK to close the dialog box.
Tip

When positioning the Snap Guides, it is useful to display therulers. To do so, select View > Rulers.

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Tip

Drag a Snap Guide directly onto the slide by clicking on the ruler
and then dragging onto the slide.

To edit a guide:
1) Right-click next to or on the guide to be edited.
2) Select Edit Snap line from the pop-up menu.
3) Enter the new value (or values) and click OK.
To delete a guide:
1) Right-click next or on the guide to be deleted.
2) Choose Delete Snap line from the pop-up menu.
Figure 79 shows the three types of guides, the grid on a slide, and the
dialog box to create a new guide.

Figure 79: Gridline, snap lines, and snap point on a slide

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Arranging shapes
Arrange determines the stacking order of theselected object. Draw and Impress organize objects
in a stack so that the objects on a high level of thestack cover the objects on lower levels if overlapping
occurs. To modify the position of an object in thestack, click the small triangle on the side of the
Arrange icon to open the extended toolbar. The samearrange options described below are available fromthe right-click menu.
The first four tools determine the position of the selected object:• Bring to front: the selected object is moved on top of any otherobject.
• Bring forward: the selected object is moved one level up in thestack.
• Send backwards: the selected object is moved one level down inthe stack.
• Send to back: the selected object is given the lowest position in
the stack.
The other three tools determine the relative positions of the selected
object and of a second selected object:• In front of object: brings the first selected object in front of thesecond selected object.
• Behind object: brings the first selected object behind the second
selected object.
• Reverse: swaps the stacking order of two selected objects.
To use the In front of object and Behind object tools:
1) Select the first object by clicking on it.
2) When the green handles show, select the desired arrange action.
3) The mouse pointer changes to a pointing hand. Click on thesecond object.

Working with connectors
Connectors are lines that can be anchored to particular places, called
glue points, on the graphic object. The advantage of connectors is thatwhen the graphic object to which the connector is attached is moved or
resized, the connector automatically adjusts to the change. When
Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

119creating a flowchart, org chart, schematics or diagrams, it is highly
recommended to use connectors instead of simple lines.
Impress offers a wide variety of predefined connectors, which differ inthe termination shape (none, arrow, custom) and in the way theconnector is drawn (straight, line, curved).
When a connector is drawn or selected Impress displays red handles
which are not shown for normal lines; in particular, the termination
points are identified by red circles, while square handles are used tomodify the routing of a connector (where applicable).
Draw a connector in a similar way to drawing any object. First selectthe connector style from the Connector toolbar, then move the mouse
cursor over one of the objects to be connected. When the cursor is over
the object, small black crosses appear around it; these represent theglue points to which the connector can be attached. Click on therequired glue point to attach one end of the connector, then hold themouse button down and drag the connector to the second object. Whenthe cursor is over the glue point of the target object release the mousebutton.
For instructions on how to format a connector, refer to thecorresponding section in Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects).

Managing glue points
As described above, a glue point is the point of attachment for aconnector to a shape or graphic object. Each shape has a number ofpredefined glue points, but it is possible to define new ones as well as
edit them, using the Gluepoints toolbar.

1
1 Insert point
2 Exit left
3 Exit top

2 3 4 5
4 Exit right
5 Exit bottom
6 Relative

6

7 8 9 10 11 12

7 Horizontal left
8 Horizontal center
9 Horizontal right

10 Vertical left
11 Vertical top
12 Vertical right

Figure 80: The Gluepoints toolbar
Use the first tool to insert a new glue point. The next four tools
determine the exit direction of the connector terminating at the glue
point. To maintain the relative position of the glue point when resizing
the object, make sure that the Glue point relative icon (highlighted in
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Figure 80) is selected. Deselecting the Glue point relative icon
activates the remaining six icons on the toolbar; use these to fix theposition of the glue point during the resizing of the object. Hover themouse over the buttons to obtain a tooltip giving a short description of
its function.
To delete a custom glue point, select it with the mouse and press theDelete key.
Setting custom glue points is particularly useful where multiple
connectors terminate on the same side of a shape or where the default
glue point position is not satisfactory.
To move a predefined or newly inserted glue point:
1) Select the glue point tool from the drawing toolbar (see Figure69).
2) Click on the glue point you want to move. The glue point should
now be highlighted.
3) Keep the mouse button pressed and drag the glue point to thedesired position. Release the mouse button.

Tip

Glue points are placed by default on the grid (see “Snapping
objects to grid or snap guides“ on page 116 for information),
however it is sometimes necessary to fine tune the position of
the glue point depending on the shape. To do this, keep theControl key pressed while dragging the glue point to the newposition.

Working with 3D shapes
3D graphic objects can be created in different ways in Impress:• From the 3D-Objects toolbar. The 3D-Objects tool
is not included in the default Drawing toolbar. To
include it, click on the small triangle at the end of
the toolbar, select Visible Buttons, and select
3D-Objects from the list. On the Drawing
toolbar, click on the triangle by the 3D-Objects
icon to display the extended 3D Objects toolbar.
• From the Convert sub-menu. Select a shape, right-click on it andin the Convert sub menu choose either To 3D to add thickness tothe object or To 3D Rotation Object to create a 3D shaperesulting from the rotation of the object around an axis.

Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

121• From the Extrusion on/off icon on the drawing toolbar. Selectthe shape to which apply a 3D effect, then click thethe Drawing toolbar (see Figure 81).

Cautionbutton on

You can not apply extrusion to rectangular and oval shapes
created by using the rectangle or oval tools. Instead, select thedesired shape from the basic shapes menu to create a rectangle
or oval with 3D effects. Alternatively, right-click on the object,then select Convert > To 3D. Note that in this case theExtrusion on/off menu will not be enabled.

Although Impress offers advanced functions to manipulate 3D objects,
this book describes only the 3D settings applicable to an object with
Extrusion enabled. For additional information on how to use advanced
3D effects such as geometry and shading, refer to the Draw Guide.
Click onto activate the extrusion. The shape changes and a default
thickness is added to it. At the same time the 3D-Settings toolbar
should become visible. If the toolbar does not appear, select View >Toolbars > 3D-Settings.

Figure 81: The 3D-Settings toolbar
Use the tools to change the appearance of the 3D object.
Extrusion On/Off: adds thickness to an object and activates the
3D properties.
Tilt Down: tilts the object downwards around an horizontal axis.
Tilt Up: tilts the object up around an horizontal axis.
Tilt Left: tilts the object left around a vertical axis.
Tilt Right: tilts the object right around a vertical axis.
Depth: determines the thickness of the shape. An extended
toolbar opens where some default values are given. If none ofthem is satisfactory, select Custom and then enter the desired
thickness.
Direction: opens an extended toolbar that lets you pick thedirection of the perspective as well as the type (parallel orperspective)..

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Lighting: opens an extended toolbar that lets you specify the
direction and intensity of light.
Surface: choose between Wire frame (useful when manipulating
the object), Matt, Plastic or Metal.
3D Color: select the color of the object thickness.
Most of the Fontwork shapes (see “Using
Fontwork” on page 127) have 3D properties
and can be manipulated with the 3D-Settings
toolbar.
Note that when rotating a 3D object, in
addition to the corner red handles, four
handles on the sides of the frame become
available.
Figure 82 is an example of a customized 3D
object.

Figure 82: Example of
3D object

Converting an object to a different type
You can convert an object into a different type. Right-click on theobject and select Convert to display a menu containing the following
options:• To Curve: converts the selected object to a Bézier curve. Choose
Edit Points to edit the Bézier curve.
• To Polygon: converts the selected object to a polygon. After theconversion choose Edit Points to edit the shape. A polygon always
consists of straight segments.
• To Contour: for basic shapes, this is equivalent to converting topolygon. For more complex shapes (or for text objects) thisconversion creates a group of polygons that you can thenmanipulate by pressing F3 to enter the group.
• Convert to 3D: converts the selected object to a threedimensional (3D) object.
• Convert to 3D Rotation Object: creates a three-dimensional
shape by rotating the selected object around its vertical axis.
• To Bitmap: converts the selected object to a bitmap.
• To metafile: converts the selected object to Windows Metafile
Format (WMF), containing both bitmap and vector graphic data.

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123

Note

In most cases the conversion to a different type does notproduce immediately visible results.

Setting up interaction with a shape
You can associate a shape or an image with some action to be
performed when the user clicks on it. To create an interaction:
1) Select the graphic object for which an interaction will be created.
2) When the green handles show, select from the Drawing toolbar(Figure 69) the Interaction button
or right-click on theobject and select Interaction from the pop-up menu.
3) The dialog box shown in Figure 83 is displayed. Select theinteraction type and the parameters (if applicable). Click OK toclose the dialog box.
To remove an interaction from a graphic object follow steps 1–3, above,taking care to select No action as the interaction type at step 3.
The possible actions and their parameters are described in Table 2.

Figure 83: Dialog box to set the interaction with a graphic object
Table 2: Interactions and their parameters
Interaction type

Parameters

Go to Previous slide

No parameters.

Go to Next slide

No parameters.

Go to First slide

No parameters.

Go to Last slide

No parameters.

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Interaction type

Parameters

Go to Page or Object

Specify the target from the list in the Target box.
You can search for a specific target in theDocument box at the bottom of the screen.

Go to Document

Select the document in the Document box. Use
the Browse button to open a file picker dialog
box. If the document to be opened is in OpenDocument Presentation format, the target list will
be populated allowing the selection of the specifictarget in the document.

Play soundSelect the file containing the sound to be played.
Use the Browse button to open a file picker dialogbox.

Run program

Select the program to execute. Use the Browse
button to locate it.

Run Macro

Select a macro that will run during thepresentation. Use the Browse button to open themacro browser dialog box.

Exit presentation

When the mouse is clicked over the graphic
object, the presentation will terminate.

Animating images
An animated image consists of asequence of images (frames)that are displayed in succession.
Each frame may contain one or
multiple drawing objects. To
start creating a custom
animated image, open the
Animation dialog box from
Insert > Animated Image.

Creating an animation
Several mechanisms can be used
to create an animated image.
This chapter describes only twoof them, which should be
sufficient to understand thefunctions offered.

Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

Figure 84: The Animation dialog box
125Frame by frame animation
1) Create the image you intend to animate using the drawing tools.
2) Select the image and click the Apply Object
button. This
copies the object (or objects) into the upper part of the Animation
dialog box.
3) Apply some desired transformation to the object: for example,
rotate it or change the color; if you are animating text, add or
subtract a letter and so on.
4) When you are ready, create the second frame of the animationand click the Apply Object button again.
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have created all the desired framesof the animation.
6) Select Bitmap object in the Animation group section of theAnimator dialog box. This allows you to customize the timing ofeach of the frames and the number of repetitions for the
animation (set the value to Max to obtain an infinite loop).
7) Click Create to place the animated image on the slide.

Note

If the image to be copied in the Animator consists of several
objects, you can choose to treat each object as a separate frame.
In this case click the Apply objects individually button.
Remember that each object will be centered in the animation.

Animated image in one step
For some simple animations it is possible to create all the animation
frames in advance, and place them on the slide. This method works
well for a rotating line, a shape gradually changing color, shapes
increasing or decreasing size. In most of these occasions it isconvenient to use the Edit > Duplicate command.
When all the frames are already prepared, use the Apply objects
individuallyto create one frame for each of the objects.
It is easy to obtain for example a rotating line segment:
1) Draw a fairly thick horizontal segment (use Format > Line or
the Line and Filling toolbar to add thickness).
2) Open the Duplicate dialog box by selecting Edit > Duplicate andset the number of copies to 5, the X and Y axis to 0.1, the angle to30, the enlargement width and height to 0, and press the OK
button.

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3) Select the 6 segments created by Impress and open the Animator(Insert > Animated image from the main menu bar).
4) On the Animator dialog box, click Apply objects individually.
5) Select Bitmap object in the lower part of the dialog box,
6) Create a new empty slide to contain your animation, then click
the Create button.

Other functions of the Animator
You can review the animation at any time by clicking the Play button
as well as navigate the various frames using the other controls
available.
If you are not satisfied with a particular frame, you can remove it. To
do so:
1) Navigate to the frame by using the Image Number box with thespin buttons (just to the right of the play controls).
2) Click the Delete current image button.

You can also delete the whole animation by clicking the Delete all
images button.
Tip

If you want to work on the animation frames a bit more, you cancopy them into the Impress work area by selecting Groupobject and then clicking Create.

Tip

Since all the objects are centered in the animation window, toanimate an object off the center of the image, create a blankrectangle of the same size of the final image and select it alongwith the object to be animated. Make sure that Group object isselected before clicking the Apply object button.

Using Fontwork
Use Fontwork to obtain special text effects. For more about this topic,
see Chapter 11 (Graphics, the Gallery, and Fontwork) in the Getting
Started guide.
To start using Fontwork:
1) Open the Fontwork Gallery by clicking theicon on the
Drawing toolbar (see Figure 69) or on the Fontwork toolbar (seeFigure 87). If the Drawing toolbar is not showing, you can go
Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

127directly to the Fontwork toolbar by selecting View > Toolbars >Fontwork from the main menu bar.
2) Select from the Fontwork Gallery (Figure 85) the preferred styleand click OK. You can modify it later, so pick one providing aneffect similar to the desired one. The text Fontwork in theselected style appears on the slide.

Figure 85: The Fontwork gallery3) Double-click the object to edit the Fontwork text. Type your own
text in place of the black Fontwork that appears over the object(Figure 86).
4) Press the Esc key or click outside the area with the green resizing
handles to exit.

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Figure 86. Editing Fontwork text
Now that the Fontwork object is created, you can edit some of its
attributes. To do this, you can use the Fontwork toolbar or otheroptions as described in the next section.

Using the Fontwork toolbar
Make sure that the Fontwork toolbar, shown in Figure 87, is visible on
the workspace. If not, select View > Toolbars > Fontwork from themain menu bar.

Figure 87: The Fontwork toolbar
In addition to the Fontwork Gallery icon, this toolbar contains thefollowing icons:
Fontwork shape: to change the shape of the selected object,choose a shape from the extended toolbar.

Chapter 5 Managing Graphic Objects

129Fontwork Same Letter Heights: Changes the height ofcharacters in the object. Toggles between normal height (somecharacters taller than others, for example capital letters, d, h, l andothers) and all letters the same height.

Figure 88. Left: normal letters; right:
same letter heights
Fontwork Alignment: specify the alignment of
the text within the frame from the choices available.
The effects of the text alignment can only beappreciated if the text spans over two or more lines.
In the Stretch Justify mode all the lines are filled
completely.

Fontwork Character Spacing: select thedesired spacing and whether kerning pairs should
be used. For custom spacing, input a percentage
value: 100% is normal spacing; less than 100% istight spacing; more than 100% is expanded
spacing.

Modifying Fontwork text as a shape
It is possible to treat Fontwork text as a shape and therefore to apply
to it all the formatting that has been described in this chapter. Assign
line properties only to Fontwork which does not have a 3D effect,otherwise the changes will not be visible.
Tip

130

Change the Fontwork color quickly using the Area fill color
swatch on the Line and Filling toolbar.

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideIn the same way as it is possible to modify the angles of Trapezoids andParallelogram basic shape by moving the yellow dot that is displayed
along with the green resizing handles, it is possible to modify some of
the Fontwork shapes.

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131

6

ChapterFormatting Graphic
Objects

Formatting objects
This chapter describes how to format the graphic objects created withthe available drawing tools.
The formatting of each graphic object, in addition to its size, rotationand position on the slide, is determined by a number of attributes thatdefine the line, text and area fill of each object. These attributes(among others) also contribute to form a graphics style. Although thischapter discusses the formatting when applied manually to an object,
at the end of this chapter you will be shown how to create, apply,
modify and delete graphics styles.

Formatting lines
In Openoffice.org the term line indicates both a freestanding segment
and the outer edge of a shape. In most cases the properties of the line
you can modify are its style (solid, dashed, invisible, and so on), its
width and its color. All these options can be applied with a few clicks ofthe mouse. Select the line you need to format and then use the controlson the Line and Filling toolbar to select your desired options.

Figure 89: Common line options (style, width, color) highlighted
If you need to fine tune the appearance of a line, choose Format >Line from the menu bar, or right-click on the line and select Line fromthe pop-up menu, or select the Line icon from the Line and Filling
toolbar. These methods open the Line dialog box shown in Figure 90,
where you can set all the properties of the line at once.
The dialog box consists of four pages: Line, Line Styles, Shadow, andArrow Styles.

General line settings
The Line tab is where you can set the basic parameters of the line andis subdivided into four parts:
The Line Properties section (left side) is the most important. It includes
the following parameters:• Line style: a variety of line styles is available in the drop-down
list, but more can be defined if needed.
Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

133Figure 90: Main line formatting dialog box• Color: choose among the predefined colors or refer to “Adding

custom colors” on page 143 to create a new one.
• Width: specifies the thickness of the line.
• Transparency: sets the transparency value of the line, a usefulproperty when you do not want to hide the backgroundcompletely. Figure 91 illustrates the effects on a line of different
degrees of transparency.

Figure 91: The vertical lines have different levelsof transparency (0%, 25%, and 50%).
The Arrow styles section of this page is only applicable to line
segments; it has no effect on the line that forms the border of a shapeor of a polygon. Use this section to set the styles of the two ends of thesegment. You can configure the two ends independently, selecting foreach of them the arrow shape (Style drop-down menu), the Width, andthe termination style (Center option). Selecting the Center option
moves the center of the arrowheads to the end point of the line. Figure
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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide92 shows the effects of selecting this option. To make the two ends
identical, select the Synchronize ends option. To create newarrowheads, use the Arrow styles page, as described in the following
section.

Figure 92: Default arrowheads (left)
vs centered arrowheads (right)
The Corner style section of this page determines how the connection
between two segments should look. There are four available options in
the drop-down menu. To appreciate the difference between cornerstyles, choose a thick line style and observe how the preview changes.
The bottom part of the page previews the applied style for a single line
and two different corners so that the corner style choice can bequickly evaluated.
A faster way to set the arrowheads fora selected line is to click on the Arrow
Style
icon in the Line andFilling toolbar (Figure 89). This opens
the Arrowheads menu, where you canchoose one of the many predefinedarrowhead styles for the start andtermination of the selected segment.

Figure 93: Arrowheads menu

Creating line styles
Use the Line Styles page of the Line dialog box to create new line
styles as well as to load previously saved line styles. Normally it is nota good practice to modify the predefined styles; instead, create newones when necessary.
Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

135Figure 94: Advanced options for creating line styles
To create a new line style:1) Choose Format > Line from the menu bar.
2) Click on the Line Styles tab.
3) Select from the Line style drop-down menu a style similar to thedesired one.
4) Click Add. On the pop-up dialog box, type a name for the new line
style and click OK.
5) Now define the new style. Start by selecting the line type for the
new style. To alternate two line types (for example, dashes anddots) within a single line, select different types in the two Typeboxes.
6) Specify the number and length (not available for dot style) of eachof the types of line selected, set the spacing between the various
elements, and decide if the style should fit to the line width(length).
The new line style is available only in the current document. If you
want to reuse the line style in other presentations, click the Save Line
Styles icon
and type a memorable name. This saves all of the line
styles in this presentation. (Saved styles have a file extension of .sod.)

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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideTo make previously saved line styles available in the current
presentation, click the Load Line Styles icon, select the saved list of
styles, and click Open.
Use the Modify button to change the name of the style.

Creating arrow styles
Use the third page of the Line dialog box to create new arrow styles
such as the ones in the figure below, modify existing arrow styles, orload previously saved arrow styles.

1) First draw a curve with the shape you want for the arrowhead.

Note

The arrowhead must be a curve. A curve is something you could
draw without lifting a pencil. For example,
is a curve but
isnot a curve. You can however draw shapes which are not curves
and then at the end convert them to a curve.

The top part of the shape will point in the direction of the line. In
Figure 95 the corner at the top of the shape will point towards the“outside” of the line.

Figure 95: To create your own
arrowhead, first draw a curve.
2) Select the curve. With the resizing handles showing, selectFormat > Line from the menu bar, or right-click and choose Line
from the pop-up menu.
3) Go to the Arrow styles page (Figure 96), click the Add button,
type a name for the new arrow style, and click OK.
4) Now you can access the new style from the Arrow style list. Whenyou select the name of the new style, it is shown at the bottom of
the dialog box.

Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

137Figure 96: Advanced options for creating arrow styles

Line shadow
Use the Shadow page of the Line dialog to add and format the line
shadow. The settings on this page are the same as those for shadows
applied to other objects and are described in “Formatting shadows” onpage 151.
A faster way to apply a shadow to the line is using the last button of
the Line and Filling toolbar of Figure 89. The main disadvantage ofusing the toolbar button is that the shadow appearance will
constrained by the shadow settings of the default graphics style.

