Figure 154: Sidebar Table Design section

Entering data into table cells is similar to working with text box objects. Click in the cell you wish to
add data to and begin typing. To move around cells quickly, use the following keyboard options:
• Press the arrow keys to move the cursor to another cell if the cell is empty, or to the next
character if the cell already contains text.
• Press the Tab key to move to the next cell on the right and press Shift+Tab to move to the
next cell on the left..

Adding charts
To insert a chart in a slide:
1) Go to Insert > Chart on the Menu bar or click on the Chart icon in the Standard
toolbar.
2) Alternatively and after inserting a new slide, click on the Insert Chart icon (Figure 146 on
page 172).
3) Impress will insert a default chart and open the Chart dialog. To modify the chart type, insert
your own data and change the formatting, refer to the Impress Guide.

Adding media files

To insert media files, such as music and movie clips, in a slide:
1) Go to Insert > Audio or Video on the Menu bar.
2) Alternatively and after inserting a new slide, click on the Insert Audio or Video icon (Figure
146 on page 172).

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 3) A media player will open at the bottom of the screen and you can preview the media.
4) When an audio file is inserted, the contents box will show a loudspeaker image.

Adding graphics, spreadsheets, and other objects

Graphics, such as shapes, callouts, and arrows, are often useful to complement the text on a slide.
These objects are handled much the same way as graphics in Draw. For more information, see the
Draw Guide Chapter 7 Getting Started with Draw, or the Impress Guide Chapters 4, 5, and 6.
Spreadsheets embedded in Impress include most of the functionality of Calc spreadsheets and are
capable of performing extremely complex calculations and data analysis. If you need to analyze
your data or apply formulas, these operations are best performed in a Calc spreadsheet and the
results displayed in an embedded Calc spreadsheet or even better in an Impress table.
Alternatively, go to Insert > Object > OLE Object on the Menu bar. You can select from options
that include a LibreOffice 5.0 Spreadsheet. This opens a spreadsheet in the middle of the slide and
the menus and toolbars change to those used in Calc. You can start adding data, though you may
have to resize the visible area on the slide. You can also insert an existing spreadsheet and use
the viewport to select the data that you want to display on your slide.
Impress offers the capability of inserting into a slide various other types of objects such as Writer
documents, Math formulas, Draw drawings, or another presentation. For details on using these
objects, refer to the Impress Guide Chapter 7 Including Spreadsheets, Charts, and Other Objects.

Working with slide masters and styles

A slide master is a slide that is used as the starting point for other slides. It is similar to a page style
in Writer and it controls the basic formatting of all slides based on it. A slide show can have more
than one slide master.

Note
LibreOffice uses three terms for a slide that is used to create other slides: master slide,
slide master, and master page. This book uses the term slide master, except when
describing the user interface.

A slide master has a defined set of characteristics, including background colors, graphics,
gradients; and other objects (such as logos, decorative lines and so on), headers and footers,
placement and size of text frames, and text format.

Styles
All of the characteristics of slide masters are controlled by styles. New slides that you create using
a slide master have styles that are inherited from the slide master which was used. Changing a
style in a slide master results in changes to all slides based on that slide master, but you can
modify individual slides without affecting the slide master.

Note
Although it is highly recommended to use the slide masters whenever possible, there
are occasions where manual changes are needed for a particular slide, for example to
enlarge the chart area when the text and chart layout is used.

Slide masters have two types of styles associated with them: presentation styles and image styles.
The prepackaged presentation styles can be modified, but new presentation styles cannot be
created. For image styles, you can modify the prepackaged styles and also create new image
styles.

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Presentation styles affect three elements of a slide master: background, background objects (such
as icons, decorative lines, and text frames), and text placed on the slide. Text styles are further
divided into Notes, Outline 1 through Outline 9, Subtitle, and Title. The outline styles are used for
the different levels of the outline to which they belong. For example, Outline 2 is used for the sub-
points of Outline 1, and Outline 3 is used for the sub-points of Outline 2, and so on.
Image styles are not restricted and can affect many of the elements of a slide. Note that text styles
exist in both the presentation and image style selections.

Slide masters
Impress comes with a collection of slide masters. These slide masters are shown in the Master
Pages section of the Sidebar (Figure 155) and has three subsections: Used in This Presentation,
Recently Used, and Available for Use. Click the + sign next to the name of a subsection to expand
it to show thumbnails of the slides, or click the – sign to collapse the subsection to hide the
thumbnails.
Each of the slide masters shown in the Available for Use list is from a template of the same name.
If you have created your own templates, or added templates from other sources, slide masters
from those templates will also appear in this list.

