No office suite is complete without a presentation piece, and OpenOffice.org shows its colours with Impress, the presentation piece of the suite. To start it, it is available at
Main Menu --> Office --> OpenOffice.org Impress
or if you already have an OpenOffice.org window open, its available at
File --> New --> Presentation.
Click to view screen shot Fig 10.6 OpenOffice.org Impress
Unlike other components of OpenOffice.org, when you start Impress, you are presented with an AutoPilot, to start creating your presentation! This gives you options to start a presentation with an empty template, or even with one of the pre-defined templates. A preview dialogue is available, and once all options are selected (and Next is clicked, to move on), you get a basic presentation.
Click to view screen shot Fig 10.7 Impress AutoPilot for a New Presentation
Template Management
If a big portion of time is going to be spent giving presentations, its very professional to have the presentation look like each other, in the form of a template (same logo position, copyright notices, etc...). Once a template is created (or downloaded from the Internet), you manage templates via the:
File --> Template --> Organize
Slide Design
A quick way to get slides done is via turning on:
View --> Toolbars --> Presentation
This provides a pop-up menu option that allows you to insert slides, or even modify the slide layout of the current slide.
Views
There are several views in Impress, and some have over-lapping names, but with different functionality! At the top-right-hand-corner of your screen, just above the scroll bars, you'll notice five buttons that look like what you see below.
Click to view screen shot Fig 10.8 View Buttons
The six options for workspace views are:
- Drawing view - default, for slide design.
- Outline view - overlook of the presentation.
- Slide view - birds eye view to add, change, switch slides around.
- Notes view - add speaker notes.
- Handout view - how handouts get printed.
- Start slideshow - run the presentation.
All the views can also be accessed via:
View --> Workspace
It is also worthwhile to note that at the bottom-left-hand-corner of your screen, where the slide tabs are displayed, there are more views to know about. You are typically located in the Slide View (same name as above, but different functionality since its on a different bar!)
Click to view screen shot Fig 10.9 More Views
However, Master Views are supported and to access this view, it is the second button from the left. You can have master views of all workspace views (i.e. a master view of the slide itself, notes, and handouts). The Layer view allows layering of slides (adding and removing), and layers can be non-printing or non-displayed on screen, but printing only.