Formatting the fill area
The term area fill refers to theinside of an object, which canbe a uniform color, a gradient,a hatching pattern, or animage. An area fill can be madepartly or wholly transparent
and can throw a shadow.
Figure 97: Different types of area fill

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The Line and Filling toolbar has the majority of the tools normally used
to format graphic objects. If this toolbar is not showing, choose View >Toolbars >Line and Filling from the menu bar. You can also use theArea dialog box, described on page 141.

Figure 98: Common fill options
To format the area of an object, select it so that the green resizing
handles show. A wide number of default fillings are readily available
from the Line and Filling toolbar. Select first from the pull-down menu
to the right of the paint can icon the type of fill. If you want no fill atall, select Invisible.

Once you have decided on a predefined or custom fill, you can further
refine it by adding a shadow or transparency.

Uniform color
Select the object you wish to edit. On the Line and Filling toolbar,
select Color on the pull down list at the right of the paint can, andthen choose a color from the drop-down menu.

Figure 99: Filling with a color

Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

139Fill with a gradient
A gradient fill provides a smooth transition from one color to another.
The transition pattern may vary from a simple linear transition to amore complex radial transition.
Select the object you wish to edit. On the Line and Filling toolbar,
select Gradient and then choose a gradient from the drop-down menu.

Figure 100: Filling with a gradientFill with a line pattern (hatching)Select the object you wish to edit. On the Line and Filling toolbar,
select Hatching and then choose a hatching fill from the drop-downmenu. A hatching fill is applied throughout the area.

Figure 101: Filling with a line pattern

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Fill with an image
You can fill an object only with a bitmap image (as opposed to a vector
graphic image). Select the object you wish to edit. On the Line andFilling toolbar, select Bitmap and then choose a bitmap fill from thedrop-down menu.

Figure 102: Filling with an image

Using the Area dialog box
In addition to using the Line and Filling toolbar, you can use the Area
dialog box to apply existing fills and create your own. To open it,
choose Format > Area from the menu bar, or click on the paint bucket
icon on the Line and Filling toolbar, or right-click on the object andselect Area.

Figure 103: Area page of the area formatting dialog box
Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

141Use the Area tab to apply predefined fills, both those supplied with
OOo and those you create yourself. Use the Colors, Gradients,
Hatching, and Bitmaps tabs to define new fills, as described in“Creating new area fills” on page 143. The Transparency tab is
discussed on page 152. To make the object cast a shadow, see page151.
To apply an area fill, first select in the top left drop-down list therequired fill type. The page changes to show in the middle section thelist of predefined styles for that fill type.
Note

In the Area dialog box, the choice for no fill is None rather thanInvisible.

When using the Area tab of the Area dialog box, some additional
options may become available once you have selected the fill type andone of the available fill styles.
• For gradient fills, you can override the number of steps(increments) that should be applied to the transition from one
color to the other. To do so, select Gradient on the Area tab anddeselect the Automatic option under Increments. Then enter thenumber of steps required in the box to the right.

• For hatching, you can apply a different background color by

selecting the Background color option and choosing a color
from the drop-down list.

• For bitmaps, you can customize a large number of parameters.

Refer to “Working with bitmap fills” on page 147 for additional
information.

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Creating new area fills
The following sections describe how to create new fills and how toapply them.
Althugh you can change the characteristics of an existing fill and thenclick the Modify button, it is recommended that you create new fills or
modify custom fills rather than the predefined ones, as these may bereset when updating OpenOffice.org.

Adding custom colors
On the Colors page, shown in Figure 104, you can modify existingcolors or create your own.

Figure 104: A custom color has been added to the list
You can specify a new color either as a combination of the three
primary colors Red, Green, and Blue, (hence the notation RGB) or by
the percentage of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK notation).
To create a new color:
1) Enter the name for the color in the Name box.
2) Select whether to define the color in RGB or CMYK. For RGB
Specify the red, green and blue component on a 0 to 255 scale.
For CMYK specify the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black (K)components, from 0% to 100%.
3) Click the Add button. The color is now added to the list on the
Area page.
Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

143To modify a color:
1) Select the color to modify from the list.
2) Enter the new values that define the color (if necessary change
the settings between RGB and CMYK).
3) Modify the name as required.
4) Click the Modify button.
Alternatively, use the Edit button (this will open a new dialog box),
modify the color components as required and click OK to exit the
dialog box.
Use the Load and Save buttons in the dialog to use a different color
palette or to save your own custom colors.
More details on working with color palettes can be found in Chapter 8.

Tip

You can also add custom colors using Tools > Options >OpenOffice.org > Colors. This method makes the color
available to all components of OOo, whereas colors createdusing Format > Area > Colors are only available for Impress.

Creating gradients
To create a new gradient or to modify an existing one, select theGradients tab from the Area dialog box. Several types of gradients arepredefined and in most cases changing the From and To colors will be
sufficient to obtain the desired result.

Figure 105: The Gradients page of the Area dialog box
144

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideIt is highly recommended that you create a new gradient even if you
just want to change the two colors, rather than modifying thepredefined ones, which should be used only as starting points.
To create a new gradient:
1) First choose the From and To colors.

Figure 106: Gradient transition color
selection2) Then choose a type of gradient from the list: Linear, Axial, Radial,
Ellipsoid, Square or Rectangular.
A preview of the gradient type is shown under the available
gradients list in the middle of the dialog box. Figure 105 shows anexample.

Figure 107: Center option in a radial gradient3) Depending on the chosen type some options will be grayed out.
Set all the properties as desired (very often the default values will
work well). The properties to set to create a gradient aresummarized in Table 3.
4) Click the Add button to add the newly created gradient to the list.
Tip

The newly created gradients remain available to all the OOo
components and also for future presentations. It pays to givethem a memorable name.

Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

145Table 3: Gradient properties
Property

Meaning

Center X

For Radial, Ellipsoid, Square and Rectangular gradients,
modify these values to set the horizontal offset of thegradient center.

Center Y

For Radial, Ellipsoid, Square and Rectangular gradients,
modify these values to set the vertical offset of the gradientcenter.

Angle

Specifies for all the gradient types the angle of the gradientaxis.

BorderIncrease this value to make the gradient start further awayfrom the border of the shapeFrom

Set here the start color for the gradient. In the edit box
below enter the intensity of the color: 0% corresponds toblack, 100% to the full color.

To

Set here the end color for the gradient. In the edit box below
enter the intensity of the color: 0% corresponds to black,
100% to the full color.

Creating hatching patterns
You can create new hatching patterns or modify existing ones. Start by
selecting the Hatching tab of the Area dialog box.

Figure 108: The Hatching tab of the Area fill dialog box

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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideAs with gradients and colors, it is better to create a new pattern
rather than modify a predefined one.
To do so:1) Select as a starting point a pattern similar to the one that will becreated..
2) Modify the properties of the lines forming the pattern. A preview
is displayed in the window below the available patterns.
3) Click the Add button and choose a name for the newly createdhatching.
The properties that can be set for a hatching pattern are shown in
Table 4.
Table 4: Properties of hatching patterns
Property

Meaning

Spacing

Determines the spacing between two lines of the pattern.
As the value is changed the preview window is updated.

Angle

Use the mini map below the numerical value to quickly set
the angle formed by the line to multiples of 45 degrees. If
the required angle is not a multiple of 45 degrees, justenter the desired value in the edit box.

Line typeSet single, double or triple line for the style of the pattern.

Line color

Use the list to select the color of the lines that will form thepattern.

Working with bitmap fills
On the Area tab, chose Bitmap from the drop-down list. Select from thelist of bitmaps the one to be used to fill the area. Note that any
imported bitmaps will become available in the list.
Set the size, position and offset parameters (as applicable) in the righthand side of the page, and then click OK to close the dialog box.
As Figure 109 shows, there are quite a number of parameters to be
configured when using a bitmap fill. These are described in Table 5.

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147

Figure 109: Advanced formatting for bitmap fill
Table 5: Bitmap fill properties
Property

Meaning

Size – Original

Select this box to retain the original size of thebitmap.

Size – Relative

To rescale the object deselect the Original option andselect this one. The Width and Height edit boxes areenabled.

Size – Width

When Relative is selected 100% means that thebitmap original width will be resized to occupy thewhole fill area width, 50% means that the width of
the bitmap will be half that of the fill area.

Size – Height

When Relative is selected 100% means that thebitmap original height will be resized to occupy thewhole fill area height, 50% means that the height ofthe bitmap will be half that of the fill area.

Position – Anchor
Map

Select from the map the place of the area where thebitmap should be anchored to.

Position – Tile

When this option is selected the bitmap will be tiled
to fill the area. The size of the bitmap used for thetiling is determined by the Size settings.

Position – X offset

When Tile is enabled, enter in this box the offset for
the width of the bitmap in percentage values. 50%
offset means that at the anchor point of the bitmap
OOo will place the middle part of the bitmap andstart tiling from there.

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Property

Meaning

Position – Y offset

This will have the same effect of the X offset, but will
work on the height of the bitmap.

Position – Autofit

Stretches the bitmap to fill the whole area. Selecting
this option disables all the size settings.

Offset – Row

If Tile is enabled offsets the rows of tiled bitmaps by
the percentage entered in the box so that two
subsequent rows are not aligned.

Offset – Column

If Tile is enabled, offsets the columns of tiled bitmaps
by the percentage entered in the box so that two
subsequent columns of bitmaps are not aligned.

To better understand these parameters, the best way is to use them.
Figure 110 shows some examples of bitmap fills and the parameters
used.

Figure 110: Examples of bitmap fill

Chapter 6 Formatting Graphic Objects

149Creating and importing bitmaps
You can add (import) new bitmap fills or create your own pattern on a
8x8 grid, using the Bitmaps tab of the Area dialog box (shown in
Figure 111).
To create a bitmap fill:
1) Start with the Blank bitmap type on top of the list to activate thePattern editor.
2) Select the Foreground and Background colors.
3) Start creating the pattern by clicking with the left mouse button
the squares (pixels) that you want to be painted in the foregroundcolor. Use the right mouse button to apply the background color.
Check the preview window to see if the desired effect is achieved.
4) When done, click Add to save the pattern.

Figure 111: The Bitmaps page of the Area fill dialog box.
To import a bitmap created in Draw or another program:
1) Click the Import button.
2) A file picker dialog box is displayed. Browse to the directory
containing the bitmap file and select it, then click Open.
3) Type a name for the imported bitmap and click OK.

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Bitmaps generally have an extension .bmp or .png. To create abitmap image with Draw, select File > Export, choose PNG
from the pull-down list of file formats, give the file a name, andsave it.

Formatting shadows
Shadowing can be applied to both lines and areas. To apply a shadow
to an area, first select the object to which shadowing should beapplied, then select Format > Area.
Shadows can also be applied to lines. One way is to click the Shadow
iconon the Line and Filling toolbar (the last tool on the right-handend). The other way is to apply a style to the line that uses a shadow(see “Working with graphics styles” on page 158 for additional
information on using styles).
Using the first method, you cannot customize the shadow; it is applied
according to the default settings. The second method offers theopportunity to configure the shadow properties.
The dialog box to customize a shadow is shown in Figure 112.

Figure 112: Dialog box for customizing the shadowing ofgraphic objects
When the Use shadow option is selected, the following parameters
can be set:
• Position: the selected point in the mini map determines the
direction in which the shadow is cast.
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151• Distance: determines the distance between the object and the

shadow.
• Color: sets the color of the shadow.
• Transparency: determines the amount of transparency for the
shadow.
Tip

When the transparency value is set above 0%, the shadow does
not completely hide the objects below. This produces a pleasantvisual effect, as shown in Figure 113.

Figure 113: Shadows with different levels oftransparency

Transparency formatting
Transparency is applicable to lines and areas as well as shadows. To
apply transparency to lines, refer to “Formatting lines” on page 133;for shadows, refer to “Formatting shadows” above.
To apply transparency to areas, select Format > Area and then go to
the Transparency page shown in Figure 114.

Figure 114: Setting the object transparency
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There are two types of transparency: uniform transparency andgradient transparency. To obtain uniform transparency, selectTransparency and then select the percentage of transparency
required. For a gradient transparency (so that the area becomes
gradually transparent) select Gradient and then set the parameters of
the gradient. You can refer to Table 3 on page 146 for a description ofmost of the settings. In the Transparency tab, specify the Start value
and the End value for the transparency gradient. 0% is fully opaque,
100% means fully transparent.
An example of gradient transparency is shown in Figure 115.
More information on gradient transparency, including an example ofcombining color gradient with gradient transparency, can be found in“Advanced gradient controls” on page 153.

Figure 115: Example of gradient transparency

Advanced gradient controls
As discussed in “Creating gradients” on page 144 and “Transparency
formatting” on page 152, gradient properties can be configured using
the parameters in Table 3 on page 146.
Impress also provides a graphical interface for modifying the gradientparameters using only the mouse. To use these tools, click on theTransparency icon
shown in Figure 116.

or the Gradient icon

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Figure 116: The Mode toolbar
When an object with a gradient fill is selected, click on the Gradienticon to display a dashed line connecting two squares colored as the“From” color and the “To” color of the gradient, as shown in theexamples below.

Figure 117: Green to magenta gradientFigure 118: Transparency gradient (note how thebackground becomes visible close to the white square)
For linear gradients, move the square corresponding to the Fromcolor to change where the gradient starts (that is the Border property).
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Move the square corresponding to the To color to change theorientation (Angle property).
For axial gradients, you can move only the To color to change boththe angle and the border properties of the gradient.
For radial gradients, move the From color to modify the borderproperty (that is how “wide” the gradient circle is). Move the To color
to change the point where the gradient ends (Center X and Center Y
values).
For ellipsoid gradients, move the From color to modify the borderproperty (the size of the gradient ellipsoid). Move the To color tochange the angle of the ellipsoid axis and the axis itself.
For square and rectangular gradients, move the From color tomodify the border (the size of the gradient square or rectangle) andthe angle of the gradient shape. Move the To color to change thecenter of the gradient.
The same actions can be performed for transparency gradients, theonly difference being that, instead of the From and To colors, the twosquares that are activated by the Transparency icon indicate the fully
opaque point (black square) and the fully transparent point (whitesquare).
These icons are by default grayed out and are only activated when an
object with gradient filling, gradient transparency, or both is selected.
In both cases a dashed line connecting two small squares appears on
top of the object. Click outside the object to set the gradient.

Note

Moving the squares will have different effects depending on thetype of gradient. For example, for a linear gradient, the start andend squares of the gradient will always be situated to either sideof the center point of the object.

Formatting text
Impress provides two dialog boxes related to text formatting: Format> Character and Format > Text.
To modify formatting such as font and font effects, select the text inthe shape and then go to Format > Character. For more information,
see Chapter 3 (Adding and Formatting Text). This section covers theformatting of the text which is added to a line or to a shape.

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To add text to an object (a shape or a line):
1) Select the object to which text will be added.
2) With the green resizing handles showing, double-click on theobject and wait for the cursor to become an I-beam or just starttyping.
3) Type the text. When finished, click somewhere outside the object
or press Esc.
To format the text in a shape:
1) Select the object to which text was added.
2) Select Format > Text or right-click on the shape and select Text
from the pop-up menu. The Text dialog box is displayed.

Figure 119: Main dialog box to set the text properties
The top section of the page (Text) offers several options in the form ofcheckboxes. Some of the options will be grayed out, depending on theobject to which the text will be attached.
• Select Fit width to text to expand the width of the shape or line
if the text is too long for it.
• Select Word wrap text in shape to start a new line automaticallywhen the edge of the shape is reached.
• Select Fit height to text to expand the object height whenever itis smaller than the text (set by default for lines).
• Select Resize shape to fit text to expand a custom shape when
the text inserted in the shape is too large.

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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide• Select Fit to frame to expand the text so that it fills all theavailable space.
• Select Adjust to contour to make the text follow a curved line.
In the Spacing to borders section, specify the amount of space to beleft between the border of the shape or line and the text; this is similar
to the settings for indentation and spacing for paragraphs.
The text anchor grid in the bottom right corner of the dialog box isused to decide where to anchor the text. The Full width option
determines if the anchoring should be performed to the full width of
the shape.

Text animation
Use the Text Animation page to add special effects to the text. Choose
between the four options on the list and when applicable, the directionof the effect by picking one of the four arrow buttons to the right. The
available effects are:• Blink: the text will blink on the screen.
• Scroll through: the text will move into the shape and then out
following the chosen direction.
• Scroll back and forth: the text will move first in the chosen
direction but will bounce back at the shape border.
• Scroll in: the text will scroll in towards the given direction
starting from the edge of the shape and stop in the center.
There is no default animation applied.
The other properties that can be set are:• Start inside option: when set the animation will start from inside
the shape.
• Text visible when editing option: set this box to see the text
while editing.
• Animation cycles: includes three further options to set thefrequency of the animation, the increments between two positionsof the animation and finally the delay before the animation starts.
To see some of the animations in action, it is necessary to start thepresentation. Press F9 or select Slide Show > Slide Show from themain menu. To return to the edit mode, press Esc.

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Formatting connectors
Connectors are lines that join two shapes. Connectors always startfrom a glue point on the shape. Refer to Chapter 5 (Creating Graphic
Objects) for a description of the usage of connectors.
Connector properties can be accessed and modified in two ways:• Manual formatting: right-click on the connector line and selectConnector in the pop-up menu.
• Style-based formatting: select one of the available graphics styles
or create a new one.
Both methods open the Connector dialog box where you can set thestyle of the connectors. Choose between Standard (the default), Line,
Straight, and Curved connector. Whenever multiple connectors
overlap, use the Line skew section of the dialog box to distance thelines. It is possible to customize the distance between 4 different lines.
In the Line spacing section of the dialog box, set the horizontal andvertical space between the connector and the object at each end of theconnector.

Figure 120: Setting up the connector properties

Working with graphics styles
To achieve consistency in the style across the slides of a presentation(or a presentations portfolio), or simply to apply the same formatting toa large number of objects, the best approach is to use graphics styles.

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Graphics styles are the equivalent for graphic objects to the paragraphstyles for text. A graphics style groups all the formatting attributes
that a graphic object could have and associates this with a name,making them quickly reusable. If a style is modified (for example, bychanging the area transparency), the changes are automaticallyapplied to all the graphics with that style.
If you use Impress frequently, a library of well-defined graphics styles
is an invaluable tool for speeding up the process of formatting yourwork according to your taste or style guidelines you may need to follow(company colors, fonts and so on).
Use the Styles and Formatting window to access styles you will need
often. If the window is not visible, press F11, or click the Styles andFormatting icon at the left-hand end of the formatting bar, or selectFormat > Styles and Formatting from the menu bar. Press F11
again when the dialog box is not needed, to maximize the workspacearea.

Linked graphic styles
Graphic styles support inheritance; that is, a style can be linked toanother (parent) style so that it inherits all the formatting settings ofthe parent. You can use this property to create “families” of styles.

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For example, if you need multiple boxes that differ in color but areotherwise identically formatted, the best way to proceed is to define ageneric style for the box including borders, area fill, font, and so on
and a number of hierarchically dependent styles which differ only inthe fill color attribute. If later you need to change the font size or the
thickness of the border, it is sufficient to change the parent style andall the other styles will change accordingly.

Creating graphics styles
You can create a new graphics style in two ways:• Using the Style dialog box• From a selection

Creating a new graphic style using the Style dialog box
Choose the Graphics Styles icon
Formatting window.

at the top of the Styles andTo link a new style with an existing style, first select that style, andthen right-click and choose New. Otherwise, select Default, then rightclick and choose New.

Figure 121: Linking a newstyle with an existing style
As discussed in the preceding section, when styles are linked, changing
the font will change it in all the linked styles. Sometimes this is exactly
what you want; at other times you do not want the changes to apply to
all the linked styles. It pays to plan ahead.
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Figure 122: Top of dialog box to create a new graphics style
The Graphics style dialog box consists of 14 pages (15 if Asian
language support has not been enabled) that may be grouped asfollows:• The Organizer page contains a summary of the style and its
hierarchical position.
• The Font, Font Effects, Indents & Spacing, Alignment, Tabs andAsian typography pages set the properties of the text inserted in atext box or in an graphic object.
• The Dimensioning page is used to set the style of dimension lines.
• The Text, Text animation, Connector, Line, Area, Shadowing, andTransparency pages determine the formatting of a graphic object
and are discussed elsewhere in this chapter.
Note

In most cases you will not need to configure the parameters of
every page; for example, to create a simple line style you willprobably only use 3 of the 15 pages.