Figure 155: Sidebar Master Pages section

Figure 156: Master View toolbar

Chapter 6 Getting Started with Impress | 183

Creating a slide master
Creating a new slide master is similar to modifying the default slide master.
1) Enable editing of slide masters by selecting View > Slide Master on the Menu bar and the
Master View toolbar opens (Figure 156). If the Master View toolbar does not appear, go to
View > Toolbars and select Master View.

2) On the Master View toolbar, click the New Master icon .

3) A new slide master appears in the Slides pane. Modify this slide master to suit your
requirements.
4) It is also recommended that you rename this new slide master. Right-click on the slide in
the Slides pane and select Rename master from the context menu.
5) When finished creating a slide master, click Close Master View on the Master View toolbar
and return to normal slide editing mode.

Applying a slide master

To apply a slide master to all the slides in your presentation:

1) Click on the Master Pages icon in the Sidebar to open the Master Pages section
(Figure 155).
2) To apply one of the slide masters from the available selection to all slides in your
presentation, right-click on it and select Apply to All Slides on the context menu.
To apply a different slide master to one or more selected slides:
1) In the Slide Pane, select the slide or slides where you want to use a new slide master.
2) In the Master Pages section on the Sidebar, right-click on the slide master you want to
apply to the selected slides, and select Apply to Selected Slides on the context menu.

Loading additional slide masters

Sometimes, in the same set of slides, you may need to mix multiple slide masters that may belong
to different templates. For example, you may need a completely different layout for the first slide of
the presentation, or you may want to add to your presentation a slide from a different presentation
(based on a template available on the hard disk).
1) Go to Slide > Slide Design on the Menu bar or right-click on a slide in the Slides Pane and
select Slide Design from the context menu to open the Slide Design dialog (Figure 157).
This dialog shows the slide masters already available for use.
2) To add more slide masters, click the Load button to open the Load Slide Design dialog
(Figure 158).
3) Select in the Load Slide Design dialog the template from which to load the slide master and
click OK.
4) Click OK again to close the Slide Design dialog.
5) The slide masters in the template you selected to use are now shown in the Available for
use subsection of Master Pages.

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 Figure 157: Slide Design dialog

Figure 158: Load Slide Design dialog

Note
The slide masters you have loaded will also be available the next time you load the
presentation. If you want to delete the unused slide masters, click the corresponding
checkbox in the Slide Design dialog. If the slide master was not used in the
presentation, it is removed from the list of available slide masters.

Tip
To limit the size of the presentation file, you may want to minimize the number of slide
masters used.

Chapter 6 Getting Started with Impress | 185

Modifying a slide master
The following items can be changed on a slide master:
• Background (color, gradient, hatching, or bitmap)
• Background objects (for example, a logo or decorative graphics)
• Size, placement, and contents of header and footer elements to appear on every slide
• Size and placement of default frames for slide titles and content
For more information on modifying slide masters, see the Impress Guide Chapter 2 Using Slide
Masters, Styles, and Templates.
1) Select View > Slide Master from the Menu bar. This unlocks the properties of a slide
master so you can edit it.
2) Select a slide master in Master Pages in the Slides pane.
3) Select an object on the slide master in the Workspace and the Sidebar will display the
property options that can be changed for the selected object. Figure 159 shows a graphic
object selected with the Graphic properties section open on the Sidebar.
4) Make all necessary changes to the slide master, then click the Close Master View icon on
the Master View toolbar or go to View > Normal on the Menu bar to exit from editing slide
masters.
5) Save your presentation file before continuing.

Note
Any changes made to one slide when in Master View mode will appear on all slides
using this slide master. Always make sure you Close Master View and return to Normal
view before working on any of the presentation slides.

Figure 159: Editing a slide master

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 Note
The changes made to one of the slides in Normal view (for example, changes to the
bullet point style, the color of the title area, and so on) will not be overridden by
subsequent changes to the slide master. There are cases, however, where it is
desirable to revert a manually modified element of the slide to the style defined in the
slide master. To revert back to default formatting, select the element and select Format
> Default Formatting from the Menu bar.

Adding text, footers, and fields to all slides

A slide master can have text, footers, or fields added so that they appear on every slide in your
presentation. Headers are not normally added to slides.
Text
1) Go to View > Slide Master on the Menu bar to open Master View (Figure 160).
2) On the Drawing toolbar, select the Text icon or press the F2 key.
3) Click and drag in the master page to draw a text object and then type or paste your text into
the text object.
4) Go to View > Normal on the Menu bar or click on Close Master View on the Master View
toolbar when you have finished entering text objects that you want to appear on every slide
in your presentation.
Footers
To add a footer to your slides:
1) Go to View > Slide Master on the Menu bar to open Master View (Figure 160).
2) Go to Insert > Field or Insert > Page Number on the Menu bar and time to open the
Header and Footer dialog (Figure 161).
3) Select the type of date and time and type in the footer text and slide number from the
available options in the dialog.

