hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1855.txt

Episode: 1855
Title: HPR1855: 61 - LibreOffice Impress - Slide Layouts and AutoLayout Text Boxes
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1855/hpr1855.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 10:13:32

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This is HBR episode 1855 entitled 61 Libra Office Impressed Side Layout and Auto Layout Text
Oxygen and is part of the series Libra Office.
It is hosted by a huker and is about 18 minutes long.
The summary is Libra Office Impressed Side Layout and Components are explored.
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Hello this is Ahuka welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode
and our ongoing series on Libra Office Impress.
What I want to do today is I want to talk about slide layouts and auto layout text boxes,
which is what I think most people spend most of their time working with so let's understand what's going on with all of this stuff.
Now we've spent several tutorials on graphics, the themes, the gallery and that's all to the good because Impress is a graphical program to a large degree,
but it is also a way of presenting text content and it is worth a little time to develop that further.
Impress does some things with text that resemble other programs like writer,
but it also does some things differently so it's worth a moment to discuss these specifics.
Now the first thing you notice working with text in Impress is that all text has to be inside of some kind of container.
That means that before you can enter text you need something to hold it.
Now in many cases these containers come with the slide type you choose and these are what we call auto layout text boxes.
They are what you see when you insert a new slide and see a message click to add title or click to add text.
For instance there is a slide type that is the most common title plus content and there is a box on the top with somewhat larger type that says click to add title and that message is in the same font as the title.
Text will be when you type it in so you just click on that box and the text goes away and your cursor is there and you just start typing.
Then under it click to add text is another box and when you click on that what happens is that you start getting a bullet points and you can start typing your bullet points in there.
That is probably the most common type of slide that people get.
These boxes are controlled by styles. All of the auto layout text boxes are controlled by what are called presentation styles.
So if you open styles and formatting on the right side in the sidebar you are going to see two different buttons you can press two icons.
The first one is for drawing object styles that we will talk about that in the next tutorial but the second one is presentation styles.
So if you want to change the style, the appearance of all of the slides in your presentation you would do it by modifying the presentation styles.
So the title of the slide is governed by the title style. That is pretty clear.
But the body is governed by the outline style. The reason for this is that the default for most people most of the time is to use bullet points and sub points and these are best controlled through a hierarchical outline style.
Now the major exception to this rule is the very first slide which is called the title slide. In this slide you also have a slide title which would be the title of your entire presentation.
But instead of a body you have a sub title and of course that is controlled by the sub title style.
For our discussion here they are the only three presentation styles we need. The others deal with other kinds of things and not text and this is all about text.
Now if you take a look at the slide types you can see they are primarily concerned with the arrangement of these auto layout text boxes.
When you open the properties window on the right you will see layouts and when you mouse over each layout you can see what it is called.
Now in order they are blank slide. This has no auto layout text boxes at all.
Then title slide. This has a title box on top and a sub title box below.
Title content. This is the one that is most used. It has a title box on top and a body section pre-configured for bullet points below.
Then there is title and two content. This has a title box and under it two content boxes side by side.
Each of the content boxes is pre-configured for bullet points.
Title only. Just a title box on top. The rest of the slide is blank.
Centered text. This has no title box at all just a body box and in this case it is not pre-configured as bullet points. It has text set up as centered.
The style that controls this box is the subtitle style.
How do you know? Well you can see this when you click on the box to add text and then check the styles and formatting window.
You will see the subtitle style highlighted and that is your indicator of which style is controlling what is going on here.
Title, two content and content. This has a title box on top, two content boxes stacked on the left and one full content box on the right.
And then of course there is title, content and two content which is just the mirror image.
So on this one you have the full content box on the left and the stacked boxes on the right.
Then there is title, two content over content.
That is a title box on top, two content boxes side by side and then one full content box underneath.
All content boxes of course are pre-configured to use bullet points.
Then there is title, content over content. You have a title on top, then a full width content box, then another full width content box beneath that.
Again, content boxes pre-configured for bullet points.
Then there is title for content and that is a title box, then two side by side content boxes, then two more side by side content boxes beneath them.
Again, all content boxes pre-configured for bullet points.
Then finally title, six content.
Title on top, three side by side content boxes, then three more side by side content boxes beneath them, content boxes again pre-configured for bullet points.
Now one thing to keep in mind is the fact that boxes are pre-configured for bullet points does not mean you are limited to only using bullet point text.
First of all, in the center of each of the content boxes are the icons we looked at previously to insert a table, a chart, an image or a movie.
So you can do that in any of these boxes instead of text.
The other option you have is to turn off the bullets and manually control your text in an auto layout box.
Now you would have to be manual because there is no style for text that is not outlined in the presentation styles and you can't add a style to presentation styles.
Now for a one-off change, fine, do it manually.
But if you wanted to do a lot of it, you probably would prefer to use a text box which we'll discuss in the next tutorial because that way you can get uniformity in your appearance and that is important.
One last note here is that auto layout text boxes are placed into each slide type automatically and there is no way to manually insert one.
