Using Master Views, ForegroundBackground Views, and Layers

Using Master Views, Foreground/Background Views, and Layers

Review this overview section before you continue to the next chapter, so that you know how to get to the part of your presentation that you need, and view it the way you want to.

You can think of Impress as three-dimensional in its display and editing capabilities. It has three different systems to show different aspects of your presentation: master views, foreground/background views, and layers. It's a good idea to get to know them now, because it can make finding your way through a presentation and getting to the parts you need to edit a lot less frustrating.

Orientation to Each View or Mode

Overview of drawing, outline, slide, notes, and handouts master views

Show different parts of your presentation, such as only the handouts, or only the slide, as well as different displays: one slide at a time or all at once. The Master views are Drawing, Outline, Slide, Notes, and Handout and are always accessible at the right side of the presentation work area at the top. Figure 25-12 shows a more extensive example; you can learn how to use them in Using Master Views on page 653.

Figure 25-12. Master views, foreground/background views, and layers

Overview of foreground/background views, in icons at the bottom of the work area

These let you work with the main content of your presentation (content such as charts and text, in Slide view) or the background (page design, in Background view) of your presentation. See Figure 25-9. Figure 25-12 shows a more extensive example; you can learn how to use them in Using Foreground/Background Views on page 657.

Figure 25-9. Background view (accessed by clicking the middle icon, Master View)

Overview of layers: extra dimensions for slide foreground or background

Layers are something you can do anytime , whether you're seeing the foreground of your slide or the background. However, you can only do it when you're in the normal Drawing master view; there's not much point in having layers when you're just viewing an outline of the presentation in Outline master view, for instance.

Layers are similar to the illustrations in anatomy books, with each layer belonging to a different system: the skeletal system, the digestive system, and so on. Layers let you separate items in one slide into separate groups.

• Layers in the foreground So, you're in your presentation with normal drawing view, you've got a diagram of the three distinct parts of an airplane engine, and you want to be able to present them separately so the audience can view each system separately, then on top of each other. Or you're doing a Six Sigma Process Diagram, guaranteed to make your company fabulous and efficient, and there's a lot of separate but overlapping processes. Get ready to use layers.

See Figure 25-10. Layout, Controls, and Dimension Lines are three default layers.

• Layers in the background There's less necessity to use layers in the background, but you can. Just get into background mode, then click the Layers icon too. If you're in background mode (the 2nd icon is clicked) and then layer mode (the 3rd icon is clicked), you just see the slide "Background objects".

  If you're in background mode but not layer mode, you'll see the names of the backgrounds you're using. It's a bit confusing so expect your head to whirl a bit before you've used it much. See Figure 25-10.

Figure 25-10. The default layers for a slide

Figure 25-11. Recognizing when you're seeing layers in background view, and just seeing the names of your backgrounds, in background view.

Figure 25-12 shows a more extensive example; you can learn how to use them in Using Layers on page 659.

Figure 25-12 shows aspects of master views, foreground/background views, and layers.

Using Master Views

Displaying all the elements of a presentationslides, notes, structure, and so onwould be visually dizzying and logistically difficult. Impress has divided the ways you can look at your presentation into five master views : Drawing, Outline, Slide, Notes, and Handout.

Changing From One View to Another

To get to a particular view, use the view bar at the right side of the work area.

Note that the bottom icon, Start slide show, doesn't take you to a different view. It's easy to click this icon by accident . It starts the presentation, giving you a blank screen at first that is somewhat alarming if you don't expect it. To stop the presentation, just press Esc.

Drawing View

You'll spend most of your time in the Drawing view, adding text and graphics. You have the same capabilities here as in Draw, with additional text and effects features.

See Figure 25-12 on page 653 and Figure 25-1 on page 635 for examples of the Drawing view.

Outline View

This view shows the outline of your presentation (Figure 25-13). You can expand and contract heading levels to view only top-level headings, all text, and everything in between, and reorganize the presentation.

Figure 25-13. Outline view

Slide View

Use the Slide view (Figure 25-14) to get a bird's eye view of your presentation, to rearrange, add, and delete slides, and to specify how each slide changes to the next.

