open office presentation slide

• Creating a new presentation
• Formatting a presentation
• Building a presentation
• Running the presentation

This section describes how to set up a new presentation. The settings selected here are general/they apply to all the slides. The section Working with slides explains how to apply settings to specific slides. These explanations can also apply to some of the general settings.

Planning a presentation

The first thing to do is to decide what you are going to do with the presentation. For example, putting a group of digital photos together in a presentation requires very little planning. However, using a presentation to increase the knowledge of others about your topic requires much more planning.

You need to ask and answer many questions before you begin creating a presentation. If you are not acquainted with creating presentations, the answers will be more general. Those who have created a variety of presentations in the past will want to have more specific answers.

Who is to see the presentation? How will it be used? What is the subject matter? What should be in its outline? How detailed should the outline be? Will an audio file be played? Is animation desirable? How should the transition between slides be handled? These are some of the many questions that should be asked, answered, and written down before creating the presentation. Sound and animation are more advanced topics and are explained in the Impress Guide .

Again, it is not always necessary at this point to have specific answers to every question. Making an outline is extremely important. You may already know exactly what some of the slides will contain. You may only have a general idea of what you want on some of the slides. That is alright. You can make some changes as you go. Change your outline to match the changes you make in your slides.

The important part is that you have a general idea of what you want and how to get it. Put that information on paper. That makes it much easier to create the presentation.

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Starting the Presentation Wizard

You can start Impress in either of two ways:

• Click the triangle to the right of the New Icon and select Presentation from the drop-down menu.
• Choose File > New > Presentation from the menu bar.

When you start Impress, the Presentation Wizard appears.

Select Empty Presentation under Type . It creates a presentation from scratch.

Click Next . The Presentation Wizard step 2 appears. The illustration below shows the Wizard 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.

Choose a design under Select a slide design . The slide design section 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 to select it.

The types of Presentation Backgrounds are shown in Figure 2. By clicking an item, you will see a preview of the slide design in the Preview window. Impress contains three choices under Presentations : < Original >, Introducing a New Product , and Recommendation of a Strategy .

• <Original> is for a blank presentation slide design.
• Both Introducing a New Product and Recommendation of a Strategy have their own prepackaged slide designs. Each design appears in the Preview window when its name is clicked.

Select how the presentation will be used under Select an output medium . Most often, presentations are created for computer screen display. Select Screen .

Click Next . The Presentation Wizard step 3 appears.

Choose the desired option from the Effect drop-down menu.

Select the desired speed for the transition between the different slides in the presentation from the Speed drop-down menu. Medium is a good choice for now.

Click Create . A new presentation is created.

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• Modifying slides
• Adding, renaming, and removing slides
• Creating slides from an outline
• Adding and formatting notes
• Creating handouts

It is highly recommended to avoid manually changing the formatting of individual slides in a presentation; instead, use slide masters as much as possible. A presentation can have multiple slide masters, so the need for modifying slide backgrounds or other features should be an exception rather than the rule. See Chapter 2 for details about using slide masters.

Formating the slide or page area

The Page Setup dialog is used for several purposes, some of which depend on where you open the dialog. For example, if you are in Notes view or Handout view when you open the Page Setup dialog, you are setting up the page layout for Notes or Handouts, respectively (see Adding and formatting notes and Creating handouts for more information). If you are in Normal view, you are formatting the slides themselves.

To format the slide or page area:

• Select Format > Page from the menu bar, or right-click and choose Page Setup from the pop‑up menu to open the Page Setup dialog. The Page tab has three sections: Paper format , Margins , and Layout settings . Settings on this tab affect all slides in the presentation.

• In the Paper format section, select the preferred Paper format from the drop‑down list. Note that the dimensions change automatically when a standard format is selected. Despite the name (Paper format), 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 screen presentation (4:3 ratio) but will also print on Letter or A4 paper with landscape orientation. 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.
• You can also select the orientation of the slide or paper (Portrait or Landscape) 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 .
• In the Margins section, you can change the spacing between the edges of the page and the contents of the slide.
• In the Layout settings section, select the page number format in the Format drop‑down list. To allow resizing the slide objects and fonts to fit the paper, select the Fit object to paper format checkbox.
• Click OK to save your changes.

Changing the background of a slide

A presentation can have multiple slide masters, so the need for modifying slide backgrounds should be an exception. See Chapter 2 for details about using slide masters.

Applying a background to a slide master or to individual slides is no different from filling the area of a shape. See Chapter 6 (Formatting Graphic Objects) for details.

To change the background for a slide:

• Switch to Normal view (click the tab in the main work area or select View > Normal in the menu bar).
• Select the slide you want to change.
• Select Format > Page from the menu bar, or right-click and choose Page Setup from the pop‑up menu to open the Page Setup dialog. Choose the Background tab.
• Follow the instructions in Formatting areas in Chapter 6 .
• Click OK to save the changes. A pop-up dialog (shown below) asks if you want to change the background on all slides. To change only the selected slide, click No .

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 of predefined layouts that can be applied to a slide; these layouts are shown in the figure below.

To apply a layout to a slide:

• In the Task pane, select the Layouts tab. If the Task pane is not visible, select first View > Task Pane .
• Hover the mouse cursor over the layout thumbnail to get a tooltip with a summary of the contents included in the layout.
• Click on the selected layout to apply it to the slide.

You cannot create new AutoLayouts. However, if none of these layouts suit your requirements, you can rearrange elements on an individual slide and duplicate that slide as often as needed, copy it from one presentation to another, or save it in a template.

All the techniques discussed in Chapter 3 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 . Chapter 7 describes how to include and modify spreadsheets, charts, and other objects.

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 :

• In the Slide Pane or the Slide Sorter view, select the slides you want to change.
• 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 discusses slide masters (also called “master slides” and “master pages”) in detail.

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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