3. Communicating Your Ideas
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3. Communicating Your Ideas

 Choose Office → Presentation from the main menu to launch OpenOffice.org Impress. A wizard offers you assistance for creating a presentation, but we won't detail it here. Just create an empty presentation by clicking Create.

3.1. Presentation Interface

Figure 3.3. OpenOffice.org Impress' Main Window

OpenOffice.org Impress' Main Window

Slide Format Bar

There are options for changing the slide shading, background color, line thickness, etc.

Work Area

This is where you compose the slides which build your presentation.

Toolbar

Contains the main tools you use to create your slides: the text, shapes, curves, lines and arrow input; object rotate, alignment and arrangement; and others.

[Tip] Tip

Some of these buttons contain a little triangle on one side. Keeping these buttons pressed opens a menu of options for that tool. For example: filled or hollow rectangles, sharp or round edges, etc.

Layout Templates

Contains a gallery of the templates available. Just click on the template you want to switch the current slide to it.

Slide Navigation

Displays a list of all the slides comprising the presentation. Slides are displayed as miniatures, so you can see what they look like at a glance. To open a slide, search for it in the list, then click on it.

3.2. Adding Slides to Your Presentation

 Click on this button on the Toolbar or choose Insert → Slide from the menu to add a new slide, after the current one, with the currently selected slide template.

[Tip] Tip

Choose Insert → Duplicate Slide instead if you want to base your new slide's content on the current one.

3.3. Simple Charts

 Choose Insert → Chart from the menu to insert a chart diagram into the current slide. A “default” bar chart is inserted and OpenOffice.org Impress switches to chart mode. Click “outside” the chart area to return to the slide design mode.

You can drag the border handles to adjust the chart's size. Double click on the drawn chart, then right-click on it and select Chart Data to enter the data according to the chart you want to build (see Figure 3.4, “Entering Chart Data”).

Figure 3.4. Entering Chart Data

Entering Chart Data

Once you have entered the chart's data, close the data entry window and click on Yes to update the chart in the slide.

Repeat the double-click / right-click sequence to change the chart's title, legends, axis, type (2D or 3D, bar, pie, points, lines, etc.), selecting the appropriate entries from the pop-up menu.

3.4. Slide Background

Use the Format → Page menu and click the Background tab to define colors, gradients, patterns, or bitmapped backgrounds for the slide. Each background type has options of its own. Feel free to explore them.

[Note] Note

Using bitmaps for backgrounds increases the file's size considerably. This could lead to a performance hit, especially on older systems.

Once the background is selected, you can make that background the default one for all slides. Make your choice and the slide(s) background(s) will be changed.

3.5. Transitions, Animations and Effects

The Slide Show menu has slide transitions, animations and effects options and wizards which let you add “dynamism” to your presentations. However, you should try not to overuse transitions, animations and effects because they can be distracting to your audience, turning their attention to the effects themselves instead of the content of your presentation.

3.6. Running Your Presentation

Choose Slide Show → Slide Show, or press the F5 key to run your presentation. The presentation then takes up the entire screen. Press the Esc key to stop the presentation.

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