Figure 25-14. Slide view

The features on the toolbar are probably still unfamiliar to you at this point; the terms are presented here so that you can start getting oriented, and get to know the work area. All features, such as rehearsing timings and setting up transition types, are covered throughout the Impress chapters.

Note

Choose View > Toolbar > Presentation to display the Presentation menu, which shows the selected effects.

Notes View

Add speaker notes in this view (Figure 25-15), below the slide area. When you print, you can choose to print with or without the notes. (See Setting Printing Options on page 745.)

Figure 25-15. Notes view

You can use Draw tools to edit in this view.

Handout View

Create audience materials out of the slides using this view (Figure 25-16).

Figure 25-16. Handout view

This view lets you specify the number of slides per page. What you see in the work area is what will be on each page of handouts given to people attending the presentation. You have access to Draw tools here, as well.

You can drag and resize the slides manually. To set the number of slides per handout page, choose Format > Modify Layout. (The maximum per page is six.)

Using Foreground/Background Views

Impress has three additional views that let you see the foreground or background of a slide, as well as layers within each: Slide view, Background view, and Layer view.

• Slide view displays the normal content of a slide.

• Background view displays the elements that are in the background of every slide in the presentation. Use this view to make changes to show up in all slides.

• Layer view lets you see different layers within a slide foreground, or in a background.

They're available in only two of the master views.

• In Drawing view, you can access all three.

• In Notes view, you can access Slide and Background.

Slide View: The Foreground

In Slide view, you have all the Draw tools and can do the standard editing for developing the presentation. You'll spend much of your time in Drawing view and Slide view.

The changes you make apply only to the current slide, even if you're changing items that belong to a design component used throughout the presentation.

Background View: The Background

This view lets you make changes to the background and related items. The page style (the background design) that you selected in AutoPilot or added yourself is shown in this view. Switch to it by clicking the middle icon in the lower left corner of the work area, as shown at right.

Layer Mode

You can divide the contents of the slide foreground or background into an unlimited number of layers .

• Layers in the foreground See Figure 25-17. Layout, Controls, and Dimension Lines are three default layers.

  Figure 25-17. The default layers for a slide

  

• Layers in the background See Figure 25-18.

  Figure 25-18. Recognizing when you're seeing l ayers in background view , and just seeing the names of your backgrounds, in background view .

  

Changing Between Foreground and Background, and Layer Mode For Each

It's intuitive, kind of. When you want "Background," think "Master." No, not as in Master View, but as in, somebody thought that Background was the same as Master when setting up the interface.

Switching from foreground to background

Choose View > Master > and then the kind of view you want to see the background for. If you choose View > Master > Drawing, you'll get into the background view for the Drawing View. When you're in Drawing, Notes, or Handouts view, you can also click the icon shown in Figure 25-19.

Figure 25-19. Navigating between foreground (slide) and background, and layers

Switching to foreground view

Choose View > Slide. That will take you to the foreground of whatever view you were in the background for.

Switching so you can see layers

Choose View > Layer. This works in foreground or background, for Drawing master view or Notes master view.

Using Layers

When you're in Layer mode, you can use layers to separate parts of a slide so that each group can be edited and viewed by itself. Impress comes with default layers. The foreground has Layout (the default), Controls , and Dimension lines. The background has Background objects. For example, layers let you draw a new interdepartmental process with the parts for each department in a different layer. Figure 25-23 on page 660 shows how layers look.

Figure 25-23. Layered diagram

Layer Quick Facts

You can't delete or rename the default layers, but you can hide them or prevent them from being printed (see Controlling Whether a Layer Is Printable or Editable (Locked) on page 661). The default layers are provided with all slides; however any layer you add is specific to the slide you're in when you add it. You can use layers only when you're in the Drawing master view. Every layer is included in all slides in the presentation; there are no slide-specific layers. Layers are displayed from left to right and front to back: that is, the layer whose tab is displayed on the left side of the navigation bar is the top layer, and so on. Objects in the top layer will block the view of objects in the same position in subsequent layers.