Creating a new graphic style from a selection
You can create a new style from manually formatted text or graphics:
1) Select the item you want to save as a style. If the selected object
is already styled, then the new style will be linked to such style.
2) In the Styles and Formatting window, click the New Style from
Selection icon, highlighted in Figure 123.

Figure 123: New style from selection3) In the Create Style dialog box that pops up, type a name for the
new style. The list shows the names of existing custom styles ofthe selected type. Click OK to save the new style.

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161Figure 124: Naming a new style createdfrom a selection

Modifying a graphic style
To change an existing style, right-click on it in the Styles andFormatting window and choose Modify from the pop-up menu.
The dialog box for the modification of a graphic style is the same as theone for creating a new graphic style.
Make the required changes to the style and then click OK to savethem.

Updating a graphic style from a selection
To update a style from a selection:
1) Select an item that has the format you want to adopt as a style.
2) In the Styles and Formatting window, select the style you want to
update, and then click the Update Style icon.

Figure 125. Updating a style from a selection

Tip

162

Any changes you make to a style are effective only in the
document on which you are working. The changes do not go into
any associated template. If you want the changes to apply tomore than one document, you need to change the template (seeChapter 3).

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Applying graphic styles
You can apply a graphic style in two ways, both starting from the Styles
and Formatting window. First make sure that the graphic styles areshown, then do one of the following:• Select the object to which you want to apply a graphic style anddouble-click on the name of the style you want to apply.
• Click the Fill Format mode icon

. The mouse pointer changes
to this icon. Position the moving icon on the graphic object to bestyled and click the mouse button. This mode remains active until
you turn it off, so you can apply the same style to several objects.
To quit Fill Format mode, click the Fill Format mode icon again
or press the Esc key.
• When Fill Format mode is active, a right-click anywhere in the
document undoes the last Fill Format action. Be careful not toaccidentally right-click and thus undo actions you want to keep.

Tip

At the bottom of the Styles and Formatting window is a dropdown list. You can choose to show all styles or groups of styles
such as applied styles or (in the case of graphics styles) custom
styles.

Deleting graphic styles
You cannot delete any of OOo’s predefined styles, even if you are notusing them.
You can delete any user-defined (custom) styles; but before you do, you
should make sure the styles are not in use. If an unwanted style is inuse, you will want to replace it with a substitute style.
To delete unwanted styles, right-click on them (one at a time) in the
Styles and Formatting window and click Delete on the pop-up menu.
Click Yes in the message box that pops up.

Assigning styles to shortcut keys
OOo provides a set of predefined keyboard shortcuts which allow you
to quickly apply styles while typing in a document. You can redefine
these shortcuts or define your own, as described in Appendix A(Keyboard Shortcuts).

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7

Chapter
Including Spreadsheets,
Charts, and Other Objects

Using spreadsheets in Impress
A spreadsheet embedded in Impress includes most of the functionalityof a spreadsheet in Calc and is therefore capable of performing
complex calculations and data analysis. However, if you plan to use
complex data or formulas, you are better off performing the necessary
operations in a separate Calc spreadsheet and use Impress only todisplay the embedded spreadsheet with the results.
You may also be tempted to use spreadsheets in Impress for creatingcomplex tables or presenting data in a tabular format. However, theTable Design feature (described in Chapter 3) is often more suitableand faster.

Inserting a spreadsheet
To add a spreadsheet to a slide, select the corresponding layout in thelist of predefined layouts in the Tasks pane.

Figure 126: The spreadsheet layout in the Tasks pane
This inserts a placeholder for a spreadsheet in the center of a slide, as
shown in Figure 127. Double-click inside the frame to enter the edit
mode, shown in Figure 128, where you can insert data and modify theformatting of the spreadsheet. See “Entering data” and “Formatting
spreadsheet cells” both on page 169.
It is also possible to insert a spreadsheet as an OLE object as describedin “Inserting other objects” on page 182.

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Figure 127: A slide ready to host a spreadsheet

Figure 128: A spreadsheet in edit mode. Note the active
cell and the small black resizing handles on the gray border
When editing a spreadsheet, some of the contents of the main menu
bar change, as does the Formatting toolbar (see Figure 129), to show
entries and tools that support working with spreadsheets.

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Figure 129: The menu bar and the formatting toolbar in spreadsheet
editing mode
One of the most important changes is the presence of the Formula bar,just below the Formatting toolbar. The Formula bar contains (from left
to right):• The active cell reference or the name of the selected range• The Formula Wizard button• The Sum and Formula buttons or the Cancel and Accept buttons(depending on the contents of the cell)• A long edit box to enter or review the contents of a cellIf you are familiar with Calc, you will immediately recognize the tools
and the menu items since they are much the same.

Resizing and moving a spreadsheet
When resizing or moving a spreadsheet, ignore the first row and thefirst column (easily recognizable because of their light graybackground) and the horizontal and vertical scroll bars). They are onlyused for editing purposes and will not be included in the visible area ofthe spreadsheet on the slide.
To resize the area occupied by the spreadsheet:
1) Double-click to enter the edit mode, if it is not already active.
Notice the black handles found in the gray border surrounding
the spreadsheet (see Figure 128).
2) Move the mouse over one of the handles. The cursor changes
shape to give a visual representation of the effects applied to thearea.
3) Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the handle. The
corner handles move the two adjacent sides simultaneously, while
the handles at the midpoint of the sides modify one dimension ata time.
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167You can move the spreadsheet (change its position within the slide)
whether in edit mode or not. In both cases:
1) Move the mouse over the border until the cursor changes to afour-headed arrow..
2) Click and hold the left mouse button and drag the spreadsheet tothe desired position.
3) Release the mouse button.
When selected , the spreadsheet object is treated like any other object,
therefore resizing it results in changing the scale rather than the
spreadsheet area. This is not recommended, because it may distort the
fonts and picture shapes.

Navigating the spreadsheet
How a spreadsheet is organized
A spreadsheet consists normally of multiple tables which in turn
contain cells. However, in Impress only one of these tables can beshown at any given time on a slide.
The default for a spreadsheet embedded in Impress is one single tablecalled Sheet 1. The name of the table is shown at the bottom of the
spreadsheet area.
If required, you can add other sheets. To do that:
1) Right-click on the bottom area near the existing tab.
2) Select Insert > Sheet from the pop-up menu.
Just as in Calc, you can rename a sheet or move it to a different
position using the same pop-up menu or the Insert menu on the main
menu bar.
Note

Even if you have many sheets in your embedded spreadsheet,
only one sheet—the one which is active when leaving the
spreadsheet edit mode—is shown on the slide.

Each of the sheets is further organized into cells. Cells are theelementary units of the spreadsheet. They are identified by a row
number (shown on the left hand side on a gray background) and acolumn letter (shown in the top row also on a gray background). For
example, the top left cell is identified as A1, while the third cell in thesecond row is C2. All data elements, whether text, numbers or
formulas, are entered into a cell.

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Moving the cursor to a cell
To move around the spreadsheet and select an active cell , you can:
• Use the arrow keys.
• Left-click with the mouse on the desired cell.
• Use the combinations Enter and Shift+Enter to move one cell
down or one cell up respectively; Tab key and Shift+Tab key tomove one cell to the right or to the left respectively.
Other keyboard shortcuts are available to move quickly to certain cellsof the spreadsheet. Refer to Chapter 5 (Getting Started with Calc) in
the Getting Started guide for further information.

Entering data
Keyboard input is received by the active cell, identified by a thick blackborder (see Figure 128 where cell B3 is active). The cell reference (orcoordinates) is also shown on the left hand end of the formula bar.
To insert data, first select the cell to make it active, then start typing .
Note that the input is also added to the main part of the formula bar
where it may be easier to read.
Impress will try to automatically recognize the type of contents (text,
number, date, time, and so on) of a cell and apply default formatting toit. Note how the formula bar icons change according to the type of
input, displaying Accept and Reject buttons () whenever the input
is not a formula. Use the green Accept button to confirm the input
made in a cell or simply select a different cell. In case Impress wrongly
recognizes the type of input, you can change it using the toolbar shownin Figure 129, or from Format > Cells in the main menu bar.

Tip

Sometimes it is useful to treat numbers as text (for example,
telephone numbers) and to prevent Impress from removing theleading zeros or right align them in a cell. To force Impress totreat the input as text, type a single apostrophe ' (U + 00B4)
before entering the number.

Formatting spreadsheet cells
Often, for the purposes of a presentation, it may be necessary toincrease the size of the font considerably or to match it to the styleused in the presentation.
The fastest and most flexible way to format the embedded spreadsheet
is to make use of styles. When working on an embedded spreadsheet,
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169you can access the cell styles created in Calc and use them. However,the best approach is to create specific cell styles for presentation
spreadsheets, as the Calc cell styles are likely to be unsuitable whenworking within Impress.
To apply a style (or manually format the cell attributes) to a cell orgroup of cells simultaneously, first select the range to which thechanges will apply. A range consists of one or more cells, normallyforming a rectangular area. A selected range consisting of more than
one cell can be recognized easily because all its cells are shaded. To
select a multiple-cell range:
1) Click on the first cell belonging to the range (either the left top
cell or the right bottom cell of the rectangular area).
2) Keep the left mouse button pressed and move the mouse to the
opposite corner of the rectangular area which will form theselected range.
3) Release the mouse button.
To add further cells to the selection, hold down the Control key andrepeat the steps 1 to 3 above.

Tip

You can also click on the first cell in the range, hold down the
Shift key, and click in the cell in the opposite corner. Refer to
Chapter 5 (Getting Started with Calc) in the Getting Started
book for further information on selecting ranges of cells.

Some shortcuts are very useful to speed up selection and are listed
below:• To select the whole visible sheet, click on the blank cell between
the row and column indexes, or press Control+A.
• To select a column, click on the column index at the top of the
spreadsheet.
• To select a row, click on the row index on the left hand side of the
spreadsheet.
Once the range is selected, you can modify the formatting, such as fontsize, alignment (including vertical alignment), font color, number
formats, borders, background and so on. To access these settings,
choose Format > Cells from the main menu bar (or right-click andchoose Format Cells from the pop-up menu). This command opens the
dialog box shown in Figure 130.

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Figure 130: The Format Cells dialog box consists of 7
pages (8 if you have Asian language support enabled)
If the text does not fit the width of the cell, you can increase the widthby hovering the mouse over the line separating two columns until themouse cursor changes to a double-headed arrow; then click the left
button and drag the separating line to the new position. A similar
procedure can be used to modify the height of a cell (or group of cells).
To insert rows and columns in a spreadsheet, use the Insert menu orright-click on the row and column headers and select the appropriate
option from the pop-up menu. To merge multiple cells, select the cells
to be merged and select Format > Merge cells from the main menubar. To split a group of cells, select the group and deselect Format >Merge Cells (which will now have a checkmark next to it).
When you are satisfied with the formatting and the appearance of thetable, exit the edit mode by clicking outside the spreadsheet area. Notethat Impress will display exactly the section of the spreadsheet thatwas on the screen before leaving the edit mode. This allows you to hideadditional data from the view, but it may cause the apparent loss ofrows and columns. Therefore, take care that the desired part of the
spreadsheet is showing on the screen before leaving the edit mode.
Tip

To get back into edit mode, right click and select Edit.

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Inserting a chart
To add a chart to a slide, select the corresponding layout in the list of
predefined layouts in the task pane or use the Insert > Chart feature.
The use of charts is described in detail in Chapter 3 (Creating Charts
and Graphs) of the Calc Guide.

Creating a chart in AutoLayout1) In the Layouts drawer of the Tasks pane, choose a layout that
contains a chart (look for the vertical bars).

Figure 131: Examples of layouts withcharts2) In the slide, double-click the chart icon in the center of the chartarea. A full-sized chart appears; it contains arbitrary sample data
(see Figure 132).
3) To enter your own data in the chart, see “Entering chart data” onpage 176.

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Figure 132: Chart made with sample data

Creating a chart using the Insert Chart feature
1) Select Insert > Chart, or click the Insert Chart iconon theStandard toolbar. A chart appears that has been created using
sample data. See Figure 132.
2) To enter your own data in the chart, see “Entering chart data” onpage 176.

Choosing a chart type
Your data can be presented using a variety of different charts; choose achart type that best suits the message you want to convey to youraudience (see “Chart types” on page 174). To choose a chart type:1) Double-click the sample chart. The window changes; the sidepanes are gone and the main toolbar shows tools specific forcharts. The chart itself now has a gray border. (If the main toolbar
is not showing, select View > Toolbars > Main Toolbar.)
2) Click the Chart Type icon
or select Format > Chart Type ,or right-click on the chart and choose Chart Type. The Chart
Type dialog box appears.

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Figure 133: Chart Type dialog box showing two-dimensional charts
3) As you change selections in the left-hand list, the chart examples
on the right, and the chart in the main window, both change. If
you move the Chart Type dialog box to one side, you can see thefull effect in the main window.
4) As you change chart types, other selections become available on
the right-hand side. For example, some chart types have boththree-dimensional and two-dimensional variants; 3D charts havefurther choices of shape for the columns or bars.
5) Choose the chart characteristics you want, and then click OK.
The Chart Type dialog box closes and you return to the edit
window.
Now you can continue to format the chart, add data to the chart, or
click outside the chart to return to normal view.

Chart types
The following summary of the chart types available will help you
choose a type suitable for your data. For more detail, see Chapter 3(Creating Charts and Graphs) in the Calc Guide.
Column charts
Column charts are commonly used for data that shows trends overtime. They are best for charts that have a relatively small number ofdata points. (For large time series, a line chart would be better.) Thisis the default chart type.
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Bar charts
Bar charts are excellent for giving an immediate visual impact fordata comparison where time is not important, such as comparing the
popularity of a few products in a marketplace.
Pie charts
Pie charts are excellent when you need to compare proportions, forexample, comparisons of departmental spending: what the
department spent on different items or what different departments
spent. They work best with smaller numbers of values, about half adozen; more than this and the visual impact begins to fade.
This is one of the charts that can be made into a 3D chart. It canthen be tilted, given shadows, and generally turned into a work ofart. You can choose to explode the pie chart, but this is an all or
nothing option, giving you no control over the degree of separationof the segments.
Area charts
An area chart is a version of a line or column graph. It may be useful
where you wish to emphasize volume of change. Area charts have agreater visual impact than a line chart, but the data you use will
make a difference. You may need to use transparency values in anarea chart.
Line charts
A line chart is a time series with a progression. It is ideal for raw
data, and useful for charts with plentiful data that shows trends orchanges over time where you want to emphasize continuity. On line
charts, the x-axis is ideal to represent time series data. 3D lines
confuse the viewer, so just using a thicker line often works better.
Scatter or XY charts
Scatter charts are great for visualizing data that you have not had
time to analyze, and they may be the best for data when you have aconstant value with which to compare the data; for example weather
data, reactions under different acidity levels, conditions at altitude,or any data which matches two series of numeric data. In contrast toline charts, the x-axis are the left to right labels which usuallyindicate a time series.
Bubble charts
A bubble chart is used to represent three variables: two identify the
position of the center of a bubble on a Cartesian graph, while thethird variable indicates the radius of the bubble.
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Net charts
A net chart is similar to polar or radar graphs. They are useful forcomparing data that are not time series, but show different
circumstances, such as variables in a scientific experiment or
direction. The poles of the net chart are the y-axes of other charts.
Generally, between three and eight axes are best; any more and thistype of chart becomes confusing.
Stock charts
A stock chart is a specialized column graph specifically for stocks
and shares. You can choose traditional lines, candlestick, and twocolumn type charts. The data required for these charts is quite
specialized, with series for opening price, closing price, and highand low prices. The x-axis represents a time series.
Column and line charts
A column and line chart is a combination of two other chart types. It
is useful for combining two distinct but related data series, forexample sales over time (column) and the profit margin trends (line).

Entering chart data
Opening a chart data window
1) If the chart is not already in edit mode (with a gray border),double-click it. The main toolbar now shows tools specifically forcharts. (If the main toolbar is not showing, select View >Toolbars > Main Toolbar.)
2) Click the Chart Data icon
or select View > Chart Data
Table, or right-click on the chart and choose Chart Data Table.
The Data Table dialog box (Figure 134) appears.
Tip

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Figure 134: Data Table dialog box

Entering data
Enter data in the Data Table dialog box. Type or paste information into
the boxes within the desired rows and columns.
You can use the buttons in the top left corner for large-scale editing:• The two Insert buttons insert a row or column (series).
• The Delete buttons remove a selected row or column (series) withits data.
• The Move buttons move the contents of the selected column to
the right, or the contents of the selected row down.

Adding or removing elements from a chart
The default chart includes only two elements: thechart wall and the legend (also known as thekey). You can add other elements using the Insert
menu. The various choices open dialog boxes inwhich you can specify details.

Formatting the chart
The Format menu (Figure 135) has many options
for formatting and fine-tuning the look of yourcharts.
Double-click the chart so that it is enclosed by agray border indicating edit mode; then, select the chart element that

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177you want to format. Choose Format from the menu bar, or right-click
to display a pop-up (context) menu relevant to the selected element.

Figure 135: Chart format menu
The formatting choices are as follows.
• Format Selection opens a dialog box in which you can specify thearea fill, borders, transparency, characters, font effects, andposition of the selected element of the chart.
• Position and Size opens the Position and Size dialog box (see“Resizing and moving the chart”).
• Arrangement provides two choices: Bring Forward and Send
Backward, of which only one may be active for specific items.
Use these choices to arrange overlapping data series.
• Title formats the titles of the chart and its axes.
• Legend formats the location, borders, background, and type ofthe legend.
• Axis formats the lines that create the chart as well as the font of
the text that appears on both the X and Y axes.
• Grid formats the lines that create a grid for the chart.
• Chart Wall, Chart Floor, and Chart Area are described in thefollowing sections.
• Chart Type changes what kind of chart is displayed and whether
it is two- or three-dimensional.
• 3D View formats the various viewing angles of 3D chart.
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Chart Floor and 3D View are available only for a 3D chart.
These options are unavailable (grayed out) if a 2D chart isselected.

There are two main areas of the chart, the chart wall and charter area.
These control different settings and attributes for the chart:

Figure 136: The Chart wall and Chart area
• Chart wall contains the graphic of the chart displaying the data.
• Chart area is the area surrounding the chart graphic. The(optional) chart title and the legend (key) are in the chart area.
Note

Format >Chart Floor, is only available for 3D charts and has
the same formatting options as 3Chart Area and Chart Wall.

Knowing the difference between the chart wall and chart area ishelpful when formatting a chart.

Resizing and moving the chart
You can resize or move all elements of a chart at the same time, in two
ways: interactively, or by using the Position and Size dialog box. You
may wish to use a combination of both methods.
To resize a chart interactively:
1) Click on the chart to select it. Green sizing handles appear aroundthe chart.
2) To increase or decrease the size of the chart, click and drag oneof the markers in one of the four corners of the chart. To maintainthe correct ratio of the sides, hold the Shift key down while you
click and drag.
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179To move a chart interactively:
1) Click on the chart to select it. Green sizing handles appear aroundthe chart.
2) Hover the mouse pointer anywhere over the chart other than on ahandle. When it changes shape, click and drag the chart to its
new location.
3) Release the mouse button when the element is in the desired
position.
To resize or move a chart using the Position and Size dialog box:
1) Click on the chart to select it. Green sizing handles appear aroundthe chart.
2) Choose Format > Position and Size from the menu bar, orright-click and choose Position and Size from the pop-up menu,
or press F4. For more about the use of this dialog box, see
Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects).

Moving chart elements
You may wish to move or resize individual elements of a chart,
independent of other chart elements. For example, you may wish tomove the legend to a different place. Pie charts allow individual
wedges of the pie to be moved (in addition to the choice of “exploding”
the entire pie).
1) Double-click the chart so that is enclosed by a gray border.
2) Click any of the elements—the title, the legend, or the chartgraphic—to select it. Green resizing handles appear.
3) Move the pointer over the selected element. When it changes
shape, click and drag to move the element.
4) Release the mouse button when the element is in the desired
position.

Note

If your graphic is 3D, round red handles appear which control
the three-dimensional angle of the graphic. You cannot resize orreposition the graphic while the round red handles are showing.
Shift + Click to get back to the green resizing handles. You can
now resize and reposition your 3D chart graphic. See thefollowing tip.

Tip

You can resize the chart graphic using its green resizing handles(Shift + Click, then drag a corner handle to maintain the
proportions). However, you cannot resize the title or the key.

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Changing the chart area background
1) The chart area is the area surrounding the chart graphic,
including the (optional) main title and key.
2) Double-click the chart so that it is enclosed by a gray border.
3) Select Format > Chart Area.
4) In the Chart Area dialog box, choose the desired format settings.

