Learn LibreOffice Impress

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Introduction

Basic information

ICT Competency	LibreOffice Impress is a free and open source application for creating generic resources, in the form of slide presentations.
Educational application and relevance	LibreOffice Impress can be used to create slides that contain many different elements including text, lists, tables, charts, audio and video links etc. Slides are often used in training programs and in teaching to quickly and simply communicate ideas through points.
Version	Version: 5.1.4.2
Configuration	No specific configuration requirements
Other similar applications	Sozi, Apache OpenOffice Impress, Google Drive Slides are all presentation software applications
The application on mobiles and tablets	Collabora Office for Android and for iOS You can use DeckDeckGo for creating and sharing presentations online. It is a FOSS alternative for Google Slides. Although there are similar full office-suite along with Google Drive storage service like NextCloud, this is simpler when we just want to use a clean presentation tool. It works on mobile too.
Development and community help	1. Official Website 2. LibreOffice Impress help document

Overview of Features

LibreOffice Impress lets you create professional slide shows that can include charts, drawing objects, text, multimedia and a variety of other items. We can import and modify Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. On-screen slide shows, animation, slide transitions are a few of the techniques you can use to make presentation more appealing. Impress also includes a spelling checker, text styles and background styles, to communicate information in simple and powerful ways.

Installation

For Windows

Go to this click and click on libreoffic windows installer for windows
It will start downloading "LibreOffice_..._Win_x64.msi" into your computer (by defulat browser will save the files in "Downloads" folder in your system
Double-click on download "LibreOffice_..._Win_x64.msi" file to begin installation
Click Yes if it ask your permission to allow this program make change to the computer, Keep clicking on "Next" button to continue and complete the installation.

If you are not able to install Libreoffice in your windows machine, follow this official website installation instructions

Hindi package installation in Libre office

In case you want to use Libre office interface in hindi then please follow below instructions

Once again double click on the downloaded installation file which will open libre office installer wizard as shown in the below images
Click next, you will get 3 options ( Modify, Repair, Remove ). Please choose Modify and click on next.

It will move to the next step where you will get User interface languages ( Select Hindi ) then click next and finish the installation

After Libre office installation follow the below steps,

Once the Libre office is installed Click on Libre office shortcut( open Libre office Impress), Click on cancel for template option
Then from the menu bar click on Tools - Language - select "For All Text" option - "more"
A dialogue box will open. From here, the language of the User interface can be set to Hindi from the drop-down menu.

For Ubuntu

The application is part of the Ubuntu custom distribution.
In case you do not find it on your computer, you can install by choosing “LibreOffice” in Ubuntu Software Centre
If you would like to install through the terminal follow these steps below:
1. Open terminal by clicking (Ctrl+Alt+T),
2. Once Window page is open, in front of dollar($) symbol just type below command.
3. sudo apt-get install libreOffice-writer

For MAC OS

Go to this click and click on libreoffic MAC OS for MAC laptops
It will start downloading "LibreOffice_..._MacOS_x86-64.dmg" into your computer (by defulat browser will save the files in "Downloads" folder in your system
Double-click on download "LibreOffice_..._MacOS_x86-64.dmg" file to begin installation
An installation window appears: drag and drop the LibreOffice icon onto the Applications icon in the same window. You may be required to enter your administrator password.
The files are copied over and a progress bar shows when the installation is complete.

If you are not able to install Libreoffice in your MAC machine, follow this official website installation instructions

Working with the application

Opening a presentation slide

LibreOffice Impress can be opened from Applications → Office → LibreOffice Impress. When you open the LibreOffice Impress application, it will show the window like this. You can click the cursor on "Click to add title" and type the title of the information you want to enter. And then you can click the cursor on "Click to add text" and type the information you want to present.

After completing the first slide, if you want take new slide, see the left side panel of the window and right click on slide, then choose new slide. Alternatively, you can also select any slide from from slide list and then press ENTER.

