Creating Your First Presentation


The easiest way to learn about OpenOffice.org Impress is to create a simple presentation. In the following sections, you create a simple four-slide presentation with one bullet list, one graphic, one pie chart, and one slide that combines all these elements. You then learn how to play back the slide show for an audience.

Because the OpenOffice.org Impress application begins with a blank slide, you are ready to begin working on your first slide immediately after you launch the OpenOffice.org Impress application.

Selecting a Slide Layout and Design

Your first slide begins as a blank white canvas, ready to be filled. Plain white is a little boring, though. Before adding any text or graphics to a slide, you usually begin by selecting a basic design for it from a list of visually pleasing templates.

To select a design for the currently selected slide, click the Master Pages option in the Tasks pane. A number of potential slide designs are displayed, as shown in Figure 10.4.

Figure 10.4. The Master Pages list is used to choose the basic visual appearance for slides in this presentation.


Does Your Impress Window Look Different?

If the Slides pane, the Tasks pane, or any other element of your Impress window looks different from the one shown in Figure 10.3, click on the View menu and ensure that the Normal, Task Pane, Slide Pane, and Status Bar items are checked, and that the rest of the items aren't.


You'll see three sections in the Master Pages list:

  • The section titled Used in This Presentation shows the master page currently used for your slides.

  • The section titled Recently Used shows master pages that you have most recently chosen.

  • The section titled Available for Use lists the master pages that you can select.

Click on one of the master pages from the Available for Use section to indicate that slides in this presentation should have the same basic visual appearance. The view of the current slide will change to show the new appearance you've selected, as shown in Figure 10.5.

Figure 10.5. After you click on the master page of your choice, the slide takes on the appearance you've selected.


Now that you have selected a design for your slide, it's time to select a layout to help structure and organize the information that your slide will contain. To select a layout, click on Layouts in the Task pane. A list of common slide layouts is displayed, as shown in Figure 10.6.

Figure 10.6. After clicking Layouts in the Task pane, you can select a layout for the information that your slide will contain.


Our first slide is going to be an informative bullet listmostly text with a title at the topso for this slide, click the layout that looks like a bullet list with a text title at the top. The resulting layout is applied to the current slide, as shown in Figure 10.7.

Figure 10.7. When you click on a layout, it is applied to the current slide. You can then begin to add information.


Notice that the slide now has two general parts: a title area with the text Click to add title in large, bold letters suitable for a slide title, and a body area with the text Click to add an outline in a smaller font, next to a bullet graphic. Your slide is now ready for use.

Filling Text Areas in Slides

It's time to add text to both of the text areas on the slide. Begin by clicking the text Click to add title. A highlight box is immediately displayed around the area, and the words Click to add title disappear, replaced by a blinking cursor. Type My First Slideshow, as shown in Figure 10.8.

Figure 10.8. After you click Click to add title, a text box and blinking cursor are displayed so that you can type your own title for the slide.


Notice the squares around the edge of the text box shown in Figure 10.8 (they appear green onscreen). These squares are resize handles, similar in function to the resize handles on application windows that you learned about in Chapter 4, "Introducing the Fedora Core 4 Desktop." By clicking resize handles and dragging them, you can resize and reshape the text and graphic boxessuch as this title text boxthat you encounter in OpenOffice.org Impress.

After typing a title for the slide, click anywhere on the slide outside the text box to confirm your new title. The text box outline disappears, leaving the new title you've typed in place.

Seeing Squiggly Lines?

If you're following along, you may have seen a squiggly line appear underneath the word Slideshow. As was the case with OpenOffice.org Writer, Impress will underline words that it thinks may be misspelled.

If, as is the case in this example, the word isn't actually misspelled, simply ignore the underline; it won't appear when you present your slideshowit's only visible while you're editing your slides.


Now it's time to add text to the bullet list that forms the body of the slide. Click Click to add an outline to display a text box for the body of the slide, as shown in Figure 10.9.