Figure 137: Chart Area dialog box

Changing the chart graphic backgroundThe chart wall is the area that contains the chart graphic.
1) Double-click the chart so that it is enclosed by a gray border.
2) Select Format > Chart Wall. The Chart Wall window appears.
It has the same formatting options as described in “Changing thechart area background” above.
3) Choose your settings and click OK.

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Inserting other objects
Impress offers the capability of inserting in a slide various types ofobjects such as music or video clips, Writer documents, Math formulas,
generic OLE objects and so on. A typical presentation may containmovie clips, sound clips, OLE objects and formulas; other objects areless frequently used since they do not appear during a slide show.
This section covers the part of the Insert menu shown in Figure 138.

Figure 138: Part of the Insert menu

Movies and soundNote

On UNIX systems, the Media Player requires the Java Media
Framework API (JMF). Download and install the JMF files, andadd the path to the installed jmf.jar to the class path in Tools >Options > OpenOffice.org > Java.

To insert a movie clip or a sound into a presentation, select Insert >Movie and Sound. Select the media file to insert from the dialog box,
to place the object on the slide.
To insert media clips directly from the Gallery:
1) If not already open, open the Gallery by selecting Tools >Gallery.
2) Browse to the Theme containing media files (for example theSounds theme).
3) Click on the movie or sound to be inserted and drag it into theslide area.
The Media Playback toolbar (Figure 139) is automatically opened (bydefault, at the bottom of the screen, just above the Drawing toolbar; it
can also be made to float). You can preview the media object as well as
resize it. If the toolbar does not open, select View > Media Playback.

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Figure 139: The media playback toolbar (movie clip)
The Media Playback toolbar contains the following tools:• Add button: opens a dialog box where you can select the media
file to be inserted.
• Play, Pause, Stop buttons: control the media playback.
• Repeat button: if pressed, the media will restart when finished.
• Playback slider: selects the position within the media clip.
• Timer: displays the current position of the media clip.
• Mute Button: when selected, the sound will be suppressed.
• Volume Slider: adjusts the volume of the media clip.
• Scaling drop-down menu: (only available for movies) allows
scaling of the movie clip.
The movie will start playing as soon as the slide is shown during thepresentation.
Note that Impress will only link the media clip, not embed it. Therefore
if the presentation is moved to a different computer, the link will most
likely be broken and consequently the media clip will not play. An easy
workaround that prevents this from happening is the following:
1) Place the media file to be included in the presentation in the same
folder where the presentation is stored.
2) Insert the media file in the presentation.
3) Send both the presentation and the the media file to the computer
to be used for the presentation and place both files in the same
folder on the target computer.
Impress offers the possibility to preview the media clips that are to beinserted by means of the provided media player. To open it select Tools> Media Player. The media player is shown in Figure 140. Its toolbar
is the same as that of the Media Playback toolbar described above.

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Figure 140: The embedded media player

OLE objects
Use an OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) object to insert in apresentation either a new document or an existing one. Embedding
inserts a copy of the object and details of the presumed source
program in the target document; this is the program which is
associated with the file type by the operating system. The major
benefit of an OLE object is that it is quick and easy to edit the contents
just by double-clicking on it. You can also insert a link to the object thatwill appear as an icon rather than an area showing the contents itself.
To create and insert a new OLE object:
1) Select Insert > Object > OLE object from the main menu. This
opens the dialog box shown in Figure 141.

Figure 141: Insert OLE Object dialog box2) Select Create new and select the object type among the available
options.

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system. It does not appear in the list under any other system.

3) Click OK. An empty container is placed in the slide.
4) Double-click on the OLE object to enter the edit mode of theobject. The application devoted to handling that type of file will
open the object.

Note

If the object inserted is handled by OpenOffice.org, then thetransition to the program to manipulate the object will beseamless; in other cases the object opens in a new window andan option in the File menu becomes available to update theobject you inserted.

To insert an existing object:
1) Select Insert > Object > OLE object from the main menu.
2) In the Insert OLE Object dialog box (Figure 141), select Create
from file. The dialog box changes to look like Figure 142.
3) To insert the object as a link, select the Link to file checkbox.
Otherwise, the object will be embedded.
4) Click Search, select the required file in the file window, thenclick Open. A section of the inserted file is shown on the slide.

Figure 142: Inserting an object as a link

Other OLE objects
Under Windows, the Insert OLE Object dialog box has an extra entry,
Further objects, as shown in Figure 141.
1) Double-click on the entry Further objects to open the dialog box
shown in Figure 143.

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185Figure 143: Advanced menu to insert an OLE object underWindows
2) Select Create New to insert a new object of the type selected in
the Object Type list, or select Create from File to create a new
object from a file.
3) If you choose Create from File, the dialog box shown in Figure
144 opens. Click Browse and choose the file to insert. The
inserted file object is editable by the Windows program thatcreated it.
If instead of inserting an object, you want to insert a link to an
object, select the Display As Icon checkbox.

Figure 144: Insert object from a file

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Formulas
Use Insert > Object > Formula to create a Math object in a slide.
When editing a formula, the main menu changes into the Math mainmenu.
Care should be taken about the font sizes used in order to make themcomparable to the font size used in the rest of the slide. To change thefont attributes of the Math object, select Format > Font Size from themain menu bar. To change the font type, select Format > Fonts fromthe main menu bar.
For additional information on how to create formulas, refer to Chapter
9 (Getting Started with Math) in the Getting Started guide, or the
Math Guide.

Note

Unlike in Writer, a formula in Impress is treated as an object,
therefore it will not be automatically aligned with the rest of
the text. The formula can be however moved around (but notresized) as any other object.

Inserting the contents of a file
You can insert the contents of certain files into a presentation. The
types of file accepted are OpenOffice.org Draw file, HTML files or plain
text files.
Select Insert > File from the main menu to open a file picker window.
If there is an internet connection, it is also possible to insert a URL in
the file name field. Select the file and click Insert.

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8

Chapter
Adding and Formatting
Slides, Notes, andHandouts

Introduction
This chapter describes how to add new slides to the presentation andhow to format them. It also explains how to format both the Notes andHandouts views. Notes are generally used as prompts for the person
giving the presentation. Handouts are normally used for providing aprintout of the slides to your audience.
Two pop-up menus are quite useful when performing the operations on
the slides described in this chapter. One menu (shown in Figure 145) isdisplayed by right-clicking on a slide in Normal view and then selecting
Slide. The other menu appears by right-clicking on the slide thumbnail
in the Slides pane, as shown in Figure 146.

Figure 145: Slide pop-up submenu

Figure 146: (Left) Pop-up menu on the Slides Pane

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Adding, renaming, and removing slides
Adding a new slide
There are several equivalent ways to add a slide to a presentation:• Select Insert > Slide (works in Normal and Outline view).
• Right-click on the Slides pane and select New Slide from the popup menu (works in Normal, Outline, and Notes view).
• Right-click on the main work area while in Slide Sorter view andselect New Slide from the pop-up menu.
• On the work area in Normal view, right-click on the active slideand select Slide > New Slide.
The new slide is inserted after the current slide or in the position
where the mouse was clicked.
If multiple slide masters are used in the presentation, the new slide
will apply the master of the previous slide in the sequence.

Inserting a slide from another presentation
You can insert slides from other presentations in three ways:• Using Insert > File. With this method, you can optionally link theslides instead of copying (embedding) them into the presentation.
• Copying and pasting.
• Dragging and dropping, to copy or move slides.
To insert a slide from another presentation:1) In Normal view, select the slide after which you want to insert the
new slide, then choose Insert > File from the menu bar.
2) In the file browser, locate the file containing the slide that you
want to insert, and click Insert.
3) In the Insert Slides/Objects dialog box (Figure 147), click the plus
sign next to the icon for the presentation file, and then select theslides that you want to insert.

Tip

Figure 147 highlights the importance of giving descriptive
names to the slides in the presentation. Refer to “Renaming
a slide” on page 192 for the instructions on how to perform
this operation.

4) Optionally select the Link option.

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5) Click OK. The slides are inserted after the selected slide in thepresentation.

Figure 147: Inserting slides from another presentation
To copy and paste slides between presentations:1) Open the presentations that you want to copy from and paste into.
2) In the presentation containing the slides that you want to copy,choose View > Slide Sorter.
3) Select the slides, and then choose Edit > Copy, or click the Copy
button on the main toolbar, or press Control+C.
4) Change to the presentation where you want to paste the slides,
and then choose View > Normal.
5) Select the slide that you want the copied slides to follow, and thenchoose Edit > Paste, or click the Paste button on the main
toolbar, or press Control+V.
To move slides between presentations:1) Open the presentations that move slides between. Arrange thewindows so both presentations are visible. Choose View > Slide
Sorter in each window.
2) In the presentation containing the slides that you want to move,select the required slides. To move the slides, drag and dropthem into the other presentation.
Tip

If you hold down the Control key while dragging anddropping, the slide gets copied in the target presentation.

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191Duplicating a slide
Duplicating a slide is a convenient way to add slides, since the newslide will inherit formatting, layout and animations from the selected
slide. To duplicate a slide:1) Go to Normal view either by clicking on the tab on the work areaor selecting View > Normal from the menu bar.
2) Make sure that the slide to be duplicated is on the work area.
3) Select Insert > Duplicate Slide from the menu bar.
The duplicated slide is inserted after the original slide and is displayedin the work area.

Tip

Duplicating a slide is a good way to prevent having slides withtoo much information crowded on them. Try duplicating the“busy” slide and split the points over two or more slides. All theformatting, backgrounds, and so on will be preserved.

Renaming a slide
To rename a slide, do one of the following:• Right-click on the slide thumbnail in the Slides pane or in themain area when in Slide Sorter view and select Rename Slidefrom the pop-up menu.
• In Normal view, right-click on the slide in the work area, thenselect Slide > Rename Slide from the pop-up menu.
In the Rename Slide dialog box, type a new name for the slide and thenclick OK.

Expanding a slide
Sometimes you will have a slide with too many sub-points to fit in thespace available. Instead of reducing the font size or using othermethods to squeeze more text into the space, it is usually better tosubdivide the contents of the slide into two or more slides.
As mentioned in the Tip above, you can duplicate the slide andmanually split the points. Another way is to “expand” the contents ofthe slide. To do this:1) [optional] Duplicate the slide (in case it is needed later).
2) Choose Insert > Expand Slide from the menu bar. Impress
creates a new slide for each highest level of the outline. The
outline text becomes the title of the new slide. Outline points
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the new slide.
3) If required, repeat steps 2 and 3 on any slide where level 2
entries of the outline exist, to expand those as well.
Figure 148 shows a slide with an outline consisting of three high level
points and two second-level points under bullet point 2. The Expand
command has generated three slides, each having as title the first level
outline and (if present) the second level points in the text area.

Figure 148: Slide 1 is expanded in slides 2, 3 and 4
CautionFor the Expand command to work, ensure that the slide layout
contains only one text AutoLayout box. If the layout of the slide
is not suitable for expansion, the menu item is grayed out.

Creating a summary slide
It is also possible to “reverse” the Expand operation to createsummaries. The Summary command is useful to create an agenda forthe presentation.

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1931) Select the slide that will be the first one to appear in thesummary. Do this by clicking on it in the Slides Pane or in Slide
Sorter view.
2) Select Insert > Summary Slide. Impress creates a new slide at
the end of the presentation where all the titles of the slides fromthe following one to the last slide are written as bullet points inthe body of the slide.
3) Move this slide to wherever you want it to appear in thepresentation.

Deleting a slide
To delete a slide, use the most convenient among these methods:• In Normal, Outline or Slide Sorter view, select a slide and thenclick Edit > Delete Slide or press the Delete key.
• In the Slides Pane (not available in Slide Sorter view) select theslide to be deleted and right-click it and select Delete Slide fromthe pop-up menu, otherwise just select the slide and then press
the Delete key.
• In Normal view, right-click on the work area, then select Slide >Delete Slide from the pop-up menu.
Tip

When working in the Slide sorter view (View > Slide sorter) it
is possible to delete multiple slides simultaneously by selecting
them with the mouse and pressing the Delete key.

Creating slides from an outline
When planning a presentation it is may be useful to develop an outline
using OOo Writer. Once the outline is ready, you will probably want tocreate one or more separate slides for each of the top level outline
elements. You can do this in several ways:• Sending the outline from Writer to Impress (creates a newpresentation)• Sending an autoabstract from Writer to Impress (creates a newpresentation)• Copying and pasting the outline from Writer to Impress

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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideSending an outline from Writer to Impress
If a text document in Writer contains headings formatted with thedefault Heading paragraph styles, you can choose File > Send >Outline to Presentation to create a new presentation containing theheadings as an outline.
The new presentation opens in Outline view, as shown in Figure 149.
Click on the Normal tab to populate the slides in the Slides pane.
As shown in Figure 150, some outline levels may have too many points
to fit on one slide. You can expand those slides as described in“Expanding a slide” on page 192, or duplicate the slides and manuallychange their contents, as described in “Duplicating a slide” on page
192.

Figure 149: Outline created from a Writer document

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Figure 150: Slides created from an outline may have too
many points to fit the space

Sending an AutoAbstract from Writer to Impress
To send an AutoAbstract from Writer to Impress, the text must containheadings formatted with the default Heading paragraph styles. Use the
AutoAbstract feature to copy the headings and a number of subsequentparagraphs to a new presentation. You can specify the number ofoutline levels as well as the number of paragraphs displayed.
1) Choose File > Send > AutoAbstract to Presentation.
2) On the Create AutoAbstract dialog box (Figure 151), choose thenumber of outline levels to be copied to the presentation. For
example, if you choose 4 levels, all paragraphs formatted with
Heading 1 to Heading 4 are included, along with the number ofparagraphs specified in Subpoints per level.
3) The new presentation opens in Outline view. Click on the Normal
tab to populate the slides in the Slides pane.
4) If an outline has too many points to fit on one slide, see“Expanding a slide” on page 192 or duplicate the slides andmanually change their contents as described in “Duplicating aslide” on page 192.

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Figure 151: Choosing outline levels for an autoabstract

Copying and pasting an outline
Use this method to add slides from an outline to an existingpresentation.
1) Create a new slide and choose the “Title, Text” layout(see “Choosing a slide layout from the list” on page 200).
2) Paste in the text area the outline created with Writer. Do
not worry if the text does not fit the space on the slide.
3) When pasting, the hierarchical structure of the outline may belost. If necessary, use the Demote buttonon the Text
Formatting toolbar to recreate it so that the outline points are at
the correct hierarchical level.
Tip

It may be useful to open the Style and Formatting window at the
Presentation styles page to track the outline level of each item.

If some outline levels have too many points to fit on one slide, see“Duplicating a slide” or “Expanding a slide” on page 192.

Modifying slides
Use slide masters to avoid manually changing the formatting ofindividual slides. Multiple slide masters can be used in a single
presentation to avoid modifying slide backgrounds or other features.
See Chapter 2 (Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates) for details about
using slide masters.

Formatting the slide or page area
The Page Setup dialog box (Figure 152) can be used to set up the pagelayout for different views in Impress such as Notes or Handouts (seepages 204 and 209).
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Note

Any changes to the page format (size, margins, orientation, andso on) apply to all slides in the presentation. You cannot define
more than one page style in Impress, as you can in Writer or Calc.
You can change the background of individual slides, as describedon page 199.

To start, click the Normal tab in the main work area or select View >Normal in the menu bar. Select Format > Page from the menu bar, orright-click and choose Page Setup to open the Page Setup dialog box
shown in Figure 152. The Page tab has three sections: Paper format,
Margins, and Layout settings. Settings on this tab affect all slides in
the presentation.

Figure 152: The Page Setup dialog box
In the Paper format section, select the preferred Paper format fromthe drop-down list. The dimensions change automatically when astandard format is selected. The list contains selections for displaying
the slides as well as printing them on paper.
The default values for the Screen settings are optimized for screenpresentation (4:3 ratio). If your computer uses a wide-screen monitor,
you may wish to take advantage of that by selecting the User format
and editing the Width and Height manually.
In the Margins section, change the spacing between the edges of thepage and the contents of the slide.
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OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress GuideIn the Layout settings section, select the page number format in theFormat drop-down list. To allow resizing the slide objects and fonts to
fit the paper, select the Fit object to paper format checkbox.

Printing slides
You can also select the orientation of the slide or paper (Portrait orLandscape) and the paper tray to be used. Note that in Impress you
cannot specify different trays for different pages (slides), as you can in
Writer; however, you can specify different trays for printing slides,
notes, and handouts. This is useful if, for example, you want to print
slides on transparencies and handouts on ordinary paper. For more
about printing presentations, see Chapter 10.

Choosing a slide master from the list
In the Task Pane, select the Master Pages tab.
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 or the Slide Sorter view, select the slides you
want to change.
2) In the Task 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.
Chapter 2 (Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates) discusses slide
masters (also called “master slides” and “master pages”) in detail.

Changing the background of a slideThis section describes how to modify the background of a single slide.
Tip

For easy maintenance it is recommended that slide masters areused to modify the slides background by creating additional slide
masters as required.

Note

Applying a background to individual slides is no different fromfilling the area of a shape. See Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic
Objects) for detailed instructions.

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To change the background for a slide:1) Switch to Normal view by clicking the tab in the main work areaor select View > Normal.
2) Select the slide you want to change.
3) Select Format > Page from the menu bar, or right-click andchoose Slide > Page Setup to open the Page Setup dialog box.
Choose the Background tab.
4) Follow the instructions in “Formatting areas” in Chapter 6.
5) Click OK to save the changes. A pop-up message asks if you want
to change the background on all slides. To change only theselected slide, click No. If you press Yes, Impress will apply the
new background to all the slides used in the presentation.

Choosing a slide layout from the list
After creating a new slide, decide what this slide will contain and what
layout is most suitable for the purpose. Impress offers various types ofpredefined layouts that can be applied to a slide; these layouts areshown in Figure 153.
To apply a layout to a slide:1) In the Task pane, select the Layouts tab. If the Task pane is not
visible, select first View > Task Pane.
2) Hover the mouse cursor over the layout thumbnail to get a tooltip
with a summary of the contents included in the layout.
3) Click on the selected layout to apply it to the slide.

Note

If the layout is changed when the slide already contains
contents, Impress will not delete the contents but just reposition
it according to the chosen layout. This may result in slide
elements to overlap.

If these layouts do not fit the presentation style, the elements can berearranged on an individual slide and duplicated as often as needed bycopying to another presentation or saving it as a template.
All the techniques in Chapter 3 (Adding and Formatting Text) for
working with text boxes can be applied to the Title and AutoLayout
text elements of the slide, while the placeholder for images can be
moved and resized as discussed in Chapter 4 (Adding and Formatting
Pictures). Chapter 7 describes how to include and modify
spreadsheets, charts, and other objects.

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Figure 153: Automatic layouts for slides

Adding comments
When creating a presentation in a collaborative environment, it is often
useful to add comments to the presentation for the benefit of the otherpeople working on it.
To add a comment, switch to Normal view and select the slide where
you want the comment to appear. Select Insert > Comment from themain menu to display the comment box of Figure 154 in the top left
corner of the slide. Once you are finished typing your comment you canclose the comment box by clicking anywhere outside the comment box.
Each comment is color coded and marked with the initials of theauthor as well as a sequential number and is shown in the top left
corner of the slide in Normal view. Clicking on a comment box displays
the full text of the comment. The size of the comments box is fixed andscroll bars when needed.

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Figure 154: Comments text box in action

Editing, deleting and replying to comments
You can only edit the comments if you created them. You can reply to acomment created by a different person by selecting the Reply from thecomments menu described below.
A limited set of options is available for formatting the comment text;
these can be accessed by right-clicking on the comment box. Use the
pop-up menu to apply one or more font attributes (bold, italic,
underline, strikethrough) and to paste the contents of the clipboard.
When a comment box is open, you can click on the small triangle
pointing down in the lower right part of the comments box to display
the comments menu shown in Figure 155. Use this menu to delete thecurrent comment, delete all the comments from the author of theselected comment, or delete all the comments in the presentation. If
the comment you opened was created by a different author the menu
also displays the option to reply to the comment.

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Figure 155: Comments menu

Adding and formatting notes
Notes view provides a convenient way to create reminders or add extra
information to the slides in the presentation. Notes are not displayed
during a slide show, so with the dual monitor support feature, you can
use notes as a presentation cue. You can also print the notes pages anduse them as handouts.

Note

If you regularly give presentations in public using a projector,
you may want to consider installing the Sun Presenter Console,an extension that allows you to display on your screen the slide
notes, the next slide and other useful information while only theslide is shown through the projector. The extension can be
downloaded from http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/en/
project/presenter-screen

Adding notes to a slide
To add notes to a slide:1) In the Slides pane, select the slide to which you want to add
notes.
2) Switch to Notes view by clicking the tab in the main work area or
select View > Notes.