Formatting a presentation (Add new slide, Duplicate slide, select slide layout)

Adding new slide: A new slide can be inserted into a presentation as follows: Go to Slide on the top Menu bar and select New Slide. or, right click on a slide in the Slides bar , view and select New Slide from the menu. A new slide is inserted after the selecting slide in the presentation.

Watch this video to learn inserting slides and formatting slides

To duplicate/copy a slide:

Select the slide you want to duplicate from the Slides Pane.
Go to Slide on the Menu bar and select Duplicate Slide. Or, right-click on the slide in the Slides Sorter view and select Duplicate Slide from the menu.

When creating a presentation, the first slide is normally a title slide. You can use either a blank slide layout or one of the template.

Click on slide-----→ layout and select the layout

Adding text

Many of your slides are likely to contain some text. The text used in slides is contained in text boxes or to add text to the slide that contains a text box, Click in the text box that reads "Click to add text" or copy-paste your text from your another document or from the web in the text box.

Using text boxes

Sometime if you want to add text where there is no text input box, you can click on the "Text" icon on the Standard or Text toolbar or use the keyboard shortcut F2. If the Standard or Text toolbars are not visible, go to insert > Insert text option.
Click and drag to draw a box for the text on the slide. Do not worry about the vertical size and position as the text box will expand if needed as you type.
Release the mouse button when finished. The cursor appears in the text box, which is now in edit mode.
Type or paste your text in the text box and click outside the text box to deselect it.

Formatting text

To format added text go to sidebar settings and click on properties as shown in the animation
To copy text from one place to another, or from one document to another, you can select the text, go to Edit --→ Copy and go to a different place in the document to paste it; Edit → Paste. The editing menu also has an important feature for searching selected words. You can use the Edit--> Find option for searching selected words.
The format option is for changing the format of the text, changing the text font, text size, page format and text wrapping options. many of these option we can use short cut icons from formatting text tool bar, the letter “B” and “I” can be used to make the text bold and italics.
You can type in text in different languages, not only in English. You can type a paragraph of text with words/sentences in different languages. The IBUS application allows you to type in most Indian languages. To type in Hindi or Kannada or Telugu or Tamil, visit the Learn_Ubuntu page

Add Text
Add text

Organizing text through bullets and number lists

To add the bullets and numbers to text information, choose Format - Bullets and Numbering. You can also select the different symbols of bullets and numbers here.
An important feature of Impress is to enable you present your information through simple and short points ('bullet points'). For the selected text input that has been entered, go to Format, select Bullets and Numbering and choose the numbering type that is needed. You can create sub-numbered lists.

Inserting images

By adding images, videos or any other media will make you presentation more informative and attractive. To add images, go to the "insert" from the menu bar and click on the image option and select the image which you want to insert from your local drive, select and click on "open".
Alternatively after inserting a new slide, on the inserted new slide you can move the cursor around that, and it will show the option "Insert Image". Along with image, you can insert table, video or graph.

Note: When resizing a graphic, right-click the picture. Select Position and Size from the context menu and make sure that Keep ratio is selected. Then adjust the height or width to the size you need. As you adjust one dimension, both dimensions will change to keep the width and height ratio the same, ensuring that the picture will not become distorted. Remember also that resizing a bitmap image will reduce its quality; it is better to create an image of the desired size outside of Impress.

Insert Hyperlinks

Insert Web link- Place the text cursor in the document at the point where you want to insert the hyperlink or select the text that you want to put the hyperlink on. Select Hyperlink command from the Insert menu. When you present your slides (using 'Slide Show' from the Menu), you will be able to click this web link and open the web page with that address (you will need internet connectivity for this). You can also use this to link a file on your own computer, which can be opened in the same manner.

Modifying the 'Master slide' template

Impress comes with a collection of master slides which you can use it for to change the slide background. Click on the master slide section from task panel on right side of the working window, and click on the slide design which you want to apply for your slide.

