Author: user

Change background color on specific slide(s), all slides.

To change the background of a slide or of all the slides, click on ‘Format’ from the main menu bar, and from the resulting menu, click on ‘Page’. This will open the ‘Page Setup’ dialog box. In this dialog box, under the ‘Background’ tab, we have the ‘Fill’ area where we have a drop-down list. We need to select ‘Color’ from this list. This displays a number of colors in another list, and we can select the required background color from this list.
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After selecting the color, click on ‘OK’. This will give an alert with the question, ‘Background settings for all pages?’. Click on ‘Yes’ to change the background color of all the slides and ‘No’ to change the background color of only the specific selected slide.

Add a new slide with a specific slide layout like: title slide, chart and text, bulleted list, table/spreadsheet.

In the previous sections, we have already discussed how to add a new slide to a presentation and also how to choose a built-in slide layout for a slide. So in order to add a new slide with a specific slide layout, we can simply add a new slide to the presentation and then apply the required built-in slide layout to this slide.
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Choose a different built-in slide layout for a slide.

A built-in slide layout defines the layout for a slide. A layout means the number and order of the different types of elements that are going to be present in a slide.

In the ‘Tasks’ pane, all the built-in slide layouts are present. In order to choose the different built-in slide layouts, we simply need to select the required one from the Tasks pane.
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The layouts only differ in the number of elements which are there in a slide.

Apply an available design template to a presentation.

A template is simply a format based on which a new presentation will get created in Impress. There are a number of templates which are already present in Impress and if we want to have our own template or make changes to one of the existing ones then this can be achieved easily in Impress.

To apply an available design template to a presentation, we can simply create a new presentation based on the required design template. To create a presentation based on the available design templates, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘New’ and from the sub-menu which is displayed, click on ‘Templates’. This will open the ‘Template Manager’ dialog box.

This dialog box, under the ‘Presentations’ tab, displays the different template categories available for creating new presentations. You can select any of these by double clicking and this will display the different templates under that category. Double click on the required template and this will create a new presentation based on this template.
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Choose a different built-in slide layout for a slide.

A built-in slide layout defines the layout for a slide. A layout means the number and order of the different types of elements that are going to be present in a slide.

In the ‘Tasks’ pane, all the built-in slide layouts are present. In order to choose the different built-in slide layouts, we simply need to select the required one from the Tasks pane.
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The layouts only differ in the number of elements which are there in a slide.

Apply an available design template to a presentation.

A template is simply a format based on which a new presentation will get created in Impress. There are a number of templates which are already present in Impress and if we want to have our own template or make changes to one of the existing ones then this can be achieved easily in Impress.

To apply an available design template to a presentation, we can simply create a new presentation based on the required design template. To create a presentation based on the available design templates, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘New’ and from the sub-menu which is displayed, click on ‘Templates’. This will open the ‘Template Manager’ dialog box.

This dialog box, under the ‘Presentations’ tab, displays the different template categories available for creating new presentations. You can select any of these by double clicking and this will display the different templates under that category. Double click on the required template and this will create a new presentation based on this template.
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Recognize good practice in adding slide titles: use a different title for each slide to distinguish it in outline view, when navigating in slide show view.

When we create a new slide in Impress, we need to add a title for the slide. There are a number of points which should always be considered while adding slide titles. First and foremost, the slide title should always be meaningful and of a reasonable length.
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Another important consideration is that we should always use a different title for each slide. Having a different title for each slide helps us in distinguishing the slides easily in the ‘Outline View’ and also when we are navigating through different slides in the ‘Slide Show’ view.

Change between presentation view modes: normal view, slide sorter view, slide show view.

We have already studied about the different presentation view modes. To switch between these modes, we need to use the different tab options which are present right above the main slide area. We have a tab for each of the different presentation view modes. We simply need to click on the required presentation view tab and the display will get changed to that particular view mode. This is how we can change between different presentation view modes.

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Understand the uses of different presentation view modes: normal view, outline view, handout view, notes view, slide sorter view.

Impress offers us different views to work on our slides and presentations. These views can be used to understand the slide structures in a presentation in different ways.

The main view in which we create individual slides is known as ‘Normal View’. This view is used to design and format slides, add effects, text or graphics to slides.
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To add a new slide in the Normal View, click on ‘Insert’ from the main menu bar and select ‘Slide’ or ‘Duplicate Slide’ as per the requirement from the drop down which gets displayed on clicking the ‘Insert’ button. Below is the illustration of how to add a new slide in the normal view.

In ‘Outline View’, all the slides of the presentation are displayed in a numbered sequence.
‘Outline View’ shows all the topics, titles, bulleted lists and numbered lists for each slide in an outline format.

In ‘Outline View’ only the text in the default text box of the slide is shown. If we add text boxes or graphics in slides then it will not be shown in the outline view.

‘Notes View’ is used to add notes pertaining to a particular slide. These notes are not visible when the presentation is shown to audience or some extra display monitor connected to your machine.