You can delete one easily enough. Just click on the border so that it is selected and your cursor changes to something like a hand or maybe a foreheaded arrow.
This is a function really of the operating system, not Libra Office.
You'll see the border highlighted with the eight handles, one in each corner and one in the middle of each side and at this point, with it selected, if you press the delete key, you'll remove the box.
But if you change your mind, there is not a way to insert another auto layout box.
You either have to use a text box or start the slide over. If I want the uniformity of the presentation styles, I just start the slide over.
Note that there are two slides specifically set up for using text boxes and other content in place of the auto layout boxes.
They are the blank slide and the title only slide. When we get to text boxes in our next tutorial, we will use these.
Now using layouts. The advantage of using auto layout boxes is that they make it easy to quickly add content and have a uniform appearance.
And you do have a lot of options. For example, you could use a title, two content and content slide to have a small table on top of a chart of that data and have that on the left.
And then on the right have the bullet points for discussing that data.
Or for example, you could have a slide at the end where you thank your team and use the title for content or title six content with each of the content boxes holding a photo of one of the team members.
Obviously that only works for relatively small teams, but it's an example of how you can use stuff like this.
Of course, the auto layout boxes may not exactly fit your needs. Still, you can make several adjustments.
First, you can move the boxes around on the slide. Just click on the border until it is highlighted and then the eight handles appear and your cursor becomes something like a hand or a forehead at arrow.
You can then click and drag the box to a different location.
Or if you prefer, you can use the arrow keys to move the box gradually.
I find the arrow keys often give me better control than the mouse does. Try them both and see what you like.
Another thing you can do is resize the boxes. Again, click on the border to select it just as we did above for moving.
When the eight handles appear, move your cursor over one of the handles until the cursor changes.
If the handle is in the middle of a side, the cursor will become a two-headed arrow and you can click and drag to pull that side in or out as needed.
On the corner handles, the cursor may turn into a two-headed arrow or a small corner with an arrow pointed into it depending on the operating system.
In either case, click and drag the corner to resize both the height and the width of the box simultaneously.
But if you want to keep the same proportions, which is particularly important for images, movies, and charts, make sure you press the shift key first, then click and drag.
And make sure you release the mouse button before you release the shift key.
Now, if you don't want to do it that way, you have yet another option.
And that is the Position and Size dialog.
As before, you first select the box the way we talked about until the border is highlighted and the eight handles appear.
But then go to the Format menu, Position and Size.
And when you do that, you'll also note that there is an F4 shortcut key that you can use.
So either select it from the menu or use the F4 shortcut key to bring up the Position and Size dialog.
Now, the dialog has three tabs.
The first one, Position and Size.
The second one, Rotation, and the third, Slant and Corner Radius.
Now, by the way, there's also a simplified version of this on the right sidebar.
So if you have selected one of these text boxes, the way we talked about,
and then you go to the Properties icon on the right sidebar, you will see this.
Now, one of the things that you need to get used to is that what options appear and what functions you can access depend on what you have selected and where you are.
So if you were just wandering around Libra Office in press in general and hadn't actually selected a text box, you wouldn't even see the option.
So you have to select the text box first and then all of a sudden, oh, now we've got some things we can do and that appears in the right sidebar.
Now, I'm going to explain the more detailed one that you get with the F4 or by going to the Format Position and Size.
So to understand that, that's going to pop up a window.
We're going to take a look at that, the first tab, Position and Size.
And we're going to see that there is a base point on each slide that corresponds to either one of the corners or the middle of the slide or the center of the slide.
Now, by default, the base point is the top left corner, but you can change it and see how that affects the measurements.
The Position X is the horizontal distance from the left side and position Y is the vertical distance from the top or put another way it measures the displacement from the top left corner of the slide.
Now, the advantage to making your adjustments here in this dialogue is that it lets you make very fine adjustments down to in the United States, one hundredth of an inch or some similarly fine measurement in metric for those of you in more civilized countries.
The Size section gives you similarly fine control over resizing and by default has a keep ratio check mark which is checked and that will preserve the aspect ratio and does the same thing as holding down the shift key when using the mouse.
The next tab is the rotation tab and that lets you rotate the text box and thus the text inside of it.
A pivot point for the rotation is specified and by default it will be the center of the box, but you can pivot around another point like one of the corners if you prefer.
You can rotate using the mouse to click and drag around the dial, but for finer control you can type in the number of degrees of rotation in the rotation angle box.
The third tab, Slant and Corner Radius, is really more applicable to drawing objects not to text boxes.
But as we have discussed, LibreOffice likes to reuse its menus and dialogues as much as possible, so it appears here even though it is not really useful for the content boxes that we are talking about.
So, standard slides with the AutoLayout boxes give you a lot of possibilities, particularly when you can move, resize or rotate the boxes as needed.
It is worth taking the time to get to know all of them and to experiment with their use.
But sometimes you just need to get out of the AutoLayout box and that is where our next tutorial will take us.
So, this is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio, signing off and as always reminding you to support FreeSoftware. Bye-bye!
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