Figure 10.9. After you click Click to add an outline, another text box is displayed, this time for the body of the slide.


Because this new text box is an outline or bullet list, the cursor is placed next to a bullet graphic. Each time you press Enter as you enter text, the cursor moves to a new line and a new bullet is added to the list.

To increase the indent level of a new bullet, press your Tab key. To decrease the indent level of a new, indented bullet, hold down your Shift key and press the Tab key. Impress will automatically size and position your text in the most visually pleasing way possible.

Add the text shown in Figure 10.10 now. Remember to use the Tab and Shift+Tab keys as appropriate to match the indentation in the figure as well.

Figure 10.10. Adding text to the outline is easy! Press Enter to start a new bullet, Tab to indent a bullet after you've created it, or Shift+Tab to unindent once again.


After you finish entering the text shown in Figure 10.10, click anywhere in the slide outside the active text box to accept the changes (new text) you just entered. The finished slide, without a surrounding text box, is shown in Figure 10.11. This is a miniature sample of what the slide will look like when you use it in your presentation.

Figure 10.11. Your first slide is now complete; you have added both your own title and your own text content.


What If You Want to Edit the Text Again?

Even though no text boxes are visible in Figure 10.11 and no Click to insert... text can be seen either, you can still edit the text you've entered if you want to make changes to a slide. Simply click the text you want to change, and the text box editing cursor reappears. You can then make changes to the text you've already entered in a slide.


Adding a Slide to Your Presentation

With the first slide in your presentation complete, it's time to add another blank canvas so that you can begin work on your second slide. To add another slide to your presentation, right-click in an empty area of the Slides pane and select New Slide from the context menu that appears. A new slide will be created and added to the slide index in the Slides pane, and the slide itself will be shown in the center of the Impress window, as shown in Figure 10.12.

Figure 10.12. After you right-click in the Slide pane and select New Slide from the context menu, a new slide is created.


Though you now see a new slide, no layout is shown for it. Select a new layout for the slide by clicking on the Title Only layout, as shown in Figure 10.13.

Figure 10.13. Click on the Title Only layout type (the type that shows a title and nothing else) to make the new slide a title-only slide.


Just as you did with your first slide, you can click the Click to add title text to display a text box and cursor where you can add your own title to the slide. Title this slide Impress Supports Images and then click outside the text box to save your new title to the slide.

Using Image and Object Tools

Now it's time to start adding your own decorations to an Impress slide. For this presentation, it's enough to draw a simple figure using the tools across the bottom of the Impress window in the drawing toolbar.

The first six icons in the drawing toolbar, from left to right, are used to select tools to draw lines, arrows, circles, squares, and text, respectively (see Figure 10.14). The next eight icons in the drawing toolbar represent small groups of related drawing tools. Click on the down arrow next to any of them to open a submenu showing those tools, as shown in Figure 10.14.

Figure 10.14. Click on the icons to the left to select a simple drawing tool, or click on the small down arrows to select from a list of related drawing tools.


Want to Know What Each Icon Does?

You can find out what each icon on the drawing toolbar does, and what the icons in each of the drawing toolbar submenus do, simply by letting your mouse hover over them. When you let your mouse hover over an icon without clicking on it, a description of the tool will appear in a little box next to your mouse pointer.


Each icon in a tool submenu is a visual representation of the type of object that can be drawn using the tool in question. For the purposes of this introduction to Impress, let's draw a little house. Begin by clicking the down arrow next to the submenu icon that looks like a diamond to display the list of basic shapes (shown in Figure 10.14). In this submenu, select the icon that looks like a square; then select the color Orange 4 from the Color drop-down list, as shown in Figure 10.15.

Figure 10.15. Select the square from the basic shapes submenu. Afterward, select Orange 4 from the Color drop-down list.