Figure 160: Example master view

Chapter 6 Getting Started with Impress | 187

 Figure 161: Footer dialog in Impress

4) Click Apply to All to apply your changes to all the slide masters in your presentation, or
click Apply to apply your changes to the selected slide master in your presentation.
5) Alternatively, you can add the date/time, footer text and slide number directly into their
respective areas as shown in Figure 160.

Note
Normally only footers are used on a slide. To create a header, you can use a text box
as explained in “Text” on page 187.

Fields
To add a field into an object or as a separate object on a slide, select Insert > Fields on the Menu
bar and select the required field from the submenu. If you want to edit this field in your slide, see
the Impress Guide Chapter 3 Adding and Formatting Text for more information.
The fields you can use in Impress are as follows:
• Date (fixed)
• Date (variable): updates automatically when you reload a file
• Time (fixed)
• Time (variable): updates automatically when you reload a file
• Author: first and last names listed in the LibreOffice user data
• Page Number: the slide number in Impress
• Page Count: the number of slides in your presentation
• File Name

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 Tip
To change the author information, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > User Data
on the Menu bar.

To change the number format (1,2,3 or a,b,c or i,ii,iii, and so on) for the number field,
go to Slide > Page/Slide Properties... on the Menu bar and then select a format from
the Format list in the Layout Settings area.

To change a paragraph style throughout your presentation, open the Styles and
Formatting dialog and modify the appropriate presentation style.

Adding comments to a presentation

Impress supports comments similar to those in Writer and Calc.
In Normal View, go to Insert > Comment on the Menu bar to open a blank comment (Figure 162).
A small box containing your initials appears in the upper left-hand corner of the slide, with a larger
text box beside it. Impress automatically adds your name and the current date at the bottom of the
text box.
Type or paste your comment into the text box. You can optionally apply some basic formatting to
the comment by selecting it, right-clicking, and choosing from the context menu that opens. This
menu allows you to apply formatting to selected text, delete the current comment, delete all
comments from the same author, or delete all comments in the presentation.

Figure 162: Inserting comments

You can move the small comment markers to anywhere you wish on the slide. Typically you might
place it on or near an object you refer to in the comment.
To show or hide the comment markers, choose View > Comments.
Select Tools > Options > User Data to configure the name you want to appear in the comment.
If more than one person edits the document, each author is automatically allocated a different
background color for their comments.

Chapter 6 Getting Started with Impress | 189

Setting up a slide show
As mentioned in “Modifying the slide show” on page 174, Impress allocates reasonable default
settings for slide shows, while at the same time allowing for customizing many aspects of the slide
show experience. This section covers only some aspects; more advanced techniques are
explained in the Impress Guide Chapter 9 Slide Shows.
Most of the tasks are best done in Slide Sorter view where you can see most of the slides
simultaneously. Go to View > Slide Sorter on the Menu bar or click the Slide Sorter tab at the top
of the Workspace.

One slide set – multiple presentations

In many situations, you may find that you have more slides than the time available to present them
or you may want to provide a rapid overview without dwelling on the details. Rather than having to
create a new presentation, you can use two tools that Impress offers: hiding slides and custom
slide shows.

Hiding slides
1) Select the slide you want to hide in the Slide Pane or Slide Sorter view on the Workspace
area.
2) Go to Slide > Hide Slide on the Menu bar or right-click on the slide thumbnail and select
Hide Slide from the context menu. Hidden slides are marked by a diagonal bars across the
slide.

Custom slide shows

If you want to create a custom slide show from the same presentation:
1) Select the slides you want to use in your custom slide show.
2) Go to Slide Show > Custom Slide Show on the Menu bar.
3) Click on the New button to create a new sequence of slides and save it with a different
name. You can have as many slide shows as you want from a single presentation.

Slide transitions
Slide transition is the animation that is played when a slide is changed for the next slide in your
presentation. You can configure the slide transition from the Slide Transition section in the Tasks
Pane.

1) Go to Slide > Slide Transition on the Menu bar or click on the Slide Transition icon
on the Sidebar to open the options available for slide transitions.
2) Select the desired transition, the speed of the animation, and whether the transition should
happen when you click the mouse (preferred) or automatically after a certain number of
seconds.
3) Click Apply to All Slides to apply the transition for all of your presentation or continue
selecting transitions to place between each slide in your presentation.

Tip
The Slide Transition section has a very useful choice: Automatic preview. Select its
checkbox and when you make any changes in a slide transition, the new slide is
previewed in the Slide Design area, including its transition effect.

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