133. Change Slide Design

You can change the slide design for a slide or slides in your presentation. This changes the background color and the design elements provided by the previous design. As with slide layouts, it makes sense to select the slide design before you enter a lot of text or other objects on the slides. This allows you to arrange objects on a slide so that they complement the design elements provided by the selected design. When you select a different design, you are actually selecting a template that is applied to the slides.

Open Slide Design Dialog

Open the slide in the Drawing view that you want to edit. Select Format, Styles, Slide Design. The Slide Design dialog box opens.

Tip

You can also open the Slide Design dialog box from the Presentation toolbar. Select Slide Design.

Load Slide Designs

Recently used designs are listed in the Slide Design dialog box. To load other available designs, select the Load button. The Load Slide Design dialog box opens.

Choose Design for Loading

Select Presentation Backgrounds in the Categories box of the Load Slide Design dialog box. This lists the slide designs available. Select a design and then click OK. You are returned to the Slide Design dialog box.

Tip

You can download additional templates and slide designs from the OpenOffice.org website. The template page URL is http://documentation.openoffice.org/Samples_Templates/User/template/index.htm The template page provides links for downloading the templates and also provides information on the folder that you should place the templates in so that Impress can load them when you want to access them. This template page also provides templates for other OpenOffice.org applications such as Writer and Calc.

Apply Design

Select the newly loaded design in the Slide Design dialog box. Then click OK to apply the design to the current slide.

Open Page Setup

You can change the background for the current slide; select Format, Page. The Page Setup dialog box opens. Select the Background tab if necessary.

Select Background

Use the option buttons on the Background tab to select the type of background to apply to the slide: Color, Gradient, Hatching, or Bitmap. Then select the background for the slide from the currently selected background type. When you are ready to apply the new background, click OK.

Tip

You can change the background color and design elements for all the slides in a presentation. This allows you to add objects to all your slides such as a company logo or other repeating elements. You change the overall design of the slides in the presentation by editing the master slide. Select View, Master, Drawing from the menu. Be careful not to change the text box format provided on the master. You can, however, add or replace the design elements on the master. You can also change the background. Select Format, Page. Use the Page Setup dialog box to change the background for the master. You can then return to the slide view; select Format, Slide.