Impress Guide

3

Chapter
Adding and Formatting
Text

This PDF is designed to be read onscreen, two pages at atime. If you want to print a copy, your PDF viewer shouldhave an option for printing two pages on one sheet ofpaper, but you may need to start with page 2 to get it toprint facing pages correctly. (Print this cover page
separately.)CopyrightThis document is Copyright © 2005–2010 by its contributors as listed
in the section titled Authors. You may distribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either the GNU General Public License, version 3 orlater, or the Creative Commons Attribution License, version 3.0 or
later.
All trademarks within this guide belong to their legitimate owners.

Authors
Nicole Cairns
Martin J Fox
Peter Hillier-Brook
Jean Hollis Weber
Michele Zarri

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

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

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

Contents
Copyright............................................................................................... 2
Introduction........................................................................................... 5
Working with text boxes......................................................................... 5
Using text boxes created from the Layout pane.................................5
Using text boxes created from the text box tool.................................5
Moving a text box...............................................................................6
Resizing a text box.............................................................................. 7
Deleting a text box.............................................................................. 7
Inserting text......................................................................................... 8
Pasting text......................................................................................... 8
Pasting unformatted text.................................................................8
Formatting pasted text....................................................................8
Inserting special characters................................................................9
Inserting non-breaking spaces and hyphens.....................................10
Introduction to formatting text............................................................11
Selecting text.................................................................................... 12
Using styles to format text...................................................................12
Modifying a presentation style..........................................................13
Updating a style from a selection.....................................................14
Applying a presentation style............................................................14
Formatting characters.........................................................................14
Font page.......................................................................................... 14
Font Effects page.............................................................................. 16
Position page..................................................................................... 16
Formatting paragraphs........................................................................18
Indents and Spacing page.................................................................18
Alignment page................................................................................. 19
Tabs page.......................................................................................... 20
Asian Typography page..................................................................... 21
Creating bulleted and numbered lists..................................................21
Creating lists in AutoLayout text boxes............................................22
Adding and Formatting Text

3

Creating lists in other text boxes......................................................22
Creating a new outline level.............................................................22
Changing the appearance of the list ................................................23
Selecting the entries......................................................................23
Position page.................................................................................24
Customize page.............................................................................25
Changing the order or the outline level lines....................................27
Using tables......................................................................................... 28
Creating a table................................................................................28
Modifying a table..............................................................................29
Task pane options..........................................................................29
Table toolbar.................................................................................. 30
Table properties............................................................................. 32
Position and size............................................................................33
Deleting a table................................................................................. 34
Using fields.......................................................................................... 34
Inserting a field................................................................................. 34
Customizing fields............................................................................. 34
Using hyperlinks.................................................................................. 35
Editing text hyperlinks...................................................................... 37
Working with hyperlink buttons........................................................38

4

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 21.

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 6; to change the horizontal
size, see “Resizing a text box” on page 7.

Working with text boxes5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 1).
4) Type or paste your text in the text box.
5) Click outside the text box to deselect it.

Figure 1: 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).

6

Adding and Formatting Text

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 1) 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.

Working with text boxes7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
12 for details on how to do that).
8Adding and Formatting Text

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
12 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 12 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 2. Alternatively if theicon isvisible, you can click this to bring up the Special Characters
dialog box.

Inserting text

9

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 2: 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
10

Adding and Formatting Text

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 8,
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.

Introduction to formatting text

11

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).

12

Adding and Formatting Text

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 3.

Figure 3: 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 14.
• For the Indents and Spacing, Alignment, and Tabs style pages,
refer to “Formatting paragraphs” on page 18.
• For the Bullet and numbering type, Graphics, Customize style
pages, refer to “Creating bulleted and numbered lists” on page21.
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.

Using styles to format text13

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 4).

Figure 4. 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 or the outline levellines” on page 27—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 5, 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

14

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.

Adding and Formatting Text

Figure 5: The dialog box to set the basic font attributes
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 6.

Figure 6: 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.

Formatting characters

15

Font Effects pageUse the Font Effects page, shown in Figure 7, 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 7: Advanced options for the character can be set in the
Font Effects page

Position page
The Position page, shown in Figure 8, 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).
16

Adding and Formatting Text

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 8: 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.

Formatting characters17

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 9) 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 9: The paragraph formatting dialog box

Indents and Spacing pageThe Indents and Spacing page, shown in Figure 10, 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% to18

Adding and Formatting Text

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 10: 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.
Formatting paragraphs

19

Figure 11: Alignment tab of paragraph style

Tabs pageUse the Tabs page, shown in Figure 12, 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 12: 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.
20

Adding and Formatting Text

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 10) and in the Graphics Styles dialog box.

Asian Typography pageUse the Asian Typography page, shown in Figure 13, 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 13: 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.

Creating bulleted and numbered lists

21

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 23.

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
23.

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

22

Adding and Formatting Text

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 14) 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 beCreating bulleted and numbered lists

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

Figure 14: The Bullets and Numbering dialog box

Position pageUse the Position page, shown in Figure 15, 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.

24

Adding and Formatting Text

Figure 15: 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 10).

Customize pageUse the Customize page, shown in Figure 16, 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.

Creating bulleted and numbered lists

25

Figure 16: 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.
26

Adding and Formatting Text

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 17.

Figure 17: Nested list with mixture of numbers andbullets

Changing the order or 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.

Creating bulleted and numbered lists

27

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 18: 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 19 where you can specify the number of rows
and columns.

28

Adding and Formatting Text

Figure 19: 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 33.
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.

Using tables

29

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 20: 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 21: Creating a 5x4 tablewith the graphic tool30

Adding and Formatting Text

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 22: Split cell dialog box
Using tables

31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 14 for a description of the available

options.
• Font Effects: see “Font Effects page” on page 16 for a descriptionof the available options.

32

Adding and Formatting Text

Figure 23: 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
Using tables

Unlike other graphic objects, it is not possible to rotate a table.
33

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 24):
1) Move the cursor to the field and select it.
34

Adding and Formatting Text

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 24: 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.

Using hyperlinks

35

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 25 opens.

Figure 25: 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:

36

Adding and Formatting Text• 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
Using hyperlinks

37

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.

38

Adding and Formatting Text