Click and hold your mouse button over the slide and drag your pointer to display a box that indicates where the resulting square will be placed. When you have positioned the box where you want the resulting shape to appear, release the mouse button to display the shape you've drawn, as shown in Figure 10.16.

Figure 10.16. If you are unsatisfied with your shape, adjust its size by clicking and dragging any of the resize handles; adjust the placement of your shape simply by clicking and dragging it.


What If You Just Want to Try Again?

If you're not quite happy with your cube but just want to try creating it again rather than editing it using the resize handles, simply choose Edit, Undo from the menu bar near the top of the Impress window. After the cube disappears, you can give it another shot.


Now that you have the base of your house looking just the way you want it, it's time to create a roof for it. Select the isosceles triangle tool icon (just to the lower right of the square tool shown in Figure 10.16) and use the tool to draw a little triangle over the top of the cube. You might need to use the resize handles to move your triangle around a little bit before your drawing begins to look like a house, as shown in Figure 10.17.

Figure 10.17. After you add a triangle with the isosceles triangle tool and size and place it carefully, an illustration of a house begins to take shape.


Finally, use some of the other tools from the basic shapes menu and other colors from the Color drop-down list to add a front door, sun, and front lawn to the house to complete the illustration for Slide 2. Follow these steps to arrive at the house image shown in Figure 10.18:

  • To draw a sun, use circle tool from the basic shapes submenu; then select the color Pale yellow.

  • To draw a front door, use the rectangle tool from the basic shapes submenu; then select the color Bordeaux.

  • To draw a patch of lawn, use the parallelogram tool from the basic shapes submenu; then select the color Green 8.

Figure 10.18. Using the circle tool, the rectangle tool, and the parallelogram tool, you can add a sun, a front door, and a patch of lawn to the house illustration.


Now, to make the lawn look nice, you need to make the house sit on top of the lawn, and not vice versa. To lower the new parallelogram so that it is obscured by the house, instead of the house being obscured by it, right-click it. In the context menu that appears, select Arrange, Send to Back, as shown in Figure 10.19. Afterward, be sure to click outside the shape anywhere on the slide to remove the resize handles. You can see the results of these operations and the final appearance of the second slide in Figure 10.20.

Figure 10.19. Select Arrange from the context menu to lower or raise objects on your slide in relation to one another.


Figure 10.20. The image in the completed Slide 2 was created entirely by using the drawing tools in Impress.


You Can Edit Any Object, Any Time

If you decide that you want to edit any object on a slide, you can do so at will, even if you've added several objects since then.

To edit an object other than the current one, click the Select tool (the icon that looks like a white arrow near the top of the main toolbar) and then click the object that you want to edit. Resize handles appear. You can then resize, move, raise, lower, or change other properties of the object at will.


Using Charts in Impress Slides

It's time to create the third slide, a simple chart that Impress will draw for you. To make an empty slide to hold our new chart, right-click the Slide pane somewhere after the second slide and select New Slide from the context menu. Then choose the Title, Chart layout from the list of available layouts, as shown in Figure 10.21.

Figure 10.21. For our third slide, select the layout that contains a title and a chart.


Click the Click to add title text and enter the title and charts in the text box. When you are done, click outside the text box to save your changes to the slide, as shown in Figure 10.22.

Figure 10.22. The new slide has been titled; you can now add a chart by double-clicking the area beneath the title labeled Double-click to add a chart.


To add a chart to the third slide in this presentation, double-click in the area with the text Double-click to add a chart. A premade chart appears in the space, containing meaningless data (depending on the size of your display, the Slide and Tasks panes may be temporarily hidden). To edit the chart to reflect your own data and desired format, right-click the chart to display a context menu of operations that can be performed on it (see Figure 10.23).

Figure 10.23. The chart that is inserted by default contains meaningless data. By right-clicking the chart, you can access a context menu that allows you to customize it.


