hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1785.txt

Episode: 1785
Title: HPR1785: 54 - LibreOffice Impress - Creating a Presentation
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1785/hpr1785.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:16:17

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This in HPR episode 1,785 entitled, 54, Libra Office Impress, creating a Prementation and
in part of the series, Libra Office, it is hosted by AYUKA and in about 11 minutes long.
The summary is the mechanics on creating a Prementation in Impress.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by An Honest Host.com.
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Hello, this is AYUKA, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode
in our series on Libra Office, focusing for now on the module called Impress presentation
graphics.
And we've looked at some of the theory behind all of this, but at some point you got
to stop with the theory and start getting with the practice.
So what I want to do now is take you through how to actually create that presentation.
Now I'm going to do this on the assumption that you are taking the advice I gave you
before and you're going to start with a blank presentation.
So let's say you want to start your presentation, this can happen in several ways.
If you still have the presentation wizard opening when you first open Libra Office
in press, you can select empty presentation, then click next, click next, then create.
And you should get a blank presentation with white slides and black text.
Now if you've turned off the presentation wizard as we discussed and remember the way
to do that is you go to tools, options, Libra Office in press general, look for new document
and remove the check mark.
And if that happens when you go into Libra Office, it will open directly into a blank presentation.
And as I said, that is the way I have Libra Office in press configured for me.
And I recommend it for the reasons we discussed previously.
Now when it opens, you will have the things on the screen that we went over in the previous
tutorials.
So on the left side, you will have the slides pane, which has your slides in order down
the left column.
Since this is a new presentation, you only have one slide there now.
But as you build your presentation, you will add slides.
And the center is the workspace.
And it has a slide on it ready for you to begin entering your content.
The workspace is where you do most of your editing, so you will be in here a lot.
Then on the right side, you have the sidebar, and it will be open to properties layouts.
Here you can see all of the available slide types you can choose from.
One of them will have a black box around it, and that is the slide type on your workspace
right now.
It will be a title slide, because of course that is the first slide in a presentation,
and Libra Office in press makes the most common choices the defaults.
The title slide has two sections.
In the top section, it says click to add title.
When you click inside this box, this text goes away, and you can put in the title of your
presentation.
So start typing.
If your presentation has a long title, it will wrap to the next line with everything centered.
Now a note on this.
The way this title is formatted is governed by a presentation style, and we'll discuss
presentation styles in more detail later.
For now though, let's accept the default choices.
Under the title is a box that reads click to add text.
While this could be almost anything, generally on a title slide you would put your name,
and perhaps a company or other affiliation.
If you wished an email address or other contact information should go here.
These days, many a presentation, particularly at a conference, is uploaded to a website
for people to download later, and it is a good thing in that case if there is some contact
information.
Once you have finished this slide, you need to go to the next slide.
There is a button on the presentation toolbar that looks like a rectangle with a green plus
side.
It has a drop down arrow next to it, but you can just click the button to get the default.
In this case, the default again has two sections, but slightly different.
The top section still says click to add title, but now that refers to the title of the slide,
not the title of the whole presentation.
And the lower section still says click to add text, but now there is a difference.
This text has a button next to it, and then in the center of the slide is a square with
four sections, which tells you that you can insert a table, a chart, a picture, or an audio
or video.
This slide appears by default because for most people, most of the time, it is the one
they will use.
Now if you just start typing text in here, it becomes a bullet point.
So if you wanted to create a list of bullet points, you are all set to go.
Type in your first one, press enter, and you will then jump to the second bullet.
Type in something, press enter, jump to the third one, and so on.
If you need to create subpoints, go to the text formatting toolbar, that is the one
with the font selector, and look for white outlined arrows toward the right.
The arrow pointing to the right is the Demote arrow, and the one pointing to the left
is the Promote arrow.
Click the right arrow to move your point under the one above.
Type your subpoints, pressing enter after each one until you are done.
This will leave you with one last subpoint you don't want, but clicking the left arrow,
promote, will get you back to level one.
By the way, you can move entire groups of points up or down as well, such as a bullet
point and all of its subpoints.
Just highlight the group and use the up or down arrow next to the Demote and Promote
arrows.
As you keep typing and adding bullet points, the text will go down the page, and at some
point you will pass the lower boundary of the box.
Libra Office and Press will, at this point, reduce the font size to keep everything in
the box, and it will continue to do that as long as you keep adding bullet points.
That makes it very easy, right?
Well my view is that this is a sign you are trying to cram too much content onto a single
slide.
If you are doing a presentation in a room where people may be ten meters or more from
the screen, small fonts will kill you.
I always aim at three to four points per slide when using bullets, or put another way.
The default font size is 32 point, and I try to keep to that if at all possible.
One of the reasons I mostly create my presentations in a blank presentation view, instead of as
an outline, is that it is easy to keep an eye on this kind of thing as I go.
But if you do start with an outline, make sure you review the presentation in normal view
to be sure you have not created a problem here.
Once you are finished with this slide, click the slide button to get the next slide.
You will get another copy of the same slide with the bullet points, and again that is the
default.
You can, and I have done so, create an entire presentation of thirty slides using just this
one slide type.
But if you want to use a different slide type, you have two ways to go about it.
First, there is a drop down arrow next to the slide button.
If you click that arrow, you will see that you have twelve slide types to choose from.
There is also an option that says duplicate slide.
This would let you add a copy of the slide you are on, and it would be an exact duplicate
with the same text, images, or whatever.
The other way you can change the slide type, while the slide is in the workspace is
to go to the properties layout section in the sidebar and click on the slide type you want.
The slide in the workspace will immediately change.
This works great if the slide is blank.
But if it already has content, changing the slide type may screw up the content.
That is something to keep in mind.
So what are the summary points?
Number one, I work in blank presentation mode most of the time, but I still think having
at least a rough outline in mind before starting is a good idea.
I have a lot of practice at this, including experience teaching a remote course where
all of the material was delivered via presentations that were presented over video.
And I still take time to get things sorted out before I begin to write and revise frequently.
At this point, everything is simply black text on a white background.
This is not the time to worry about fonts, backgrounds, colors, or all of the other things.
You need to get your content correct first.
Once that is done, there is plenty of time to add those other things, and we will discuss
that later.
Point three, don't overfill your slides.
This will only annoy your audience, and that is not a good thing.
Look for ways to revise how you are presenting the material so that you can break a long
slide into several slides.
Even just cutting it in half and calling the first slide number one in the second slide
number two is not a bad thing, and preferable to 12 point font on a slide.
Number four, practice and revise.
An iterative process can be really helpful.
Actually practice giving your presentation and note where it becomes awkward.
That means revision time.
Some jobs would spend hours doing this, which is why he was a recognized master presenter.
It never hurts to do a dry run where you can.
For instance, when I prepare a talk that I am going to give at a conference, I frequently
will look for an opportunity to present that same talk at a Linux users group a few months
ahead of time.
That gives me a chance to actually present it and see how people react and respond and
make any adjustments before I actually go to the conference.
You can never be too well prepared.
If you do everything we've talked about, you will already have an above average presentation.
But I did promise we would get to the visual aspects, and that will be the next tutorial.
So this is Ahuka signing off for Hacker Public Radio and reminding you as always to support
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