Presentations (OpenOffice Impress): views, animations, transitions, headers and footers

Hello students, welcome to Kwickprep. Have you seen a class presentation where points appear one by one and slides change smoothly? That is not magic. Today we will learn OpenOffice Impress: its views, animations, transitions, and headers and footers.

Let us start with the basics. OpenOffice Impress is presentation software, and it is part of the free OpenOffice suite. A presentation is a set of slides shown one after another. Each slide can hold text, pictures, charts, sound and video. Impress saves files as .odp by default, and can also save as .ppt for PowerPoint users.

Let us look at the Impress window. On the left, the Slides pane shows small pictures of all the slides, called thumbnails. In the middle, the workspace shows the current slide in a large size for editing. On the right, the tasks pane or sidebar gives layouts, animations and transitions. At the top are the menu bar and toolbars, and the status bar is at the bottom.

A view is a way of looking at your presentation, and each is useful for a different job. Normal view is the main view for editing one slide at a time. Outline view shows only the titles and text of all slides, so you can type content quickly. Notes view lets you add speaker notes below each slide. Handout view sets several slides on one page for printing. Slide Sorter view shows all slides together, so you can rearrange or delete them.

There are simple ways to change views. Open the View menu and pick a view. You can also click the view tabs above the workspace. To present, press F5, which runs the slide show from the first slide, filling the whole screen. Press Esc at any time to end the show.

Let us test this. You have twelve slides, and slide seven must move before slide three. Which view makes this easiest? Slide Sorter view, because you can see all slides and simply drag slide seven into place.

Now, animations. An animation is an effect that makes an object on a slide move, appear or disappear. The object can be text, a picture, a shape or a chart. Animations help show points one by one, exactly when you talk about them. In Impress, open the Slide Show menu and choose Custom Animation.

Custom animation effects come in groups. Entrance effects bring an object onto the slide, like fly in. Emphasis effects draw attention to an object already there, like changing its colour or making it grow. Exit effects take an object off the slide. Motion paths move an object along a line or curve that you choose.

Here is how to add an animation. First, select the object on the slide. In the Custom Animation pane, click Add. Pick an effect, then set when it starts, such as on click, its direction and its speed. If there are several effects, change their order with the arrow buttons. Click Play to preview how it looks.

A transition is different from an animation. A transition is the effect shown when one slide changes to the next slide. Examples are wipe, fade, dissolve and push. Remember the difference: an animation moves objects inside a slide, while a transition works between slides. You will find it under Slide Show, Slide Transition.

The Slide Transition pane has a few settings. First, choose the effect. Then set the speed to slow, medium or fast. You can add a sound, though silence is often better. Advance slide decides whether the next slide comes on a mouse click or automatically after some seconds. Finally, the effect applies to the selected slide, or click Apply to All Slides.

Headers and footers repeat information on every slide or page. Open the Insert menu and choose Header and Footer. Slides have a footer area, while notes and handout pages also have a header at the top. Date and time can be fixed, which never changes, or variable, which updates each time the file opens. You can also add footer text, like your school name, and the slide number.

Two buttons finish the job, plus one handy tick box. Tick Do not show on first slide, so your title slide stays clean. Click Apply to add the footer only to the current slide. Click Apply to All to add it to every slide.

Effects should support the message, not distract from it. Use only one or two types of animations and transitions in a presentation. Keep text short, with a few words per point. Use large fonts and strong colour contrast so the back bench can read. And always rehearse with the slide show before the real presentation.

Let us revise what we learned today. Impress is presentation software that saves files as .odp. Its views are Normal, Outline, Notes, Handout and Slide Sorter. An animation is an effect on an object inside a slide. A transition is an effect between two slides. And Insert, Header and Footer adds the date, footer text and slide number.