Impress Guide 7.0

Preface

Presentations in LibreOffice

Who is this user guide for?

LibreOffice is a feature-rich, free, and open source office suite. It includes several powerful applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases, and formula editing. Impress is the presentations application. It is compatible with a wide range of formats including Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx), and you can export your work in several formats, for example PDF, HTML, Adobe Flash, and numerous graphic formats.

You may be new to presentation software, or you may be familiar with another office suite. This user guide will get anyone up to speed quickly with LibreOffice Impress.

What’s in this user guide?

This user guide introduces the main features of Impress, the presentations (slide show) component of LibreOffice. Using Impress, you can create slides that contain text, bulleted and numbered lists, tables, charts, clip art, and other objects. Also, Impress comes with prepackaged styles, slide backgrounds, and templates to help you create presentations.

Minimum requirements for using LibreOffice

For a detailed list of requirements and operating systems supported, see the LibreOffice website, https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/system-requirements/

How to get LibreOffice

Versions of LibreOffice for Windows, Linux, and macOS is freely available and can be downloaded from https://www.libreoffice.org/download. Linux users will also find LibreOffice included free in many of the latest distributions.

Portable and other versions of LibreOffice are listed on the download page. Linux, Vanilla, and other versions may differ in a few features from the descriptions in this user guide.

Installing LibreOffice

Information on installing and setting up LibreOffice on the various supported operating systems is given here: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/install-howto/

Loading additional master slides

You can change the default settings (options) in LibreOffice to suit your preferences. To change settings, go to Tools > Options on the main menu bar (LibreOffice > Preferences on macOS). Settings are described in the Help and in Chapter 2 Setting up LibreOffice in the Getting Started Guide.

Some settings of particular interest to Impress users are covered in Chapter 11 Setting Up and Customizing Impress. In this chapter you will find information on how to customize menus, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts in LibreOffice Impress, add new menus and toolbars, and assign macros to events.

Tip

Many settings are intended for power users and programmers. If you do not understand what an option does, we recommend leaving it on the default setting unless instructions in this user guide recommend changing the setting.

Extensions and add-ons

This user guide and other LibreOffice user guides, the built-in Help system, and user support systems assume that you are familiar with your computer and basic functions such as starting a program, opening and saving files.

Help systems

LibreOffice comes with an extensive Help system. This is your first line of support. Windows and Linux users can choose to download and install the offline Help for use when not connected to the Internet; the offline Help is installed with the program on MacOS.

To display the Help system, press F1 or select Help > LibreOffice Help from the Menu bar. If you do not have the offline help installed on your computer and you are connected to the Internet, your default browser will open the online Help pages on the LibreOffice website.

The Help menu includes links to other LibreOffice information and support facilities.

• What's This? – for quick tips when a toolbar is visible, place the mouse pointer over any of the icons to see a small box (tooltip) with a brief explanation of the icon function. In addition, you can choose whether to activate Extended Tips using Tools > Options > LibreOffice > General.

• User Guides – opens your default browser at the Documentation page of the LibreOffice website https://documentation.libreoffice.org/en/english-documentation/. There you will find User Guides (to download as free PDFs or buy as printed copies) and other useful information.

• Show Tip-of-the-Day – opens a small window with a random tip on how to use LibreOffice.

• Get Help Online – opens your default browser at the Ask LibreOffice forum of questions and answers from the LibreOffice community, https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions/.

• Send Feedback – opens your default browser at the Feedback page of the LibreOffice website https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/feedback/. From there you can report bugs, suggest new features and communicate with others in the LibreOffice community.

• Restart in Safe Mode – opens a dialog window where you will have the option to restart LibreOffice and reset the software to its default settings.

• Get Involved – opens your default browser at the Get Involved page of the LibreOffice website, https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/. There you can choose a topic of interest to help improve the program.

• Donate to LibreOffice – opens your default browser at the Donation page of the LibreOffice website, https://donate.libreoffice.org/. There you can choose to make a donation to support LibreOffice.

• License Information – outlines the licenses under which LibreOffice is made available.

• Check for Updates – pens a dialog and checks the LibreOffice website for updates to your version of the software.

• About LibreOffice – opens a dialog and displays information about the version of LibreOffice and the operating system you are using. This information will often be requested if you ask the community for help or assistance with the software (on macOS, this option is found under LibreOffice on the main menu bar}.

Other free online support

The LibreOffice community not only develops software, but provides free, volunteer-based support. See Table 1 and this web page: https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/

For comprehensive online support from the community, look at mailing lists and the Ask LibreOffice website, https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions/. Other websites run by users also offer free tips and tutorials.

Table 1: Free support for LibreOffice users

Free LibreOffice support
FAQs	Answers to frequently asked questions https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq
Mailing lists	Free community support is provided by a network of experienced users https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/
Questions & Answers and Knowledge Base	Free community assistance is provided in a Question & Answer formatted web service. Search similar topics or open a new one in https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/questions The service is available in several other languages; just replace /en/ with de, es, fr, ja, ko, nl, pt, tr, and many others in the web address above.
Native language support	The LibreOffice website in various languages https://www.libreoffice.org/community/nlc/ Mailing lists for native languages https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Local_Mailing_Lists Information about social networking https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Website/Web_Sites_services
Accessibility options	Information about available accessibility options. https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/accessibility/
OpenOffice Forum	Another forum that provides support for LibreOffice, among other open source office suites. https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/

Paid support and training

You can also pay for support through service contracts from a vendor or consulting firm specializing in LibreOffice. For information about certified professional support, see The Document Foundation website: https://www.documentfoundation.org/gethelp/support/.