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Figure 156: The work area in Notes view3) Click in the text box showing “Click to add notes” and type or
paste text or graphics as needed.
4) To add notes to another slide, select it in the Slides pane. The
Notes view changes to show the selected slide.
5) When done entering notes, return to Normal view.

Formatting notes
It is highly recommended to use the Notes Master and the Notes
Presentation style to format the appearance of notes, rather thanformatting them for each slide individually.
All the formatting guidelines given in this section can be applied toeither the Notes Master or to the Notes Presentation style.
To open the Notes Master, choose View > Master > Notes Masterfrom the menu bar.

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Figure 157: Notes Master View

Formatting the Notes page
To format the Notes page:
1) Switch to Notes view by clicking the tab in the main work area or
select View > Notes .
2) Select Format > Page from the menu bar, or right-click andchoose Page Setup to open the Page Setup dialog box, shown in
Figure 158.
3) Set the desired parameters. The Page Setup dialog box for notes
is the same as the dialog box for slides. Refer to “Formatting theslide or page area” on page 197 for a description of this dialog
box. The only difference is that by default the Notes pageorientation is set to portrait and the format is A4.
4) Click OK to close the dialog box.

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Figure 158: The Page Setup dialog box for notes

Setting automatic layout options
In Notes view, Impress creates four areas input information about thepresentation:• Header area
• Date and Time area
• Footer area
• Slide number area
To customize these fields, proceed as follows:
1) Switch to Notes view from the corresponding tab in the work area
or by selecting View > Notes from the main menu, or open theNotes Master (View > Master > Notes Master).
2) Choose Insert > Date and Time for the Date and time. Choose
between Fixed (enter in the edit box the date and time thatshould be displayed) or Variable (the date and time of the slide
creation will be inserted in the notes pages). Use the two
drop-down menus to select the format of the date and thelanguage.
3) Choose Insert > Page Number from the main menu to display
the Header and Footer dialog box. Select the Notes and Handoutstab (Figure 159).
4) Select the checkboxes to activate the corresponding areas. For
the Header and Footer, type the text in the edit fields.

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numbering refer to “Formatting the Notes page” on page 205).
5) Click the Apply to All button to save these settings and close thedialog box.

Figure 159: The dialog box to set up header and footer for notes

Text formatting
When text is inserted in the Notes text box, it is automaticallyformatted using the predefined Notes style that you can find in the
Presentation styles. The best way to format the notes text is therefore
to modify this style to suit your needs. Refer to Chapter 2 (Slide
Masters, Styles, and Templates) to learn how to work with styles.
If manual formatting is required, for example to highlight a particularsection of the notes, the guidelines given in Chapter 3 (Adding andFormatting Text) apply.

Advanced Notes formatting
You can make other changes to the Notes pages. For example, you can:• Move the text box and the slide image around the page
• Resize the slide image and text box (only from the Slide Masterview).
• Add other text boxes to the page.

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Printing notes
1) Choose File > Print from the menu bar.
2) In the Print content section of the Print dialog box, make surethat Notes is selected.

Figure 160: Select Notes for printing
3) Make any other needed changes and then click OK to print.
For more about printing slides, notes, and handouts, see Chapter 10.

Exporting notes to PDF
1) Choose File > Export as PDF from the menu bar.
2) In the PDF Options dialog box, choose the General tab.
3) Under General, make sure that Export comments is checked,
and then click OK. This option does in fact export the Notes
pages, not the comments entered for individual slides.
4) In the Export dialog box, give the file and name, select the folder
in which to save it, and click Export.

Figure 161: Exporting Notes to PDF
The Notes pages follow the presentation in the PDF (that is, if yourpresentation has 10 slides, the PDF contains 20 pages: 10 pages ofindividual slides, followed by 10 pages with notes formatted for paper).

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Creating handouts
A handout is a special view of the presentation suitable to be printed
and distributed to the audience. Each handout page contains from one
to nine thumbnails of the slides so that the audience can follow what ispresented as well as use it as reference. This section explains how tocustomize the handout page. An example is shown in Figure 162.

Figure 162: Example of handout with four slide
thumbnails
Note that the Handout view consists of only one page regardless of thenumber of slides in the presentation or the number of pages of slides
that will be printed.

Changing the layout
When creating handouts, first decide how many slide thumbnails you
want printed on each handout page.
1) Select the Handout view either by clicking on the tab in the work
area or by selecting View > Handout Page from the menu bar.
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2092) If the Task pane is not visible, select View > Task Pane from themenu bar.
Tip

As for any other toolbar, you can undock the Task pane byholding down the Control key and double-clicking on an empty
part of the pane.

3) In the Task pane select the Layouts tab, which looks like Figure
163 in Handout view.

Figure 163: Layouts for handouts
4) Choose the preferred layout. The main work area changes toreflect the choice.

Formatting handouts
You can format several aspects of the handout, from the page style tothe elements that appear on the page. You cannot format individual
handout pages; any changes apply to all handouts in the presentation
file.

Formatting the page
To format the handout pages:
1) Be sure you are in Handouts view. Click the Handouts tab in thework area or select View > Handout Page from the menu bar.
2) Select Format > Page from the main menu, or right-click on thehandout and select Slide > Page Setup from the pop-up menu.
3) On the Page Setup dialog box (Figure 158 on page 206), set the
paper size, orientation (portrait or landscape), margins, and otherparameters. Click OK.

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Setting automatic layout options
In Handout view, as in Notes view, Impress creates four areas where
you can put information about the presentation:• Header area
• Date and Time area
• Footer area
• Slide number area
Note

The information in these areas does not show in Handout view,
but it does appear correctly on the printed handouts.

The way to access and customize these areas is the same as for theNotes and uses the same dialog box. Refer to “Setting automatic layout
options” on page 206 for information.

Moving thumbnails and adding graphics
You can move (but not resize) the slide thumbnails and add lines,
boxes, and other graphic elements to the handouts. See Chapter 5(Managing Graphic Objects) for instructions on using the graphics
tools.

Tip

Caution

After designing a handout, you may wish to save it in a template
so you can reuse it whenever you want. See “Working with
templates” in Chapter 2 (Slide Masters, Styles, and Templates)
for instructions on saving templates and starting a newpresentation from a template.
If you click on one of the other handout layouts and then returnto the one you have reformatted, the slide thumbnails return totheir original positions, although any lines or other graphics you
have added remain where you put them. You will need to movethe thumbnails back to where you want them.

Printing handouts
1) Choose File > Print from the menu bar.
2) In the Print content section of the Print dialog box, make surethat Handouts is selected.

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Figure 164: Select Handouts for printing3) You can select which slides to include in the handouts. In the
Print range section (Figure 165), select Pages and specify theslide numbers to be included. Any numbers entered here
correspond to slides, not pieces of paper.

Figure 165: Choose which slides to print
For more about printing slides, notes, and handouts, see Chapter 10.

Exporting handouts to PDF
At present there is no way to export handouts to PDF; if you try, you
get the slides (one per page) instead. However, you can print to a
PostScript file (if you have a suitable printer driver installed) and thenuse another program (such as Ghostscript or Adobe Distiller) to createa PDF from the PostScript file.
To create a PostScript file follow the steps below:
1) Choose File > Print.
2) Under the Printer section, select the PostScript printer (such as
Adobe PDF) from your printer list.
3) Check the properties for the file and switch off Rely on systemfonts only; do not use document fonts.
4) Select the Print to file checkbox.
5) Click OK.

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Figure 166: Printing to a PostScript file6) You may see the following message regarding transparencies.
Confirm either Yes or No for whether transparencies should be
reduced. The file will then be created and given an extension of.ps.

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9

Chapter
Slide Shows
Transitions, animations, and more

Putting together a slide show
OpenOffice.org Impress gives you the tools to organize and display aslide show, including:• Which slides to show and in what sequence• Whether to run the show automatically or manually• Transitions between slides• Animations on individual slides• Interactions: what happens when you click a button or link
Most tasks associated with putting together a slide show are best
done in Slide Sorter view. Choose View > Slide Sorter from the menu
bar or click the Slide Sorter tab at the top of the workspace. All of yourslides appear in the workspace; you may need to scroll to see them all.

Choosing basic settings for a slide show
Basic settings for a slide show include which slide to start from, theway you advance the slides, the type of presentation, and pointeroptions.
Choose Slide Show > Slide Show Settings. The Slide Show dialog
box appears.

Figure 167: Choosing slide show settings

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In the Range section, choose which slides to include in the slide show:• All slides includes all of the slides except for those marked
Hidden (see “Hiding slides” on page 217). Slides are shown in thesequence they occur in the file. To change the sequence, either
rearrange the slides in the slide sorter or choose a custom slide
show (see “Showing slides in a different order” on page 218).
• From: starts the show at a slide other than the first. For example,
you might have several slides at the beginning that describe you
and your company, but when you present this show to your workcolleagues, you want to skip that introduction.
• Custom Slide Show shows the slides in a different sequence thatyou have previously set up. This choice is not available until after
you set up a custom slide show (see “Showing slides in a different
order” on page 218). You can set up as many different custom
shows as you wish from one set of slides; they will appear in thedrop-down list under this choice.
In the Type section, choose how the slides will be displayed:• Default shows the slides full screen, without the OpenOffice.org
program controls visible, and exits the show after the last slide.
• Window runs the slide show in the OpenOffice.org program
window and exits the show after the last slide.
• Auto restarts the slide show after the last slide. A pause slide isdisplayed between the last slide and the start slide. Press the Esc
key to stop the show.
In the box under this choice, specify the length of time before theshow restarts. If you enter zero, the show restarts immediately
without showing a pause slide.
Note

In version 3.2 of Impress, the Show Logo option, which isintended to show the OpenOffice.org logo on the pause slide, has
no effect. This is a bug.

In the Options section:• Change slides manually prevents slides from changing
automatically even if an automatic transition has been set up.
• Mouse pointer visible shows the mouse pointer during a slide
show. If you do not have a laser pointer or other device tohighlight items of interest during the show, this can be quite
useful.
• Mouse pointer as pen enables you to write or draw on slides
during the presentation. Anything you write with the pen is not
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•

•

•

•

saved when you exit the slide show. The color of the pen cannot
be changed.
Navigator visible displays the Navigator during the slide show.
For more about the Navigator, see Chapter 1 (Introducing
Impress).
Animations allowed displays all frames of animated GIF files
during the slide show. If this option is not selected, only the first
frame of an animated GIF file is displayed. (This has nothing to
do with the slide animations described in “Using slide animation
effects” on page 223.)
Change slides by clicking on background advances to thenext slide when you click on the background of a slide. (Other
ways of advancing to the next slide include pressing the spacebaron the keyboard.)
Presentation always on top prevents any other program
window from appearing on top of the presentation.

In the Multiple displays section, you can choose which display to use
for full screen slide show mode, if the current desktop is displayed on
more than one monitor. If the current desktop spans only one monitor,
or if the multiple-display feature is not supported on the current
system, you cannot select another display. By default the primary
display is used for slide show mode.

Note

This multiple displays setting is not a property saved in the
document, but is instead saved as a local setting in the user
configuration. This means that if you open the presentation on adifferent computer the local settings are applied.

Hiding slides
You may not want to show all of the slides in a particular show. You caneither hide some of the slides or set up a custom slide show; which
method is best depends on your needs. For example, you may havedraft slides that you don't want to show until they are finished, or you
may have some slides that contain information for yourself, but notyour audience.
To hide a slide:1) In the Slides pane, or in Slide Sorter view, select the slides thatyou want to hide.
2) Click the Show/Hide Slide icon on the Slide View toolbar, rightclick and select Hide Slide from the context menu, or choose
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Slide Show > Show/Hide Slide. The slide number is now in abox with a diagonal line through it, to indicate that it is hidden.
The slide remains in the file.

Figure 168: Slide 2 is hidden
To show a hidden slide:1) In the Slides pane, or in Slide Sorter view, select the hidden slides
that you want to show.
2) Click the Show/Hide Slide icon on the Slide View toolbar, rightclick and select Show Slide from the context menu, or choose
Slide Show > Show/Hide Slide.

Showing slides in a different order
To show the slides in a different order, you can either rearrange themin the slide sorter, or set up a custom slide show. You can define as
many custom slide shows as you need from one set of slides. In acustom slide show, you can choose which slides to include as well as
the order in which they are shown. Any slides marked Hidden will notappear in a custom show.

Setting up a custom slide show
To set up a new custom slide show:
1) Choose Slide Show > Custom Slide Show from the menu bar.
2) On the Custom Slide Shows dialog box, click New.

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Figure 169: Start here to define orchange a custom slide show3) On the Define Custom Slide Show dialog box, type a name for the
new custom show. Then, in the Existing slides list, select theslides to include in the show, in the order you want to show
them. Click the >> button to include the slides in the Selected
slides list. In Figure 170, Title Slide and Slide 4 have been
included; Slide 2 has been selected but not yet included.
You can select and include several slides at the same time. Holddown the Shift key and click the first and last slide in a group to
select that group (for example, slides 3 through 7), or hold down
the Control key and click on individual slides to select them (forexample, slides 3, 5, and 9).

Figure 170: Defining a custom slide show
4) When you are done arranging the order of the slides, click OK tosave this custom show and return to the Custom Slide Shows
dialog box. To activate your custom show, select the Use Custom
Slide Show option at the bottom.
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Note

If you include several slides at the same time, they are added to
the Selected slides list in numerical order regardless of theorder in which you selected them. In other words, if you click onslides 3, 9, and 5 in that order and add them all at the sametime, they will be included in the Selected slides list in thisorder: 3, 5, 9. To put them in a different order, either select andinclude them one at a time or select and drag them up or down
the list. You can also use the Slide Sorter view to rearrange theorder of slides.

Tip

Slides are added to the Selected slides list after whichever slide
is currently highlighted in that list. The last slide added ishighlighted unless you select a different one. For example, you
may have added slides 1, 2, 3 and 9, in that order. Slide 9 will behighlighted. If you now want to add slide 15 between slides 2
and 3, select slide 2 in the Selected slides list, then select slide
15 in the Existing slides list and click >>.
You can also add slide 15 at the end of the Selected slides list
and then drag it up to where you want it in the sequence.

Editing, deleting, or copying a custom slide show
To edit a custom slide show (add, remove, or change the order ofslides, or change the name of the show), select it in the Custom Slide
Shows dialog box (Figure 169) and click Edit.
To delete a custom slide show, select it in the Custom Slide Shows
dialog box and click Delete. Deletion is immediate; no confirmation
message appears.
To create a copy of a slide show, select it in the Custom Slide Shows
dialog box and click Copy. You can now edit the copy to rename it andadd, remove, or change the order of slides in it.
You can run a custom slide show (for example, to test it) from theCustom Slide Shows dialog box, if the Use Custom Slide Show
checkbox is selected. Select the slide show from the list and click
Start.
When you have finished working with custom slide shows, click Closeto save all changes and close the Custom Slide Shows dialog box.

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Using slide transitions
Slide transitions are the effects that take place when one slide gives
way to the next one in the presentation, like Roll down from top or Fly
in from left. They add dynamic flair to a slideshow, smoothing thetransition between slides.
In the Tasks pane, choose Slide Transition.
In the Slides pane or Slide Sorter view,
select the slides to which you want toapply the transition. If you want thetransition to apply to all slides, you do notneed to select them first.
In the Apply to selected slides list,
select a transition.
Modify the selected transition by changing
the speed or adding a sound, in the Modify
transition area. If you choose to play asound, select it in the Sound list. The
Loop until next sound option now
becomes active. Select this option to play
the sound repeatedly until another soundstarts. If you select this option and there
are no subsequent sounds in your slide
show, the sound will play continuously forthe remainder of the show.
Choose next how to advance to the next
slide: manually (on mouse click) or
automatically. If you choose automatically,
you can specify how long the slide remains
visible before it automatically advances tothe next slide.
Figure 171: Slide Transition
If you want the transition to apply to allslides, click the Apply to All Slides
button.

drawer of Tasks pane

To start the slide show from the current slide (so you can see all thetransitions), click the Slide Show button.
If the Automatic preview checkbox is marked, the effect of a selectedtransition is immediately displayed in the work area. You can replay
the effect at any time by pressing the Play button.

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You can apply a single type of transition to all slides in the presentation
or apply a different transition to any single slide, even having a
different transition for every slide in the show. While using manydifferent transitions may be fun to do, it may not give your show aprofessional appearance.

Tip

If you want most of the slides to have the same transition, but a
few to be different, you may find it easier to apply one transition
to all slides and then change only the ones you want to bedifferent.

Setting the timing of automatic slide changes
You can set up a slide show to run automatically, either unattended orwhile you speak. To set the default time for slides to be displayed
before changing to the next slide, go to the Slide Transition drawer of
the Tasks pane (Figure 171), leave the transition effect set to No
Transition, choose Automatically after in the Advance slide section,
set a time, and click the Apply to All Slides button.
To vary the timing for some slides, choose Slide Show > Rehearse
Timings from the menu bar, or click the Rehearse Timings icon on
the Slide Show toolbar. The slide show begins in full-screen mode, anda timer appears in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.
When you want to advance to the next slide, click the timer. To keep
the default setting for this slide, click the slide, not the timer. Continue
for all slides in your presentation. Impress records the display time foreach slide. When you next look at the time set under Automaticallyafter, you will see that the times have changed to match what you set
when rehearsing.
If you want the whole presentation to auto-repeat, open the menu
Slide Show > Slide Show Settings. Click Auto and OK.

Playing a sound throughout the presentation
You can use the Slide Transition pane to set up Impress so that a soundor a song is played throughout the presentation. To do that:
1) Select the slide where you want the sound to start and go to the
Slide Transition pane.
2) In the Modify transition section, select the entry Other soundfrom the Sound drop-down menu.

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3) Select the Loop until next sound checkbox if you want thesound to restart once it is finished.
CautionNote

Do not click the Apply to all button; otherwise your selectedsound will restart at every slide.
The sound file is linked to the presentation rather thanembedded; therefore if you plan to display the presentation on adifferent machine, remember that you also have to make thesound file available on the machine where the presentation will
be played, and re-establish the link to the local sound file before
starting the slideshow.

Removing a transition effect1) Select the desired slides.
2) Choose No Transition in the list on the Slide Transition page of
the Tasks pane.

Using slide animation effects
Slide animations are similar to transitions, but they are applied toindividual elements on a single slide—a title, chart, shape, or individualbullet point. Animations can make a presentation more lively andmemorable. Just as with transitions, heavy use of animations can be
fun, but distracting and even annoying for an audience expecting aprofessional presentation.
Animation effects need to be applied from Normal view so that you canselect individual objects on a single slide.

Note

At present it is not possible to apply animation effects to theslide master elements. This means that if you want to display theitems in a text box one by one, you need to apply the effects toeach text box, or alternatively copy the text box from one slide to
the other.

Applying an animation effect
In Normal view, display the desired slide. Select the text or object you
want to animate. An object such as a graphic or an entire text box will

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have green handles around it when selected. If you choose only aportion of the text in a text box, you may not see any green handles.
In the Tasks pane, choose Custom Animation (Figure 172).
Click Add. The Custom Animation dialog
box (Figure 173) appears. Choose an effectfrom one of the pages of this dialog box,
and choose the speed or duration of that
effect. See the example on page 226 forsome hints on how to combine multiple
effects.
To choose the animation to be applied when
the object is placed on the screen, use aneffect from the Entrance page, for example,
Fly In or Dissolve In.
Use the Emphasis page to apply a basic
effect, such as changing the font color, orto add special effects such as blinking text.
To choose the effect to be applied when theobject is leaving the screen, use the Exit
page.
If you want the object to move along a lineor curve, select an animation from the
Motion Paths page. An example of this typeof animation is provided in “Example:
Setting up a motion path” on page 230.
Click OK to save the effect and return to
the Custom Animation page on the Task
pane. Here you can choose how to start the
animation, change the speed, and apply
some additional properties to the selected
effect.

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Figure 172: Task pane,showing Custom
Animation page

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Figure 173: Custom Animation dialog box. Choices
may vary depending on the selected object; forexample, pictures and text have different Emphasis
choices.

Starting an animation effect
You have three choices for starting an animation effect:
On click —the animation does not start until you click the mouse.
With previous—the animation runs at the same time as the previous
animation.
After previous—the animation runs as soon as the previous
animation ends.