Begin by selecting Chart Type from the context menu. For this slide, create a pie chart. To do so, select the Pies type from the Chart Type box and the Offset 1 variant from the Variants box in the Chart Type dialog box that appears, as shown in Figure 10.24. Click OK to apply your changes and change the type of chart to a pie chart.

Figure 10.24. Right-click the chart and select Chart Type from the context menu to display the Chart Type dialog box. Then select Pies as a type and Offset 1 as a variant.


Now that your chart appears in the slide as a pie chart, right-click again and select Chart Data from the context menu to display the Chart Data dialog box, which looks like a little Calc spreadsheet, as shown in Figure 10.25.

Figure 10.25. Select Chart Data from the chart's context menu to display the Chart Data dialog box, which looks like a little spreadsheet.


As you create and edit your own charts using your own data, you need to adjust the size of the spreadsheets in rows and columns. Across the top of the Chart Data dialog box is a row of icons that allow you to manipulate the chart as you enter data. The first four icons are the most important. From left to right, they are

  • Insert Row, which inserts an empty row before the currently selected row

  • Insert Column, which inserts an empty column before the currently selected column

  • Delete Row, which deletes the currently selected row

  • Delete Column, which deletes the currently selected column

Because a pie chart uses only one column of data, use the Delete Column button to get rid of the two extra columns in the Chart Data dialog box now. First, click in the column to be removed; then click the Delete Column button to delete it. Repeat the process until there is only one data column (column containing numbers) left. Then enter the numeric and label data shown in Figure 10.26.

Figure 10.26. Adjust the number of rows and columns to suit your dataset; then change the labels for each row and column and enter your data as necessary.


After you're done entering data, click the Close button in the upper right to close the Chart Data dialog box. Another dialog box is displayed, notifying you that new chart data has been entered and asking whether you want to apply this new data to the chart you've created. Click Yes to do so now, and the chart on Slide 3 is rebuilt to reflect the new data you've entered. Finally, double-click Main Title in the chart and enter a more appropriate title, as shown in Figure 10.27. When you're done, click the slide outside the chart area to finalize it and restore the Slide and Task panes if they were hidden.

Figure 10.27. After you apply the new data, double-click the chart's title area to enter a more appropriate title.


Using Combination Slides

For the final slide in this presentation, it's time to mix all the earlier elements you've learned to use together into a single, mixed slide. Create another new slide by scrolling to the bottom of the slides list in the Slide pane, right-clicking, and selecting New Slide. When the new slide appears, select 2 Objects, Text layout from the Task pane, as shown in Figure 10.28.

Figure 10.28. Create a fourth new slide at the end of the slides list; then choose the 2 Objects, Text layout for it.


Using the knowledge you've gained in creating earlier slides, edit the title and text in the slide's text box so that the slide appears similar to what you see in Figure 10.29.

Figure 10.29. An informative title and additional text have been added to the final slide.


Now double-click in the top object box, where you see Double-click to add an object. When the Insert OLE Object dialog box appears, select OpenOffice.org Chart and click OK. A new chart appears in the box. Because you already know how to fill charts with your own data and labels, we won't bother to edit this chart any further. Click outside the box to restore the slide view and add additional objects.

Finally, single-click in the lower object box so that green resize handles appear around it. Then press the Backspace key or choose Edit, Cut from the menu bar near the top of the application window to remove the object box, leaving empty space behind in its place. Spend a few moments using the drawing tools in the main toolbar to fill this empty space with any sketch you feel like creating. See Figure 10.30 for one example of a completed final slide.

Figure 10.30. The final slide mixes several different types of information together in a nice layout.


What If You Created Slides in the Wrong Order?

If you want to change the order in which your slides will ultimately play, you can easily arrange them by choosing View, Slide Sorter from the menu bar near the top of the Impress application window.

The Slides View shows all your slides in miniature in a grid, in order from left to right and top to bottom. You can then drag and drop your slides into place in any order you desire using your mouse.

After you're done rearranging your slides, select View, Normal to return and edit more slides.




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