Overcoming (Most) Format Incompatibilities

You might notice several incompatibilities when importing and exporting between Impress and PowerPoint.

As mentioned earlier, TrueType fonts should be correctly installed on your machine, whether Windows or Linux, to head off any unexpected default fonts. This problem has largely disappeared with current distributions of Linux. OOo on a Windows box takes advantage of the TrueType font libraries that are already installed.

Margins may occasionally appear out of whack when you convert from PowerPoint to OOo. You may have to adjust the margins manually to clear things up.

The unit of measure used in your presentation is one of the biggest causes of incompatibility when you work with imported and exported files. You can set the unit type by selecting Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Impress. This setting appears on the General Options screen. Common measurements such as centimeters and inches can be selected from the Unit of Measurement dropdown menu. You must set your measurement unit type to match the one used to save the original PowerPoint presentation. If you don't know what it is, a few seconds of experimentation will show you the right one.

Selecting a unit of measurement for your slide show.