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Choosing additional properties of an animation
effectMany animations have a set of properties that you can set or change.
For example, if you choose the Change Font Color effect on theEmphasis page, you can specify the font color. If you choose Fly In on
the Entrance page, you can specify the direction from which the object
flies in.
The label on the properties box changes depending on the choices
available for each effect. For example, a Fly In effect has a box labelled
Direction and a Change Font Color effect has a box labelled Font color.

Example: Using multiple animation effects
To illustrate how you can set up multiple effects, let’s look at acommon animation: list items fly in one at a time from the bottom of
the slide, and as each new item appears, the previous items change toa different color. Here is how to create these effects:
Step 1. Apply the “fly in” effect to individual list items.
1) Display the Custom Animation page of the Task pane.
2) Create a slide with several items in a bullet list. Our example slide(Figure 174) has four.

Figure 174: Example slide for multiple animations
3) Select all four items. Click Add on the Custom Animation pane.
4) On the Entrance page of the Custom Animation dialog box (Figure175), select Fly In, optionally change the Speed to Medium, andclick OK.
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5) The four effects you have just set up are listed in the animations
list on the Custom Animation page, as shown in Figure 176.

Figure 175: Choosing an entrance effectFigure 176: Animation list, showing four items

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Step 2. Apply the “change font color” effect to some list items.
Now we want to set each of the first three list items to change color
when the following item appears on the slide. To do this:1) Select the first three items on the slide (not the animations list)
and click Add in the Custom Animation pane. This time we go to
the Emphasis page of the Custom Animation dialog box andchoose Change Font Color, as shown in Figure 177. Click OK tosave this effect.

Figure 177: Choosing an emphasis effect2) Notice that the three new animations are listed at the bottom of
the animations list, and the “type of effect” icon for these threeeffects (in the second column) is different from the icon for the
first four effects (see Figure 178).

Figure 178: Animation list
after adding a second setof animations
3) You could, if you wish, select any of the last three items andchoose a different color from the Font color list on the Custom
Animation pane.

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4) Use the Change order: up-arrow button to move each of the last
three items up the list to just under the other item with the same
name. The animation list will now look like Figure 179.

Figure 179: Animation list
after moving items into
required sequence
Step 3. Change the timing for some list items from Withprevious to On click
Notice that all of the items on the animations list (except for the two“Point one” items) are set to start at the same time as the previous
item. However, it is best if when you click to make the next point
appear the previous point is dimmed. We will therefore set the color
change of the previous point and the entrance of the new point to run
on mouse click simultaneously.
1) Select the color change animations and choose On click from theStart list, then select the entrance animations (except the first)
and choose With Previous from the Start list. The animation list
now looks like Figure 180.
2) Test this set of animations by clicking the Slide Show button.

Figure 180: Final list ofanimations

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Example: Setting up a motion path
The Motion path effect moves an object along a path consisting of a
combination of straight and curved lines. Several pre-packaged paths
are provided in OOo, but it is not difficult to create your own custom
path. Start by selecting the object you want to animate and selecting a
pre-packaged motion path animation that is similar to the effect you
want to obtain. Alternatively use the Polygon or Curve animation tocreate a new path.
Select the object to show the animation path, which will be displayed
as a thin gray line with a triangle showing the starting point andanother indicating the end point. Click on any point on the line so thatblue handles are displayed around it. When the blue handles aroundthe path are shown, you can move or resize the path the same way
you would perform these operations on a graphic object.
Note

When moving a path, remember to also move the object on that
path; otherwise the animation will start with a jump. Currently it
is not possible to rotate a path.

If instead you want to modify the individual points on the line, selectthe Points toolfrom the Drawing toolbar while the path isselected. The Edit Points toolbar of Figure 181 should be displayed; if
not, select it from View > Toolbars > Edit Points.

Figure 181: The Edit Points toolbar
Once a point is selected, you can add an additional point, delete it,
move it and so on. For a detailed explanation on how to manipulate thepoints on a curve, see the Draw Guide. Once you are satisfied with theshape of the curve and its speed, click anywhere on the screen todeselect the object and continue normal editing.
Figure 182 shows a polygon motion path with a curved section.
You can combine a motion with other effects such as spinning orchanging of size or colors to create dramatic effects.
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Figure 182: Object set to move along a polygon and curve path

Advanced animation effects
Click the Effect Options button [...] next to the Properties drop-down
list to display the Effect Options dialog box.

Note

What you see on the Effect Options dialog box depends on theselected animation object. For example, the dialog box has three
pages for text objects but only two pages for picture objects (theText Animation page does not appear). The Settings section on
the Effect page also varies. Figure 183 shows the Effect page fora Direction effect, and Figure 184 shows the Settings section fora Font Color effect. For picture objects, the Text animation box on
the Effect page is unavailable.

On the Effect page of the Effect Options dialog box (Figures 183 and184), you can choose a sound to play, whether to dim or hide the object
after animation, and (in the case of text objects) whether to animate
the text all at once or word by word or letter by letter.

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Figure 183: Effect options settings for a direction effectFigure 184: Effect options settings for a font color effectOn the Text Animation page of the Effect Options dialog box (Figure185), you can group text in other ways: as one object, all paragraphs at
once, or by first-level paragraphs (that is, one list item together with
its sub-items, if any).

Figure 185: Text Animation effect options
The choices on the Timing page of the Effect Options dialog box,
shown in Figure 186, allow you to change the speed, delay, and otheraspects of the effect's timing.

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Figure 186: Timing page of Effect Options dialog box

Removing animation effects
1) On the Custom Animation page of the Task pane, select thedesired object.
2) Click the Remove button.

Using interactions
Interactions are things that happen when you click on an object in aslide. They are typically used with buttons or images, but text objects
can also have interactions. Possible interactions include: go to previous
slide, go to next slide, go to first slide, go to last slide, go to page orobject (that is, a specific slide or named object in a slide), go to
document, play sound, or run a macro.
To apply an interaction to an object (or change an interaction applied
to an object), right-click on the object and choose Interaction fromthe pop-up menu. The Interaction dialog box (Figure 187) appears.
Select an interaction from the Action at mouse click drop-down list.
With some interactions, after you select one, the dialog box changes tooffer more choices. For example, Figure 188 shows the Interaction
dialog box after choosing Go to page or object.
Tip

A sound interaction can be also applied using the Effect Options
dialog box (Figure 183).

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Figure 187: Dialog box before choosing an interaction

Figure 188: Dialog box after choosing the “Go to page or object”
interaction, showing choices for the target slide or object

Running a slide show
To run the slide show, do one of the following:• Press F5 or F9.
• Click Slide Show > Slide Show on the main menu bar.
• Click the Slide Show button on the Presentation toolbar or the

Slide Sorter toolbar.
If the slide transition is Automatically after x seconds, let the slide
show run by itself.
If the slide transition is On mouse click, do one of the following toadvance from one slide to the next.
• Press the down arrow key, the right arrow key, or the Page Down
key on the keyboard.
• Click the left mouse button.
• Press the Spacebar.

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To go backwards through the show one slide at a time, press the up
arrow key, the left arrow key, or the Page Up key. For more complex
navigation, use the right-click menu (see below).
Custom animations on a slide are run in the specified order when
performing one of the above actions.
When you advance past the last slide, the message Click to exit
presentation... appears. Click the left mouse button or press any key
to exit the presentation.
To exit the slide show and return to the Impress workspace at any
time, including at the end, press the Esc key.

Navigating using the right-click menu
If your presentation consists of more than one slide, right-clicking
anywhere on the screen brings up a menu. The choices are:
Next: Moves to the next slide in the defined sequence.
Previous: Move to the previous slide in the defined sequence.
Go to Slide: Displays a submenu allowing to quickly navigate
through the presentation. Choices on the submenu include First
slide, Last Slide, or any slide in the show. You can see why giving
the slides meaningful names—instead of leaving them at the default
Slide 1, Slide 2, and so on—can be very helpful.
Screen: Displays a submenu with two choices. Each choice blanks
the screen, showing it as either all black or all white. This can be
useful if you want to pause the show for awhile (perhaps during a
break or to demonstrate something on another computer).
End Show: Ends the presentation and returns you to the Impress
workspace. This is the same effect as pressing the Esc key.

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10

Chapter
Printing, e-mailing,
exporting, and saving
slide showsIntroduction
General information about printing documents from OOo is provided in
the Getting Started guide. This chapter describes some items ofparticular interest to users of Impress.

Quick printing
Click the Print File Directly icon
to send the entire document to
the default printer defined for your computer.

Controlling printing
Impress provides many options for printing a presentation: withmultiple slides on one page, with a single slide per page, with notes, as
an outline, with date and time, with page name, and more.
For more control over printing a presentation, choose File > Print todisplay the Print dialog box.

Figure 189. The Print dialog box
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On the Print dialog box, you can choose:• Which printer to use (if more than one are installed on yoursystem) and the properties of the printer—for example,
orientation (portrait or landscape), which paper tray to use, andwhat paper size to print on. The properties available depend on
the selected printer; consult the printer’s documentation for
details.
• What content to print: slides, notes, handouts, or outline.
–
Slides prints one slide per page, full page, in landscape.
–Handouts prints the slides in reduced size on the page, from asingle slide up to six slides per page. You can choose how
many slides to print per page, and whether to print themhorizontally (landscape orientation) or vertically (portrait
orientation) on the page.

Notes prints a single slide per page with any notes entered forthat slide in Notes view.
–
Outline prints the title and headings of each slide in outline
format.
• What slides to print, how many copies to print, and in what orderto print them.
–Pages prints the slide numbers you list in the box. Use
hyphens to indicate ranges and commas or semicolons toseparate ranges; for example: 1, 5, 11-14, 34-40.
–
Selection prints selected objects. This choice is available only
when you have selected one or more objects on a slide (inNormal view).
• What items to print. Click the Options button to display the
Printer Options dialog box (Figure 190). Refer to Chapter 8(Slides, Notes, and Handouts) for instructions on how to set up
the page for handouts and notes printing.
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Selecting printer options for a presentation
Selections on the Printer Options dialog box (Figure 190) apply to thisprinting of this presentation only. To specify default printing options for
Impress, see “Selecting default print options” on page 240.

Figure 190: Selecting printer options for a presentation
Some items of interest on the Printer Options dialog box include:
Under Quality:• Default prints the presentation in color on a color printer or ingrayscale on a mono printer, including all background colors andimages. If you have used a dark background (which looks goodwhen projected), the slides may not be very readable whenprinted, especially on handouts with small images.
• Grayscale prints in black, white and grayscale on both color andmono printers, and does not print background colors or images.
• Black & white prints in black, white and grayscale and does notprint background colors or images.
Under Print, you can choose additional elements to be printed in thepage margin. If you marked Brochure in the Page options area, theonly available selection in this area is Hidden pages.
• Page name includes the name of the slide. Not available withbrochure printing.

Chapter 10 Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows239• Date prints the current date at time of printing. Not available

with brochure printing.
• Time prints the current time. Not available with brochureprinting.
• Hidden pages prints the slides that are marked as hidden in thepresentation.
Under Page options:• Default prints the slides full size.
• Fit to page scales down slides so they fit on the paper in theprinter.
• Tile pages prints several slides on a page, if the slides are smaller
than the paper.
• Brochure is discussed in “Printing a brochure” on page 242.
• Paper tray from printer settings specifies that the paper tray to be
used is the one defined in the printer setup.

Selecting default print options
Selections on the Printer Options dialog box over-ride any default
settings. To specify default settings for printing, use Tools > Options> OpenOffice.org Impress > Print. The page displayed contains thesame choices as the Printer Options dialog box.
Other printer settings are found in Tools > Options >OpenOffice.org > Print, as shown in Figure 191. Use this page to
specify quality settings for printing, and whether to have OOo warn
you if the paper size or orientation of your document does not match
the printer settings.

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Figure 191. Print options for OpenOffice.org

Printing in black and white on a color printerYou may wish to print documents in black and white on a color printer,to save expensive color ink or toner or to make handouts of slides withdark backgrounds easier to read. Several choices are available.
To print the current document in black and white or grayscale:1) Click File > Print to open the Print dialog box (Figure 189).
2) Click Properties to open the properties dialog box for the printer.
The available choices vary from one printer to another, but you
should find an option for Color. See your printer’s help or user
manual for more information.
3) The choices for color may include black and white or grayscale.
Choose one of these. Grayscale is best if you have any graphics inthe document. Click OK to confirm your choice and return to thePrint dialog box, then click OK again to print the document.
To set up OOo to print all color text and graphics as grayscale:1) Click Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Print to display the
dialog box shown in Figure 191.
2) Select the Convert colors to grayscale checkbox. Click OK tosave the change.

Chapter 10 Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows241To set up Impress to print all color text as black, and all graphics asgrayscale:1) Click Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Impress > Print.
2) Under Quality, select the Grayscale or Black & white checkbox.
Click OK to save the change.

Printing a brochure
You can print a presentation with two slides on each side of a sheet ofpaper, arranged so that when the printed pages are folded in half, theslides are in the correct order to form a booklet or brochure.
To print a brochure on a single-sided printer:
1) Click File > Print. In the Print dialog box (Figure 189), click
Properties and be sure the printer is set to the same orientation(portrait or landscape) as specified in the page setup for yourdocument. (Usually the orientation does not matter, but it does forbrochures.)2) Click Options. In the Pages section of the Printer Options dialog
box (Figure 190), choose Brochure and Right pages. Click OK
twice to print the first side of each page.
3) Flip the pages and put them back into the printer, new side up,
and in the correct orientation. You may need to experiment a bit
to find out what the correct arrangement is for your printer.
4) Click File > Print and check Properties to make sure the printersetup is still correct.
5) Click Options again. In the Pages section of the Printer Options
dialog box, choose Brochure and Left page. Click OK twice toprint the second side of each page.
6) If your printer can do double-sided printing, then click on the
checkboxes for both Left and Right along with Brochure.

Exporting to PDF
OpenOffice.org Impress can export presentations to PDF (Portable
Document Format). This industry-standard file format for file viewing isideal for sending the file to someone else to view using Adobe Reader
or other PDF viewers.

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Click the Export Directly as PDF icon
to export the entire
presentation using the default PDF settings. You are asked to enter the
file name and location for the PDF file, but you do not get a chance tochoose a page range or the print quality.

Controlling PDF content and quality
For more control over the content and quality of the resulting PDF, use
File > Export as PDF. The PDF Options dialog box opens. This dialog
box has five pages, described in this section. Make your selections, andthen click Export. Then you are asked to enter the location and filename of the PDF to be created, and click Save to export the file.

General page of PDF Options dialog box
On the General page (Figure 192), you can choose which pages (slides)
to include in the PDF, the type of compression to use for images (which
affects the quality of images in the PDF), and other options.
Range section• All: Exports the entire document.
• Pages: To export a range of slides, use the format 3-6 (slides 3 to6). To export single slides, use the format 7;9;11 (slides 7, 9, and11). You can also export a combination of slide ranges and single
slides, by using a format like 3-6;8;10;12.
• Selection: Exports whatever material is selected.
Images section• Lossless compression: Images are stored without any loss ofquality. Tends to make large files when used with photographs.
Recommended for other images.
• JPEG compression: Allows for varying degrees of quality. A
setting of 90% tends to work well with photographs (small filesize, little perceptible loss).
• Reduce image resolution: Lower-DPI (dots per inch) images
have lower quality.
Note

EPS images with embedded previews are exported only as
previews. EPS images without embedded previews are exported
as empty placeholders.

Chapter 10 Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows243Figure 192: General page of PDF Options dialog box
General section• PDF/A-1: PDF/A is an ISO standard established in 2005 for longterm preservation of documents, by embedding all the pieces
necessary for faithful reproduction (such as fonts) whileforbidding other elements (including forms, security, encryption,and tagged PDF). If you select PDF/A-1, the forbidden elements
are greyed-out (not available).
• Tagged PDF: Includes special tags into the corresponding PDF
tags. Some tags that are exported are table of contents,
hyperlinks, and controls. This option can increase file sizes
significantly.
• Create PDF form - Submit format: Choose the format ofsubmitting forms from within the PDF file. This setting overrides
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the control’s URL property that you set in the document. There is
only one common setting valid for the whole PDF document: PDF(sends the whole document), FDF (sends the control contents),
HTML, and XML. Most often you will choose the PDF format.
• Export bookmarks: Exports slide names as “bookmarks” (a tableof contents list displayed by some PDF readers, including Adobe
Reader).
• Export comments: Despite the name, exports a set of Notes
pages after the set of slides.
• Export automatically inserted blank pages: Not used in
Impress.

Initial View page of PDF Options dialog box
On the Initial View page, you can choose how the PDF opens by default
in a PDF viewer. The selections should be self-explanatory.

Figure 193: Initial View page

User Interface page of PDF Options dialog box
On the User Interface page, you can choose more settings to control
how a PDF viewer displays the file. Some of these choices are
particularly useful when you are creating a PDF to be used as apresentation or a kiosk-type display.

Chapter 10 Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows245

Figure 194: User Interface page
Window options section• Resize window to initial page. Causes the PDF viewer window
to resize to fit the first page of the PDF.
• Center window on screen. Causes the PDF viewer window to becentered on the computer screen.
• Open in full screen mode. Causes the PDF viewer to open fullscreen instead of in a smaller window.
• Display document title. Causes the PDF viewer to display the
document’s title in the title bar.
User interface options section• Hide menubar. Causes the PDF viewer to hide the menu bar.
• Hide toolbar. Causes the PDF viewer to hide the toolbar.
• Hide window controls. Causes the PDF viewer to hide otherwindow controls.
Transitions section
Includes Impress slide transition effects as the respective PDF effects.
Bookmarks section
Select how many heading levels are displayed as bookmarks, if Export
bookmarks is selected on the General page.

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Links page of PDF Options dialog box
On the Links page, you can choose how links are exported to PDF.

Figure 195: Links page of PDF Options dialog box
Export bookmarks as named destinations
If you have defined Writer bookmarks, Impress or Draw slide names,or Calc sheet names, this option exports them as “named
destinations” to which Web pages and PDF documents can link.
Convert document references to PDF targets
If you have defined links to other documents with OpenDocument
extensions (such as .ODT, .ODS, and .ODP), this option converts thefiles names to .PDF in the exported PDF document.
Export URLs relative to file system
If you have defined relative links in a document, this option exports
those links to the PDF.
Cross-document links
Defines the behavior of links clicked in PDF files.

Security page of PDF Options dialog box
PDF export includes options to encrypt the PDF (so it cannot be
opened without a password) and apply some digital rights management(DRM) features.

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Figure 196: Security page
Note

Permission settings are effective only if the user’s PDF viewer
respects the settings.

• With an open password set, the PDF can only be opened with the

password. Once opened, there are no restrictions on what theuser can do with the document (for example, print, copy, orchange it).
• With a permissions password set, the PDF can be opened byanyone, but its permissions can be restricted. See the options on
Figure 196.
• With both the open password and permission password set, thePDF can only be opened with the correct password, and its
permissions can be restricted.
Figure 197 shows the pop-up dialog box displayed when you click the
Set open password button on the Security page of the PDF Options
dialog box.

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Figure 197: Setting a password to encrypt a PDF
After you set a password for permissions, the other choices on the
Security page (shown in Figure 196) become available. These
selections should be self-explanatory.

Exporting as a Flash file
Macromedia Flash file format (.SWF) was created to store animation
for web pages. Because almost all browsers play Flash movies (theAdobe Flash Player is available as a free download for those without
Flash-capable browsers), these files can be viewed by just aboutanyone. With OpenOffice.org, you can export your Impress slide show
as a .SWF file. To download the latest Adobe Flash Player for youroperating system, go to:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
Note

Saving in Flash format does not retain animation and slide
transitions.

To export the presentation as a Flash (.SWF) file:
1) Choose File > Export.
2) Select the location where you want the file saved and type a namefor the file.
3) Under File Format, choose Macromedia Flash (SWF) (.swf)
and click Save.

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Exporting as web pages (HTML files)
You can export presentations as a series of web pages that can beviewed in any browser.
Note

Saving as web pages (HTML format) does not retain animationand slide transitions.

1) Select File > Export and choose HTML Document as the filetype.
2) Create a folder for the files, supply a name for the resulting
HTML file, and click Save. The HTML Export Wizard opens.

Note

Depending on the size of your presentation and the number ofgraphics it contains, the HTML export function creates many
HTML, JPG, and GIF files. If you simply save to your desktop (notin a specific folder), these separate HTML and graphics files willbe all over your desktop. So be sure to create a folder to hold all
the files.

3) Choose the design for all of the pages, either from an existing
design or by creating a new one.
If you have not previously saved a design, the Existing Design
choice is not available.

Figure 198: HTML Export – Choose a design

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4) Click Next to select the type of web pages to create.