Creating a Layer

This will add a layer to the right of the Dimension Lines layer not to the right of the layer tab you select. You can't control where they are created. If you create two new layers, Layer4 and Layer5, Figure 25-20 is the result.

1. Be sure you're in Drawing or Notes view, and Layer view.

2. Click the blank area right of the last layer, or right-click a layer tab; choose Insert.

3. Enter the name and other options in the Insert Layer window (Figure 25-21).

   Figure 25-21. Creating a new layer

   

4. The layer will be created for all slides in the presentation.

Figure 25-20. Order in which layers are inserted

Changing Layers

Be sure you're in Layer view. (See Using Foreground/Background Views on page 657.) Then click the tab for the layer you want, in the navigation bar at the bottom of the work area (Figure 25-22 on page 660).

Figure 25-22. Working with layers

Controlling Which Layer Is on Top

There isn't a way to explicitly reorder the layers; however, there are a few workarounds:

• Make a layer invisible (see Hiding One or More Layers)

• Move objects from one layer to another (see Moving Objects Among Layers)

• Delete and re-create layers

The default layer Controls is always on top. As for the other layers, the order in which you draw the objects controls what's on top: the first is on the bottom and last on the top, regardless of the layer.

Changing the arrangements of the objects using the Arrange > Send to back and similar features doesn't change the relationship of objects in different layers, though it does change object relationships within a layer.

Controlling Whether a Layer Is Printable or Editable (Locked)

To protect elements of a layer from being changed, or to keep them from being printed, you can lock the layer.

1. Enter layer view by clicking the Layer icon in the lower left corner.

2. In the navigation bar, right-click the tab of the layer you want to lock.

3. Choose Modify.

4. In the Modify Layer window (it has the same options as the Insert Layer window in Figure 25-21), select Printable, Locked, or both.

5. You'll need to select Printable again when you're ready to print it; selecting the Hidden pages option in the print options window doesn't make it print (see Figure 28-17 on page 745).

Hiding One or More Layers

The layer view in Impress is a little unintuitive. If you have three layers and you click the tab of any of them, you still see all the objects in all layers. You can even edit one layer's objects when you've clicked the tab of another layer. To show only the objects of one layer, or of two, you have to hide the layers that you don't want to see.

1. Right-click the layer tab in the navigation bar.

2. Choose Modify.

3. Deselect Visible.

Note

Invisible layers' names always appear in blue.

Renaming a Layer

1. Right-click the layer tab and choose Rename.

2. Type the new name on the tab.

Deleting a Layer and All Objects in It

This deletes the layer and all objects in it, so move objects out of the layer before beginning if you want to preserve them. Also, remember that the layer will be deleted from all slides in the presentation.

1. Right-click the layer tab.

2. Choose Delete.

3. Click Yes when prompted.

Moving Objects Among Layers

Surprisingly, you can't just cut and paste to move objects from one layer to another; you'll need to drag them instead. You'll need to make sure the tabs of both layers can be displayed simultaneously , so widen the main program window if necessary, or follow the directions in step 3 when you get to it.

1. Navigate to the slide containing the object you want to move.

   To copy instead of just moving the object, you need to copy the object in the current slide, then move the copy to the new layer.

2. Switch to Drawing master view, to the view (Slide or Background) that the object is in, and then choose View > Layer.

3. Select the layer that the object is in.

   If you can't display the tabs of the current and target layers at once, click on the narrow vertical blank area between the rightmost layer tab and the left scrolling arrow in the navigation bar (Figure 25-24).

   Figure 25-24. Increasing display space for layer tabs

   

   The cursor will change to a two-ended arrow. Drag the blank area to the right until there's enough space to display all layer tabs.

4. Be sure that the tab of the layer you want to move the object to is showing in the navigation bar.

5. Click on the object, click it again and hold down the mouse, then drag the object a bit. A gray rectangle will appear at the base of the cursor. (Keep holding the mouse button down.)

6. Drag the object to the tab of the layer you want it to be in; the tab will be highlighted when you've succeeded.

7. The object will appear in the same location within the work area in the new layer.