What you see may be different

Illustrations

LibreOffice runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems, each of which has several versions and can be customized by users (fonts, colors, themes, window managers). The illustrations in this guide were taken from a variety of computers and operating systems. Therefore, some illustrations will not look exactly like what you see on your computer display.

Also, some of the dialogs may differ because of the settings selected in LibreOffice. You can either use dialogs from your computer system (default) or dialogs provided by LibreOffice. To change to using LibreOffice dialogs:

1)  On Linux and Windows operating systems, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > General on the main menu bar to open the dialog for general options.

2)  On a Mac operating system, go to LibreOffice > Preferences > General on the main menu bar to open the dialog for general options.

3)  Select Use LibreOffice dialogs in Open/Save dialogs to display the LibreOffice dialogs on your computer display.

4)  Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.

Icons

The LibreOffice community has created icons for several icon sets, including Breeze, Colibre, Elementary, Sifr, and Tango. Each user can select a preferred set. The icons used to illustrate some of the many tools available in LibreOffice may differ from the ones used in this guide. The icons in this user guide have been taken from a LibreOffice installation that has been set to display the Colibre (SVG) set of icons.

To change the icon set used in your LibreOffice installation is as follows:

1)  On Linux and Windows operating systems, go to Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View on the main menu bar to open the dialog for view options.

2)  On a Mac operating system, go to LibreOffice > Preferences > LibreOffice > View on the main menu bar to open the dialog for view options.

3)  In User interface > Icon size and style select Colibre (SVG) from the options available in the drop down list.

4)  Click OK to save your settings and close the dialog.

Note

Some Linux operating systems, for example Ubuntu, include LibreOffice as part of the installation and may not include the Colibre icon set. You should be able to download the Colibre icons from the software repository for your Linux operating system.

Using LibreOffice on macOS

Some keystrokes and menu items are different on macOS from those used in Windows and Linux. The table below gives some common substitutions for the instructions in this user guide. For a more detailed list, see the application Help.

Table 2: Using LibreOffice on macOS

Windows or Linux	macOS equivalent	Effect
Tools > Options menu selection	LibreOffice > Preferences	Access setup options
Right-click	Control+click and/or right-click depending on computer setup	Opens a context menu
Ctrl (Control)	⌘ (Command)	Used with other keys
F11	⌘+T	Open the sidebar Styles deck

Who wrote this user guide?

This user guide was written by volunteers from the LibreOffice community. Profits from sales of the printed edition will be used to benefit the community.

Frequently asked questions

How is LibreOffice licensed?

LibreOffice is distributed under the Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved Mozilla Public License (MPL). See https://www.libreoffice.org/about-us/licenses/

It is based on code from Apache OpenOffice made available under the Apache License 2.0 but also includes software that differs from version to version under a variety of other Open Source licenses. New code is available under LGPL 3.0 and MPL 2.0.

May I distribute LibreOffice to anyone?

Yes

May I sell it?

Yes

May I use it in my business?

Yes.

How many computers may I install it on?

As many as you like.

Is LibreOffice available in my language?

LibreOffice has been translated (localized) into over 40 languages, so your language probably is supported. Additionally, there are over 70 spelling, hyphenation, and thesaurus dictionaries available for languages, and dialects that do not have a localized program interface. The dictionaries are available from the LibreOffice website at: www.libreoffice.org.

How can you make it for free?

LibreOffice is developed and maintained by volunteers and has the backing of several organizations.

I am writing a software application. May I use programming code from LibreOffice in my program?

You may, within the parameters set in the MPL and/or LGPL. Read the licenses: https://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.

Why do I need Java to run LibreOffice? Is it written in Java?

LibreOffice is not written in Java; it is written in the C++ language. Java is one of several languages that can be used to extend the software. The Java JDK/JRE is only required for some features. The most notable one is the HSQLDB relational database engine.

Java is available at no cost. More information and download links to the appropriate edition for your operating system can be found at: https://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp.

Note

If you want to use LibreOffice features that require Java, it is important that the correct 32-bit or 64-bit edition matches the installed version of LibreOffice. See Chapter 2 Advanced Options of the Getting Started Guide. If you do not want to use Java, you can still use nearly all of the LibreOffice features.

How can I contribute to LibreOffice?

You can help with the development and user support of LibreOffice in many ways, and you do not need to be a programmer. To start, check out this webpage: https://www.libreoffice.org/community/get-involved/

May I distribute the PDF of this user guide, or print and sell copies?

Yes, as long as you meet the requirements of one of the licenses in the copyright statement at the beginning of this user guide. You do not have to request special permission. We request that you share with the project some of the profits you make from sales of user guides, in consideration of all the work we have put into producing them.

Donate to LibreOffice: https://www.libreoffice.org/donate/

What is new in LibreOffice 7.0?

The LibreOffice 7.0 Release Notes are available at this link https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/7.0.

At this link you will also find the release notes for earlier versions of LibreOffice which will give you more information on the features that are included in LibreOffice.

Contents

• Copyright

• Contributors

• Feedback

• Publication date and software version

• Who is this user guide for?

• What’s in this user guide?

• Minimum requirements for using LibreOffice

• How to get LibreOffice

• Installing LibreOffice

• Loading additional master slides

• Extensions and add-ons

• Help systems

• Other free online support

• Paid support and training

• What you see may be different

• Illustrations

• Icons

• Using LibreOffice on macOS

• Who wrote this user guide?

• Frequently asked questions

• What is new in LibreOffice 7.0?