Figure 199: HTML Export – Choose publication type
Standard HTML: one page for each slide, with navigation links
to move from slide to slide.
•
Standard HTML with frames: one page with a navigation baron the left-hand side; uses slide title as navigation links. Clickon links to display pages in right-hand side.
•
Automatic: one page for each slide, with each page set with
the Refresh meta tag so a browser automatically cycles fromone page to the next.
•
WebCast: generates an ASP or Perl application to display theslides. Unfortunately OOo has no direct support for PHP yet.
5) Decide how the images will be saved (PNG, GIF or JPG) and what
resolution to use. When choosing a resolution, consider what the
majority of your viewers might have. If you use a high resolution,then a viewer with a medium-resolution monitor will have toscroll sideways to see the entire slide—probably not desirable.
•

Chapter 10 Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows251Figure 200: HTML Export – Choose graphics type6) If Create title page was chosen in step 4, supply the information
for it on the next page. The title contains an author name, e-mailaddress and home page, along with any additional information
you want to include.
This page of the Wizard does not display if Create title page was
not chosen.

Figure 201: HTML Export – Title page information
7) Choose the navigation button style to use to move from one page
to another. If you do not choose any, OOo will create a text
navigator.

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Figure 202: HTML Export – Choose navigation style8) Select the color scheme for the web pages. Available schemes
include the document’s existing scheme, one based upon browser
colors, and a completely user-defined scheme. You can save a newscheme so that it will appear on the first page of the HTML export
wizard.

Figure 203: HTML Export – Choose color scheme

Chapter 10 Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows2539) Click Create to generate the HTML files. If this is a new design, asmall dialog box pops up. If you might want to reuse this design,
you can give it a name and save it. Otherwise, click Do Not Save.

Figure 204: Naming the design

E-mailing a presentation
OOo provides several ways to quickly and easily send a Writer
document as an e-mail attachment in one of three formats: .ODP
(OpenDocument Presentation, OOo’s default format), .PPT (Microsoft
PowerPoint format), or PDF.
To send the current document in .ODP format:
1) Choose File > Send > Document as E-mail. OpenOffice.org
opens a new e-mail in your default e-mail program. The document
is attached.
2) In your e-mail program, enter the recipient, subject and any text
you want to add, then send the e-mail.
File > Send > E-mail as OpenDocument Presentation has thesame effect.
If you choose E-mail as Microsoft PowerPoint, OOo first creates a.PPT file and then opens your e-mail program with the .PPT fileattached. The .PPT file is not saved on your computer.
Similarly, if you choose E-mail as PDF, OOo first creates a PDF using
your default PDF settings (as when using the Export Directly as PDF
toolbar button) and then opens your e-mail program with the .PDF fileattached. The PDF file is not saved on your computer.
Tip

254

If you want to keep a copy of the .PPT or .PDF file as well as emailing it to someone, first save or export the presentation into
the required format, then attach it to an e-mail in the usual way.

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Digital signing of documents
To sign a document digitally, you need a personal key, the certificate. A
personal key is stored on your computer as a combination of a private
key, which must be kept secret, and a public key, which you add to yourdocuments when you sign them. You can get a certificate from acertification authority, which may be a private company or agovernmental institution.
When you apply a digital signature to a document, a kind of checksum
is computed from the document’s content plus your personal key. The
checksum and your public key are stored together with the document.
When someone later opens the document on any computer with arecent version of OpenOffice.org, the program will compute thechecksum again and compare it with the stored checksum. If both are
the same, the program will signal that you see the original, unchanged
document. In addition, the program can show you the public key
information from the certificate. You can compare the public key withthe public key that is published on the web site of the certificate
authority.
Whenever someone changes something in the document, this change
breaks the digital signature.
On Windows operating systems, the Windows features of validating asignature are used. On Solaris and Linux systems, files that aresupplied by Thunderbird, Mozilla or Firefox are used. For a moredetailed description of how to get and manage a certificate, andsignature validation, see “Using Digital Signatures” in the OOo Help.
To sign a document:
1) Choose File > Digital Signatures.
2) If you have not saved the document since the last change, amessage appears. Click Yes to save the file.
3) After saving, you see the Digital Signatures dialog box. Click Add
to add a public key to the document.
4) In the Select Certificate dialog box, select your certificate andclick OK.
5) You see again the Digital Signatures dialog box, where you can
add more certificates if you want. Click OK to add the public key
to the saved file.
A signed document shows an iconin the status bar. You candouble-click the icon to view the certificate.

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Opening and saving a PowerPoint file
OpenOffice.org’s Impress file format is highly compatible with
Microsoft’s PowerPoint format. You can open a PowerPoint
presentation in Impress, edit it, then save it in its original PowerPoint
format or in Impress format. You can also create a new presentation in
Impress and save it as a PowerPoint file.

Saving an Impress file as a PowerPoint file
1) Choose File > Save As from the menu bar.
2) Select the location where you want the PowerPoint file saved andtype a name for the file.
3) Under File type, choose Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP(.ppt).
4) Click Save. If you have the “Warn when not saving in ODF or
default format” option set in Options > Load/Save > General,the message shown in Figure 205 appears. Click Keep Current
Format to confirm that you want to save the file in Microsoft
PowerPoint format. You can deselect the Ask when not saving in
ODF format checkbox to not show the message again unless you
re-enable it in the Options.

Figure 205: Warning message when saving in
Microsoft PowerPoint format

TIP

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Always save your work in Impress OpenDocument format (.odp)
before saving in Microsoft format. Keep the Impress file as yourworking copy: if you need to change the presentation, change itin the Impress version and then save it again as PowerPoint. You
are much less likely to have problems than if you open a filepreviously saved in PowerPoint format, edit it, and save it again.
OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

Opening a PowerPoint file in Impress
If you receive a file from someone in PowerPoint format and need toedit it in Impress, here is how:1) In OpenOffice.org, choose File > Open from the menu bar.
2) Under File type, choose All files (*.*) or Presentations or
Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP from the drop-down list.
3) Navigate to the PowerPoint file, select it, and click Open.
The PowerPoint file can now be edited and saved as an Impress file ora PowerPoint file. To save the file as an Impress file, choose
OpenDocument Presentation (.odp) as the File Type.

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11

Chapter
Setting Up andCustomizing ImpressChoosing options that affect all of OOo
This section covers some of the settings that apply to all thecomponents of OpenOffice.org and are of most interest to users of
Impress. Other general options are discussed in Chapter 2 (Setting Up
OpenOffice.org) in the Getting Started guide.
1) Click Tools > Options (OpenOffice.org > Preferences on aMac). The list on the left-hand side of the Options –OpenOffice.org dialog box varies depending on which componentof OOo is open. The illustrations in this chapter show the list as it
appears when Impress is open.
2) Click the expansion marker (+ or triangle) by OpenOffice.org on
the left-hand side. A list of subsections drops down.

Figure 206: OpenOffice.org
optionsNote

The Back button has the same effect on all pages of the Options
dialog box. It resets the options to the values that were in placewhen you opened OpenOffice.org.

User Data options
Impress uses the first and last name stored in the User Data page tofill in the Created by and Modified by fields in the document
properties, the optional Author field often used in the footer of apresentation, and the name associated with comments. You will want toensure that your name appears there. To do this:1) In the Options dialog box, click OpenOffice.org > User Data.
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2) Fill in the form on the OpenOffice.org – User Data page or delete
any existing incorrect information.

Print options
On the OpenOffice.org – Print page, set the print options to suit yourdefault printer and your most common printing method.
You can change these settings at any time, either through the Options
dialog box or during the printing process (by clicking the Options
button on the Print dialog box).
See Chapter 10 (Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows)for more about the options on this page.

Color options
On the OpenOffice.org – Colors page, you can specify colors to use in
OOo documents. You can select a color from a color table, edit anexisting color, and define new colors. These colors are stored in yourcolor selection palette and are then available in all components of OOo.
You can also define colors within Impress by choosing Format > Area
on the menu bar, or through the Line and Filling toolbar, but thosecolors will not be available to other components of OOo.

Figure 207. Defining colors to use in color palettes in
OOo

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Appearance options
On the OpenOffice.org – Appearance page, you can specify which items
are visible and the colors used to display various elements of the userinterface.

Figure 208. Changing the color of grid points in
Impress and Draw
The only choice specific to Impress (and Draw) is the color of the grid
points. Scroll down in the page until you find Drawing/Presentation.
To change the default color for grid points, click the down-arrow by thecolor and select a new color from the pop-up box.
If you wish to save your color changes as a color scheme, click Save,
type a name in the Scheme box, then click OK.

Choosing options for Impress
In the Options dialog box, click the expansion marker to the left of
OpenOffice.org Impress on the left-hand side. A list of subsections
drops down.

Figure 209: Options for Impress

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General options
In the Options dialog box, click OpenOffice.org Impress > General.

Figure 210: Specifying general options for Impress

Text objects section
Allow quick editing sets Impress to immediately switch to the text
editing mode when you click a text object. You can also activate thetext editing mode through the Allow Quick Editing icon
Options toolbar.

on theOnly text area selectable sets Impress to select a text frame when you
click on text. In the area of the text frame that is not filled with text, anobject behind the text frame can be selected. You can also activate thismode through the Select Text Area Only icon
toolbar.

on the Options

New document section
Start with Wizard sets Impress to start with the Presentation Wizard
when creating a new presentation with File > New > Presentation orother methods.

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Settings section
Use background cache sets Impress to use the cache for displaying
objects on the master page. This setting speeds up the display. Unmark
this box if you want Impress to draw the background every time you
display a slide.
copy when moving automatically creates a copy when you move, rotate
or resize an object while holding down the Ctrl key (⌘ key for Mac).
The original object will remain in its current position and size.
Objects always movable lets you move an object with the Rotate tool
enabled. If this box is not marked, the Rotate tool can only be used torotate an object.
Unit of measurement determines the unit of measurement for
presentations.
Tab stops defines the spacing between tab stops.

Start presentation section
Always with current page specifies that a presentation starts with thecurrent slide. Unmark this box to always start a presentation with thefirst page.

Compatibility section
The settings in this area are valid for the current document only.
Use printer metrics for document formatting applies printer metrics
for printing and for formatting the display on the screen; someformatting will depend on the printer selection or default printer on
your computer and may vary if the presentation is moved to a different
computer. If this box is not checked, a printer-independent layout isused for screen display and printing.
Add spacing between paragraphs (in current document) calculates theparagraph spacing in Impress exactly as Microsoft PowerPoint does.
Microsoft PowerPoint adds the bottom spacing of a paragraph to the
top spacing of the next paragraph to calculate the total spacing
between both paragraphs. Impress normally uses only the larger of thetwo spacings.

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View options
In the Options dialog box, click OpenOffice.org Impress > View.

Figure 211: Specifying view options for Impress
Rulers visible displays the rulers at the top and the left of the workarea.
Guides when moving displays dotted guides that extend beyond thebox containing the selected object and which cover the entire workarea, helping you position the object when moving it. You can also use
the Guides when moving iconon the Options toolbar.

All control points in Bézier editor displays the control points of all
Bézier points if you have previously selected a Bézier curve. If this box
is not marked, only the control points of the selected Bézier points will
be visible.
Contour of each individual object displays the contour line of eachindividual object when moving the object. This enables you to see if
single objects conflict with other objects in the target position. If you
do not mark this box, Impress displays only a square contour that
includes all selected objects.

Grid options
The Grid page defines the grid settings for Impress. Using a grid helps
you determine the exact position of your objects. You can also set thisgrid in line with the snap grid.
In the Options dialog box, click OpenOffice.org Impress > Grid.

Grid section
Snap to grid activates the “snap” function.
If you have activated the snap grid but wish to move or create
individual objects without snap positions, you can press the Ctrl key todeactivate the snap grid for as long as needed.
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Visible grid displays grid points on the screen. These points will not
display or print as part of a presentation.

Figure 212: Specifying grid options for Impress

Resolution section
Here you can set the unit of distance for the spacing between
horizontal and vertical grid points and subdivisions (intermediate
points) of the grid.
Synchronize axes applies any changes to the Resolution or Subdivisionsettings to both axes.

Snap section
To snap lines snaps the edge of a dragged object to the nearest snapline when you release the mouse button. You can also use the Snap to
Guides iconon the Options toolbar.

To the page margins aligns the contour of the graphic object to thenearest page margin. The cursor or a contour line of the graphic object
must be in the snap range. You can also use the Snap to Page
Margins iconon the Options toolbar.

To object frame aligns the contour of the graphic object to the borderof the nearest graphic object. The cursor or a contour line of the

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265graphic object must be in the snap range. You can also use the Snap to
Object Border iconon the Options toolbar.

To object points aligns the contour of the graphic object to the pointsof the nearest graphic object. The cursor or a contour line of thegraphic object must be in the snap range. You can also use the Snap to
Object Points iconon the Options toolbar.

Snap range defines the snap distance between the mouse pointer andthe object contour. Impress snaps to a snap point if the mouse pointeris nearer than the distance selected in the Snap range box.

Snap position section
When creating or moving objects restricts graphic objects vertically,horizontally or diagonally (45°) when creating or moving them. You cantemporarily deactivate this setting by pressing the Shift key.
Extend edges controls how a square or circle is drawn with thedrawing tool. When the Extend edges box is marked, the sides of thesquare drawn when the Shift key is pressed before you release themouse button will be equal to the longer side of a rectangle. This also
applies to the ellipse tool: when the Shift key is pressed before you
release the mouse button a circle will be created based on the longest
diameter of the ellipse. When the Extend edges box is not marked, asquare or a circle will be created based on the shorter side ordiameter.
When rotating restricts the rotation of graphic objects within therotation angle that you select in the When rotating box. If you wantto rotate an object outside of the defined angle, press the Ctrl key(Shift key on Mac) when rotating. Release the key when the desired
rotation angle is reached.
Point reduction defines the angle for point reduction. When working
with polygons, you might find it useful to reduce their editing points.

Print options
In the Options dialog box, click OpenOffice.org Impress > Print.
See Chapter 10 (Printing, e-mailing, exporting, and saving slide shows)for more about the options on this page.

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Figure 213: Specifying print options for Impress

Customizing the user interface
Customizing the menu font
If you want to change the menu font from that supplied by OOo to thesystem font for your operating system, do this:1) Choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > View.
2) Check Use system font for user interface and click OK.

Customizing menu content
You can customize menus: add and rearrange items on the menu bar,
add items to menus, and make other changes.
1) Choose Tools > Customize.
2) On the Customize dialog box, pick the Menus page (Figure 214).
3) In the Save In drop-down list, choose whether to save thischanged menu for Impress or for a selected document (forexample, MySlideShow.odp).
4) In the section OpenOffice.org Impress Menus, select from the
Menu drop-down list the menu that you want to customize.
5) To customize the selected menu, click on the Menu or Modify
buttons. You can also add commands to a menu by clicking on the
Add button. These actions are described in the following sections.
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Use the up and down arrows next to the Entries list to move theselected menu item to a different position.
6) When you have finished making all your changes, click OK tosave them.

Figure 214. The Menus page of the Customize dialog box

Creating a new menu
In the Menus page of the Customize dialog box, click New to display
the dialog shown in Figure 215.
1) Type a name for your new menu in the Menu name box.
2) Use the up and down arrow buttons to move the new menu into
the required position on the menu bar.
3) Click OK to save.
The new menu now appears on the list of menus in the Customize
dialog box. (It will appear on the menu bar itself after you save yourcustomizations.)

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After creating a new menu, you need to add some commands to it, as
described in “Adding a command to a menu” on page 270.

Figure 215: Adding a new menu

Modifying existing menus
To modify an existing menu, select it in the Menu list and click the
Menu button to drop down a list of modifications: Move, Rename,
Delete. Not all of these modifications can be applied to all the entries
in the Menu list. For example, Rename and Delete are not available
for the menus supplied by OOo.
To move a menu (such as File), choose Menu > Move. A dialog box
similar to the one shown in Figure 215 (but without the Menu namebox) opens. Use the up and down arrow buttons to move the menu into
the required position.
To move submenus (such as File | Send), select the main menu (File) in
the Menu list and then, in the Menu Content section of the dialog,
select the submenu (Send) in the Entries list and use the arrow keys tomove it up or down in the sequence. Submenus are easily identified in
the Entries list by a small black triangle on the right hand side of thename.
In addition to renaming, you can specify a keyboard shortcut thatallows you to select a menu command when you press Alt+ an
underlined letter in a menu command.
1) Select a menu or menu entry.
2) Click the Modify button and select Rename.
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3) Add a tilde (~) in front of the letter that you want to use as anaccelerator. For example, to select the Save All command bypressing Alt+V (after opening the File menu using Alt+F), enter
Sa~ve All.
CautionBe careful when using these shortcuts. In the example above, if
the File menu is not already open, then pressing Alt+V opens
the View menu; if some other menu is open, Alt+V mightactivate some other command.

Adding a command to a menu
You can add commands to the supplied menus and to menus you havecreated. In the Customize dialog box, select the menu in the Menu list
and click the Add button in the Menu Content section of the dialog.
On the Add Commands dialog, select a category and then thecommand, and click Add. The dialog remains open, so you can selectadditional commands. When you have finished adding commands, click
Close. Back in the Customize dialog box, you can use the up and downarrow buttons to arrange the commands in your preferred sequence.

Figure 216: Adding a command to a menu

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Modifying menu entries
In addition to changing the sequence of entries on a menu or submenu,
you can add submenus, rename or delete the entries, and add groupseparators.
To begin, select the menu or submenu in the Menu list near the top of
the Customize page, then select the entry in the Entries list under
Menu Content. Click the Modify button and choose the required action
from the drop-down list of actions. Most of the actions should be selfexplanatory. Begin a group adds a separator line after the highlighted
entry.

Customizing toolbars
You can customize toolbars in several ways, including choosing whichicons are visible, and locking the position of a docked toolbar, as
described in Chapter 1 (Introducing OpenOffice.org) of the Getting
Started guide. This section describes how to create new toolbars andadd other icons (commands) to the list of those available on a toolbar.
To get to the toolbar customization dialog, do any of the following:
On the toolbar, click the arrow at the end of the toolbar andchoose Customize Toolbar.
• Choose View > Toolbars > Customize from the menu bar.
• Choose Tools > Customize > Toolbars tab from the menu bar.
•

To customize toolbars:
1) In the Save In drop-down list, choose whether to save thischanged toolbar for Impress or for a selected document.
2) In the OpenOffice.org Impress Toolbars section, select from the
Toolbar drop-down list the toolbar that you want to customize.
3) Click the Toolbar button on the right to display a drop-down list of
choices.
4) To display or hide commands, select or deselect the checkboxes in
the Toolbar Content – Commands section.
5) To change the position of commands on a toolbar, select acommand and click the big up and down arrows to the right of thelists.
6) You can create a new toolbar by clicking on the New button, or
customize existing toolbars by clicking on the Toolbar or Modify
buttons, and add commands to a toolbar by clicking on the Add
button. These actions are described below.

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7) When you are done customizing toolbars, click OK to save yourchanges.

Figure 217. The Toolbars page of the Customize window

Creating a new toolbar
To create a new toolbar:
1) Choose Tools > Customize > Toolbars from the menu bar.
2) Click New. In the Name dialog, type the new toolbar's name andchoose from the Save In drop-down list where to save thischanged menu: for Impress or for a selected document.

Figure 218: Dialog box used to create a new toolbar

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The new toolbar now appears on the list of toolbars in the Customize
dialog box. After creating a new toolbar, you need to add somecommands to it, as described below.

Adding a command to a toolbar
If the list of available buttons for a toolbar does not include all thecommands you want on that toolbar, you can add commands.
1) On the Toolbars page of the Customize dialog box, select the
toolbar in the Toolbar list and click the Add button in the Toolbar
Content section of the dialog.
2) The Add Commands dialog is the same as for adding commands tomenus. Select a category and then the command, and click Add.
The dialog remains open, so you can select additional commands.
When you have finished adding commands, click Close. If you
insert an item which does not have an associated icon, the toolbar
will display the full name of the item; the next section describes
how to choose an icon for a toolbar command.
3) Back on the Customize dialog box, you can use the up and downarrow buttons to arrange the commands in your preferred
sequence.
4) When you are done making changes, click OK to save.

Choosing icons for toolbar commands
Toolbar buttons usually have icons, not words, on them, but not all of
the commands have associated icons.
To choose an icon for a command, select the command and click
Modify > Change icon. On the Change Icon dialog, you can scroll
through the available icons, select one, and click OK to assign it to thecommand.
To use a custom icon, create it in a graphics program and import it into
OOo by clicking the Import button on the Change Icon dialog. Custom
icons must be 16 x 16 or 26 x 26 pixels in size and cannot contain morethan 256 colors.