After you select background for your slide and to apply the same background to all the slides in your file, right click on the master slide from side panel and select "Apply o all slides".

Insert Table and table formatting

Go to Insert, Table on the Menu bar, select the number of rows and columns required from the Insert Table dialog that opens. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure how many you will need at first, you can always edit the table later, but if you do know your needs, this is a good time to fill it in since it is more work to fix it later.

Alternatively, click on "Table" icon on toolbar and select the number of rows and columns by dragging the cursor.

This will insert a default table into your slide with the number of rows and columns you specified. But if you look to the Sidebar on the right you will see that the Properties window has opened the Table Design section for you. You can do a lot from this toolbar, so let’s take a look at it. Under table design you can change into any predefined table designs. Remember that you can always read the name of the button by mousing over it and reading the pop-up.

Adding Header, Footer to slide

To add the header or footer go to insert menu from the top menu bar and click on header footer > Add the header or footer like fixed date , variable date , slide number etc.” Check “Date and Time” and choose a time setting. Choose between “Update automatically” and “Fixed” as a display type. If you choose “Fixed,” type the date in the blank.

add header and footer
Options available

Inserting other objects

To add any objects to a slide, for example formula,QR code etc click on insert and go to object then select the object as per the requirement.
To add formula under the object in the slide click on insert--> object--> formula, formula available for unary/binary operators, relations. set operations, functions, brackets, attributes.
To add QR code click on insert--> object-->QR code, QR code will be generated in the slide.
To insert OLE object from different sources then click on insert-->object-->OLE object.

Custom animation for presentation

Custom animation - Opens the Custom Animation from task panel on right side of the working window. Alternatively choose Slide from Menu Bar and then click on 'Custom Animation'. There will be varieties of styles to add, you can choose. Custom animation enables you to present your text in different styles. You can have the text come in different speeds, in different ways, this makes it interesting for the viewer by providing visual relief. Try different animation methods and have fun!

Slide Transitions

To add the slide transition wherein the transitions can be applied to the selected slide or to all slides.

In Normal view, select the slide that you want to add the transition effect to.
On the Tasks pane, click Slide Transition.
Select a slide transition from the list.

To preview the transition effect for a slide, click the small icon underneath the slide on the Slides Pane.

To remove a transition effect

In Slide Sorter View, select the slides that you want to remove the transition effect from.
Choose No Transition in the listbox on the Tasks pane.

Running Sideshow

To run the slideshow go to the slideshow from the top menu bar, click on the "Slide Show" and click on "Start from First Slide" or use the keyboard shortcut key "f5" to start the presentation from the first slide of your presentation.

The same way you start your slides presentation from the current slide which you are seeing on your screen by pressing "Shift+f5" keyboard shortcut keys or click on the "Slide Show" and click on "Start from Current Slide".

For an automatic change to the next slide, you must assign a slide transition to each slide.

Open the Slide Transition sidebar deck.
In the Advance slide area, click Automatically after, and select a time duration.
Click Apply to All Slides.

Saving the files and formats

Like in most applications, a file can be saved using the FILE – SAVE command, or by the shortcut key CTRL+S. Always give a meaningful file name, reading which you should get an idea of the file contents.
The files will be saved as ".odp".
The files can be exported to a PDF format (FILE - EXPORT as PDF). This is useful when you only need to print the file and do not want any changes to it. You can also save your file in the Microsoft ppt format (FILE - SAVE AS).

Export as PDF
Save as PPT

Advanced features

You can use custom animation in advanced ways to present text, audio, video and images in rich ways. You have different options to print your slides - only slides or as a handout.

Video tutorials

Click here to see the video tutorials to learn LibreOffice Impress

Ideas for resource creation

You can organise and structure teaching ideas through slide presentations. You can animate your slides and combine text, image, audio and video elements for richer communication.

References

The Document Foundation
LibreOffice Impress Official Website