To create notes in the ‘Notes View’, we click on the ‘Notes’ view tab and select the slide from slide pane. A text box appears below the slide where we can add notes.

The notes text box can also be resized by using the resizing handles which appear when we click on the border of the text box. The text box can also be moved by clicking on the edge of the box and then moving the cursor to the desired location.

‘Handout View’ can be used to set up the layout of the slides of the presentation for creating a hardcopy. We select the layout from the ‘Tasks’ Pane. We can print 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 9 slides per page.

All the slide thumbnails are contained in the ‘Slide Sorter’ view. We can work with groups of slides in this view.

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Set user preferences in the application: user name, default folder to open and save files.

To set the basic options in the Impress application, click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Options’. This will open the ‘Options’ dialog box.

In the ‘Options’ dialog box, under ‘LibreOffice’, in ‘User Data’ we have options to enter user info. The user name can be set here.
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In the same dialog box, under ‘LibreOffice’, we have ‘Paths’. Here, we can set the different default paths for the folders to open and save files.

Use available Help functions.

All the components of LibreOffice offer extensive help system to the users. Impress is no different. To get the complete help system, click on ‘Help’ button from the main menu bar. Click on ‘LibreOffice Help’ from the drop down which gets displayed and this will open the full help system.

Additionally, you can click on ‘Tools’ from the main menu bar and then click on ‘Options’ from the resulting drop down menu. Select the ‘LibreOffice > General’ tab from the dialog which gets opened and you can then choose to check or uncheck the available help options like ‘Tips’ and ‘Extended Tips’.

If ‘Tips’ are enabled you can place the mouse pointer over any icon to see a small tooltip box, which provides a small explanation for the functioning of that icon.

If a more detailed explanation is desired, then click on ‘What’s This?’ from the ‘Help’ dropdown on the main menu bar. Holding the pointer above any icon after this will provide a detailed explanation.

Use magnification/zoom tools.

The view magnification can simply be changed by clicking on the + or – sign in the zoom slider on the status bar.

In order to make more custom changes, click on the percentage figure on the status bar. This opens the ‘Zoom & View Layout’ dialog. The appropriate changes can be made by selecting the desired values from this dialog.

Display, hide built-in toolbars. Restore, minimize the ribbon.

Whether to display or hide the different toolbars in Impress can be controlled by using the ‘View’ button on the main menu bar. Click on ‘View’ and then click on ‘Toolbars’ from the drop down. You get a list of different toolbars which can be checked or unchecked in order to display or hide them respectively.

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You can open multiple presentations at a time in Impress. In such a case, to switch between these presentations, just click on the ‘Impress’ icon on the task bar of your computer. This icon will always get displayed whenever you are running Impress on your machine.
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When this icon is clicked, then the names of all the active presentations get displayed as has been shown above. Simply click on the name of the presentation which you want to open and that presentation will get opened. You can switch between different presentations using this method.
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A default template is the one, which is used to create a presentation when any new presentation is created. This means that when we create a new presentation, it gets created based on the default template which has been set.

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We are going to learn how to set a default template in the subsequent chapters. But to create a new presentation based on the default template, simply follow the steps which have been given in the last section for opening a new presentation. This creates a new presentation based on the default template.

Save a presentation to a location on a drive. Save a presentation under another name.

Once the changes to a presentation have been made, we need to save this presentation to a location on our computer. To save a presentation, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘Save As’. This opens the ‘Save As’ dialog box.

In this dialog box, we can browse to the folder where we want to save the presentation file and thus select the appropriate location. To change the name by which the file will get saved, just enter the new name in the ‘File Name:’ field. After making these changes, click on ‘Save’. This will save the file to the location which has been specified and under the given file name.

Save a presentation as another file type: Rich Text Format, template, show, image file format, version number.

To save a presentation as another file type, follow the same steps as have been used in the previous section. This will open the ‘Save As’ dialog box. In this dialog box, under the ‘Save as type:’ field, select the appropriate file type as per the requirement and then click on ‘Save’. This will save the presentation as the selected file type.
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Open, close a presentation application. Open, close presentations.

To start Impress, click on the ‘Start’ button on your Windows machine. Click on ‘All Programs’ and then go to the ‘LibreOffice’ folder in the list of all programs which gets displayed. Click on the ‘LibreOffice’ folder and then click on ‘LibreOffice Impress’. This will start the Impress application.
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When Impress is started, the main window gets displayed which has been shown below.

To close Impress, simply click on the ‘White Cross Icon with Red Background’ on the upper right corner of the Impress main window screen. This will close Impress.

Once the application has been started, then a new presentation can be opened. To open a new presentation, click on ‘File’ from the main menu bar. From the resulting drop-down, click on ‘New’ and from the sub-menu which is displayed, click on ‘Presentation’. This will open a new presentation.

To close a presentation, simply click on the same white cross icon with a red background from the top right corner of the presentation screen.
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