Chapter 11 Setting Up and Customizing Impress273

Figure 219: Change Icon dialog

Customizing keyboard shortcuts
The Appendix to this book lists the default keyboard shortcuts suppliedwith Impress. You can change these defaults or add new shortcuts. You
can assign shortcuts to standard Impress functions or your own macros
and save them for use with Impress only, or with the entire
OpenOffice.org suite.

CautionBe careful when reassigning your operating system’s or OOo’s
predefined shortcut keys. Many key assignments are universally
understood shortcuts, such as F1 for Help, and are always
expected to provide certain results. Although you can easily
reset the shortcut key assignments to the OOo defaults,changing some common shortcut keys can cause confusion,
frustration and possible data loss or corruption, especially ifother users share your computer.

As an example, suppose you wish to assign a shortcut key to easily
insert a duplicate slide in your presentation. You could assign theInsert key as a logical shortcut for this purpose, as described below:
1) Choose Tools > Customize.
2) On the Customize dialog box, pick the Keyboard page (Figure220).
3) As the shortcut key assignment is only relevant with Impress, andnot OpenOffice.org in general, select the Impress button (at theupper right corner of the Keyboard tab).

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Figure 220: Customizing keyboard shortcuts
4) Next select Insert in the Category list and Duplicate Slide in
the Function list.
5) Now select the shortcut key Insert in the Shortcut keys list andclick the Modify button at the upper right.
6) Click OK to accept the change. Now the Insert shortcut key willinsert a duplicate slide immediately after the currently selected
slide.

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Note

1) All existing shortcut keys for the currently selected Function
are listed in the Keys selection box. Since there was no
currently assigned shortcut for theInsert > Duplicate Slide function the Keys list was empty.
If it had not been, and you wished to reassign a shortcut key
combination that was already in use, you would first have
had to Delete the existing Key.
2) Shortcut keys that are greyed out in the listing on the
Customize dialog box, such as F1 and F10, are not available
for reassignment.

Saving changes to a file
Changes to the shortcut key assignments (and other configurations)can be saved in a keyboard configuration file for use at a later time,thus permitting you to create and apply different configurations as theneed arises. To save keyboard shortcuts to a file:1) After making your keyboard shortcut assignments, click the Save
button near the bottom right of the Customize dialog box.
2) In the Save Keyboard Configuration dialog box, select All files
from the Save as Type list.
3) Next enter a name for the keyboard configuration file in theFile name box, or select an existing file from the list. If you needto, browse to find a file from another location.
4) Click Save. A confirmation dialog box will appear if you are about
to overwrite an existing file; otherwise there will be no feedback
and the file will be saved.

Loading a saved keyboard configuration
To load a saved keyboard configuration file and replace your existing
configuration, click the Load button near the bottom right of the
Customize dialog box, and then select the configuration file from theLoad Keyboard Configuration dialog box.

Resetting the shortcut keys
To reset all of the keyboard shortcuts to their default values, click the
Reset button beneath the Save button on the right side of the
Customize dialog box. Use this feature with care as no confirmation
dialog box will be displayed; the defaults will be set without any
further notice or user input.

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Running macros from key combinations
You can also define shortcut key combinations that will run macros.
These shortcut keys are strictly user-defined; none are built in. For
information on macros, see Chapter 13 (Getting started with macros)in the Getting Started guide.

Adding functionality with extensions
An extension is a package that can be installed into OpenOffice.org to
add new functionality.
Although individual extensions can be found in different places, theofficial OpenOffice.org extension repository is at
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/. Some extensions are free ofcharge; others are available for a fee. Check the descriptions to see
what licenses and fees apply to the ones that interest you.

Installing extensions
To install an extension, follow these steps:
1) Download an extension and save it anywhere on your computer.
2) In OOo, select Tools > Extension Manager from the menu bar.
In the Extension Manager dialog box (Figure 221), click Add.
3) A file browser window opens. Find and select the extension you
want to install and click Open. The extension begins installing.
You may be asked to accept a license agreement.
4) When the installation is complete, the extension is listed in the
Extension Manager dialog.
Tip

To get extensions that are listed in the repository, you can open
the Extension Manager and click the Get more extensions
here link.

Note

To install a shared extension, you need write access to the
OpenOffice.org installation directory.

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Figure 221: Installing an extension

Using extensions
This section describes some of the more important and popularextensions to Impress. In each case, you need to first install theextension as described in the previous section.

Oracle Presenter Console
Provides extra control over slide shows (presentations); for example,
the presenter has the ability to see the upcoming slide, the slide notes,
and a presentation timer—while the audience sees only the current
slide. The Presenter Console displays the elements in three easilychangeable views:• The first view displays the current slide, including the effects, andthe upcoming slide.
• The second view shows the speaker's notes in large, clear, andscalable type, plus the current and upcoming slide.
• The third view is a slide sorter view with the slide thumbnails.
From Oracle Corp. Open source.
Note

278

The Presenter Console works only on an operating system that
supports multiple displays.

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guide

Professional Template Pack II
Provides more than 120 templates for Writer, Calc, and Impress.
Available in several languages. After you have installed this extension,
you will find the templates under File > New > Templates andDocuments. Open source.

Oracle Presentation Minimizer
Reduces the file size of the current presentation. Images arecompressed, and data that is no longer needed is removed. Can
optimize the image quality size. Presentations designed for screen or
projector do not require the same high quality as presentations
designed for print. From Oracle Corp. Open source.

Template Changer
Adds two new items to the File > Templates menu that allow you toassign a new template to the current document or to a folder of
documents (Impress has only the menu item for assignment to a folder
of documents). All styles and formatting will be loaded from that
template and the document will behave as if it were created using that
template. Open source.

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A

Appendix
Keyboard Shortcuts

Introduction
You can use OpenOffice.org (OOo) without requiring a pointing device,
such as a mouse or trackball, by using its built-in keyboard shortcuts.
Tasks as varied and complex as docking and un-docking toolbars andwindows, or changing the size or position of objects can all beaccomplished with only a keyboard. Although OOo has its own
extensive set of keyboard shortcuts, each component provides others
which are specific to its work.
For help with OOo’s keyboard shortcuts, or using OOo with a keyboard
only, search the OOo Help using the “shortcut” or “accessibility”
keywords.
In addition to using the built-in keyboard shortcuts (listed in thisAppendix), you can also define your own. You can assign shortcuts tostandard Impress functions or your own macros and save them for use
with Impress only, or with the entire OpenOffice.org suite.
To adapt shortcut keys to your needs, use the Customize dialog box as
described in this section and in “Customizing keyboard shortcuts” in
Chapter 11 (Setting Up and Customizing Impress).

Tip for Macintosh users
Some keystrokes are different on a Mac from those used in Windows
and Linux. The following table gives some common substitutions forthe instructions in this book. For a more detailed list, see theapplication Help.
Windows/LinuxMac equivalent

EffectRight-click

Control+click

Open context menu

Ctrl (Control)z (Command)

Used with other keys

F5

Shift+z+F5

Open the Navigator

F11

z+T

Open the Styles andFormatting window

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281

Function keys for Impress
Shortcut Keys

EffectF2

Select text tool

F3

Enter group

Ctrl+F3

Exit group

Shift+F3

Duplicate graphic object

F4Open Position and Size dialog box

F5

View slide show

Ctrl+Shift+F5Open Navigator

F7

Start spelling checker

Ctrl+F7Open thesaurus

F8

Edit points

Ctrl+Shift+F8

Fit text to frame

F11Open the Styles and Formatting window

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Shortcut Keys

EffectArrow keyMove the selected object or the page view in the
direction of the arrow.

Ctrl+Arrow key

Move the slide in the normal view.

Shift+drag

Constrain the movement of the selected object
horizontally or vertically.

Ctrl+drag(with Copy whenmoving option active)

Hold down Ctrl and drag an object to create a copyof the object.

Alt key

Hold down Alt to draw or resize objects by
dragging from the centre of the object outward.

Alt+click

Select the object behind the currently selected
object.

Alt+Shift+click

Select the object in front of the currently selected
object.

Shift+click

Select adjacent items or a text passage. Click at
the start of a selection, move to the end of theselection, and then hold down Shift while you click.

Shift+drag(when resizing)

Hold down Shift while dragging to resize an object
to maintain the proportions of the object.

Tab

Select objects in the order in which they werecreated.

Shift+Tab

Select objects in the reverse order in which they
were created.

EscapeExit current mode.

Enter

Activate a place-holder object in a newpresentation (only if the frame is selected).

Ctrl+Enter

Move to the next text object on the slide.
If there are no text objects on the slide, or if youreached the last text object, a new slide is inserted
after the current slide. The new slide uses thesame layout as the current slide.

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283

Shortcut keys in the Normal view
Shortcut Keys

EffectPlus(+) key

Zoom in.

Minus(-) key

Zoom out.

Times(×) key(number pad)Fit page in window.

Divide(÷) key(number pad)Zoom in on current selection.

Shift+Ctrl+GGroup selected objects.

Shift+Ctrl+Alt+A

Ungroup selected group.

Ctrl+click

Enter a group, so that you can edit the individual
objects of the group. Click outside the group to
return to the normal view.

Shift+Ctrl+K

Combine selected objects.

Shift+Ctrl+K

Split selected object. This combination only
works on an object that was created by
combining two or more objects.

Ctrl+Plus key

Bring to front.

Shift+Ctrl+Plus key

Bring forward.

Ctrl+Minus key

Send backward.

Shift+Ctrl+Minus key

Send to back.

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Shortcut keys in slide shows
Shortcut Keys

EffectEsc

End presentation.

Spacebar or Right arrow or
Down arrow or Page Down orEnter or Return or N

Play next effect (if any, else go to next
slide).

Alt+Page Down

Go to next slide without playing effects.

[number] + Enter

Type the number of a slide and press
Enter to go to the slide.

Left arrow or Up arrow orPage Up or Backspace or P

Play previous effect again. If no previous
effect exists on this slide, show previous
slide.

Alt+Page Up

Go to the previous slide without playing
effects.

Home

Jump to first slide in the slide show.

End

Jump to the last slide in the slide show.

Ctrl+Page Up

Go to the previous slide.

Ctrl+Page Down

Go to the next slide.

B or .

Show black screen until next key or mousewheel event.

W or ,Show white screen until next key or mousewheel event.

Navigating in the Slide Sorter
Shortcut Keys

EffectEscapeMoves the focus to the first slide.

Arrow key

Moves the focus to the next slide.

Spacebar

Makes the slide with the focus the current slide.

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285

Index3D rotation object 123

bulleted list 69
Bullets and Numbering dialog box 71

A

C

3

accessibility 281
adding pictures 88
agenda, creating 193
alignment of text 67
alignment tools 116
animating images
create animation 125
frame by frame 126
review animation 127
animation effects
applying 223
multiple 226
properties 226
removing 233
starting 225
appearance options 261
area charts 175
area fills
editing 138
gradients 140
hatching 140
arrow styles 134, 137
Asian language support 54, 105
Asian typography 69
Author field 82
AutoAbstract 194, 196
AutoLayout 53

Bbackgroundadding objects and graphics 37
choosing 35
bar charts 175
Bézier curve 264
bitmaps
as an object fill 141
conversion 123
creating and importing 150
black and white printing 241
blink 157
block arc 108
brochure printing 242
bubble charts 175
286

cache 263
cell address 168
cell selection (spreadsheet) 169
certificate 255
chart
AutoLayout 172
choosing type 173
column charts 174
entering data 176, 177
formatting 177
inserting 172
moving elements 180
resizing 179
circle pie 107
color adjustment 98
color fill 139
color options 260
column charts 174, 176
comments
adding 201
editing 202
compatibility options 263
connectors
advantages 119
drawing 120
formatting 158
toolbar 105
contour lines 264
copy when moving option 263
Create AutoAbstract dialog box 196
Create Style dialog box 161
crop 99
cross 108
cube 108
curve 137
curve toolbar 105
Custom Animation dialog box 225
custom slide show 218
customize page 75
cylinder 108

Ddate (fixed or variable) field 82
decimal point character 69
OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guidedefault formatting 35, 57
default settings 240
Define Custom Slide Show dialog 219
deleting pictures 100
depth tool 122
digital signature 255
distorting an image 114
Drawing toolbar 104
duplicate 126E
e-mail attachment 254
Effect Options 231
embedded graphics 89
encryption of PDF 247
expand slide 192
export directly as PDF 243
exporting to PDF 242
Extension Manager 46
extensions 277
extrusion on/off tool 122
eyedropper 38

F
FDF 245
fields 43
customizing 82
inserting 82
file name field 82
file, inserting 187
Fill Format mode 163
filters 96
Flash export 249
flip an object 113
folded corner 108
font effects 64
font selection 62
Fontwork
modification 130
toolbar 129
Using 127
Format Cells dialog box 171
formatting
chart 177connectors 158
pictures 94
spreadsheet cells 169
text 155
formatting marks options 58
formulas, inserting 187
frame 108
Index

function keys 282

G
Galleryadding a theme 93
adding images 92
deleting images 93
displaying 90
Hide/Show button 91
positioning 91
themes 92
general options for Impress 262
glue points 120, 158
gradient fill 140
graphic filters 97
graphics
3D tools 121
duplicate 126
interaction 124
resizing 110
rotating 111
graphics mode 98
graphics styles
creating 160
definition 39, 159
formatting text 57
new style from selection 161
working with 44
grayscale mode 98
grayscale printing 239, 241
grid 117
grid options 264
grid points, color 261
guides 264

H
handles 41
Handout view 15, 209
handouts
automatic layout options 211
creating 209
exporting to PDF 212
formatting 210
layout 209
printing 211
template 211
thumbnails 209, 211
hatching patterns, creating 140
Hide/Show button 91
hiding slides 26
HTML Export Wizard 250
287

hyperlink
button 86
editing 85
inserting 83

I
image 141
image map 101
image quality in PDF 243
indents and spacing 66
Insert OLE Object dialog box 184
Insert Picture dialog box 89
inserting pictures 88
inserting slides 22
interactions 124, 233

K
keyboard configuration 276
keyboard shortcuts 281
keyboard shortcuts, customizing 274

L
Layout pane 53
layout settings 199
lighting tool 123
Line and Filling toolbar 139
line charts 175
line pattern, fill 140
line spacing 66
lines
creating 107
formatting 133
properties 133
styles 135
linked graphics 89

Mmacros 102, 125, 277
main Impress window 8
margin settings 198
master pages 30
master slide 26, 30
Math formulas, inserting 182
Media Playback toolbar 183
Media Player 183
menu font, customizing 267
menus
adding commands 270
creating 268
modifying 269
modifying entries 271
288

menus, customizing 267
mirror copies 114
modifying styles 162
moving pictures 94
music objects, inserting 182

Nname and initials of user 259
navigating the spreadsheet 168
Navigator 12
net charts 176
new slide 190
new style from selection 161
non-breaking hyphens 58
non-breaking spaces 58
Normal view 13
notes
adding 203
automatic layout options 206
exporting to PDF 208
fields 206
formatting 204, 207
printing 208
text formatting 207
Notes Master 204
Notes view 14, 203
numbered list 69

Oobjects always moveable option 263
objects, converting 123
octagon 107
OLE objects, inserting 182, 184
optional hyphen 59
orientation settings 199
outlinecopying and pasting 197
from Writer 194
outline levelchanging order 75
creating 70
editing 72
modifying style 73
Outline view 13, 195
OXT extension 46

Ppage number field 82
Page Setup dialog box 197, 206
page style 198
paper format settings 198
OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guideparallelogram 107transitions 20
passwords for PDF 248
Presentation Minimizer extension 279
pasting unformatted text 56
presentation styles 39, 44
PDF export 242
Presentation Wizard 17, 262
bookmarks 246
Print dialog box 237
Create PDF form 244
print file directly 237
image quality 243
print options 260, 266
initial view 245
Printer Options dialog box 239
quality 243
printing
range of slides 243
black and white 241
PDF options 243
brochure 242
encryption 247
default settings 240
passwords 248
grayscale 239
security 247
quality 239
user interface 245
printing slides 199
PDF/A-1 244
Professional Template Pack extension
personal key 255
279
perspective tool 122
Q
Picture toolbar 96
quality of printing 239
picturesquick editing option 262
AutoLayout 89
Quickstarter 18
color adjustment 98
crop 99
R
deleting 100
range selection (spreadsheet) 170
filters 96
Rehearse Timings 222
formatting 94
remove manual formatting 35
inserting from a file 88
renaming slides 17
inserting from a scanner 90
resizing pictures 94
inserting from Gallery 90
resolution options 265
moving 94
ring 108
resizing 94
rotating pictures 95
rotating 95
rounded rectangle 107
shadow settings 98
rulers 264
transparency 98
pie charts 175
Spivot point for rotation 112
scanned images 90
planning a presentation 17
scatter charts 175
polygon 107
Screen settings 198
Position and Size dialog box 42, 109, 113scrolling text 157
position of text 64
security of PDF 247
PowerPoint format
set in circle (perspective) 115
opening 257
set to circle (slant) 115
save as 256
settings options 263
presentation
shadows 151
backgrounds 19
shapes 105
emailing 254
3D 121first slide 22aligning 116
formatting 22
arranging 119
planning 17, 30
convert 123
title slide 22
creating 107
Index

289

grouping 108
renaming 192
shared extension 277
select 16
shortcut keys 283
slide master, applying 199
Show/Hide Slide icon 217
subdividing 192
Slide Design dialog box 33
summary slide 193
slide master 26
transitions 221, 246
adding text 43
Slides pane 8
apply 32
Slides Pane pop-up menu 189
author information 44
snap grid 264
create 32
snap guides 117
description 30
snap options 265
fields 43
snap position options 266
loading additional 32
snap to grid 117
modifying 34
sounds 222
modifying default layout 35
special characters 57
Slide pop-up submenu 189
special effects 111
slide show
spreadsheet
adding sounds 222
cell selection 169
custom 218
cells 168
editing custom slide shows 220
entering data 169
hide slides 217
formatting cells 169
modifying 26
Formatting toolbar 166
navigating 235
inserting 165
organizing 215
merge cells 171
Rehearse Timings 222
moving 167
running 27, 234
range 170
settings 215
resizing 167
timing of automatic slide changes 222 start with current page option 263
transitions 27, 234
start with wizard option 262
Slide Sorter view 15
stock charts 176
slidesStyle dialog box 160
adding comments 201
styles 31, 44
adding to a presentation 190
applying 163
animations 223
arrow 137
background, changing 199
creating graphics styles 160
copy and paste from anotherdeleting 163
presentation 191
Fill Format mode 163
creating from an outline 194
formatting text 57
deleting 194
graphics styles 160
duplicating 192
lines 135
expanding 192
modifying 61, 162
from other presentations 190
new style from selection 161
hide 26
spreadsheet cell 169
inserting 22
updating from selection 62, 162
layouts 23
Styles and Formatting window 40, 159
master 26, 30
summary slide 193
modifying 25, 197
surface tool 123
move 16
SWF export 249
printing 199
symbols, inserting 57
rename 17
synchronize axes 265
290

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Impress Guidesystem font 267

text box
auto-resizing 55
T
AutoLayout 53, 70
tab stops 68
creating 53
tables in Impress
deleting 55
creating 76
graphics styles 60
deleting 82
moving 54
modifying 77
resizing 55
position and size 81
vertical alignment of text 54
table toolbar 78
Text Formatting toolbar 57, 62Tasks pane 10
themes 92
Template Changer extension 279
three-dimensional objects 121
Template Management dialog box 47
tilt tools 122
templates
time (fixed or variable) field 82
create a template folder 49
timing of automatic slide changes 222
create from a presentation 46
title slide 22
delete a template folder 50
toolbars 11
deleting 50
adding commands 273
exporting 51
choosing icons for commands 273
from other sources 45
creating 272
importing 51
customizing 271
installing using Extension Manager 46 tooltips 22
moving 50
transition effects
organizing 49
removing 223
supplied with OOo 45
selecting 20
using 45transparency 98, 152
text
trapezoid 107alignment 67
triangle 107
animation 157
U
Asian typography 69
bulleted or numbered list 69
unformatted text, pasting 56
character formatting 62
ungroup objects 108
default formatting 57
unit of measurement 263
formatting 59, 155
user data options 259
formatting pasted text 56
user interface, customizing 267
indents and spacing 66
Vinserting 56
vertical alignment of text 54
line spacing 66
vertical text 105
outline level 70
video objects, inserting 182
paragraph formatting 66
view options 264
pasting 56
visible grid 117, 265
position 64
selecting 60
W
tab stops 68
web page export 250
text animation 232
Windows Metafile Format (WMF) 123
text areas
Workspace 10
handles 41
modifying 40
Yposition and size 42
yellow dot 107
rotation 42

Index291