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Lesson Eight - Creating a Basic Educational Slide Presentation Using Impress

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Lesson Objectives

In this lesson, you will learn the following:
(All the lessons here comply with the National Occupational Standards of E-Skills)
  1. How to create an educational slide presentation using the OpenOffice.org Impress presentation application.
  1. How to create a slide within an Impress document and insert text within textboxes provided.
  1. How to format slides within an Impress document, including inserting numbered lists and changing slide background colors.
  1. How to insert graphics and clipart within slides.
  1. How to save, view and print an Impress slide presentation document.
Overview
The OpenOffice.org office productivity suite contains a slide presentation application called Impress. Impress has all of the fundamental features found in the other major presentation applications, plus features unavailable in any other application similar to it. In this lesson, you will become acquainted with using Impress by creating a basic educational slide presentation related to the topic of experiential learning. Upon completion of this lesson, you will have learned the fundamentals of creating slides within an Impress document, entering and formatting text within slides, how to insert images within slides, how to view and print an Impress slide document and much more.
Getting Started
Before we do so, we need to open the Lesson Eight file that is available for use with this book. To open the file, follow these steps:
  1. If you have not already downloaded the lesson files for this course, click on the Lesson Files topic located in the course lessons area and select to download the .zip file to your computer's desktop.
  1. When the file appears on your computer’s desktop, double-click the file icon to unzip its contents and access the files associated with each lesson. Double-click the Lesson Files folder icon that contains the available lesson files, locate the Lesson 08 folder and double-click on it to access the file for this lesson. When you have opened the folder, double-click the file named lesson_08_start.odp to open the file.
Creating a New Presentation Document
For this lesson, a file has already been created for you to begin working on. However, if you were creating your own presentation project, you would need to start with opening OpenOffice.org and creating a new Impress document. To do so, follow these steps:
  1. With an OpenOffice.org document already open, such as this example with the Lesson 08 file, click on the File menu, select New from the menu options that appear and select Presentation from the submenu that appears.
  1. When you do so, a Presentation Wizard will appear. Select the appropriate Presentation Type by clicking on the radio buttons provided. Follow the on-screen instruction that the wizard provides in creating a new presentation document.
To remove the new document from the screen, click on the File menu and select Close from the menu options that appear. If a dialogue window appears asking whether you wish to save the document, press the DISCARD button to delete the file without saving it.
For directions regarding creating a new Impress document without OpenOffice.org already launched and running, refer to Appendix C for directions for creating a new document within Windows and Linux-based operating systems.
Creating a New Slide
The first thing that needs to be done for this presentation is to add a couple of new slides. The lesson_08_start file currently contains thirteen (13) slides, while the completed presentation will contain fifteen (15) slides. To add the additional slides to the presentation, follow these steps:
  1. With the lesson_08_start file open, scroll down the list of slides viewable within the Slide Pane located on the left side of the Impress application window. If the Slide Pane is not viewable, simply click on the View menu at the top of the application window and select Slide Pane from the menu options that appear.



  1. Locate slide #13 and select it by clicking on the icon once with your left mouse button.

  1. Click on the Insert menu and select Slide from the menu options that appear. A new slide is created after slide #13.
  1. With slide #14 already selected within the Slide Pane, locate the Task Pane on the right side of the Impress application window. If the Task Pane is not viewable, simply click the View menu at the top of the application window and select Task Pane from the menu options that appear.
  1. Within the Task Pane, there are four Page options to choose from: Master Pages, Layouts, Custom Animation and Slide Transition. Select the Layouts page by clicking on the label Layouts with your left mouse button. When the Layouts page appears, select the Title Only layout, which is the third layout in the left-hand column. (Note: If you position your mouse pointer over each option within the Layout page, the pointer will indicate which layout option the icon represents.)

  1. Click in the textbox provided with the slide layout. The textbox is the area indicated labeled Click To Add Text. When you do so, a cursor appears indicating that you can begin typing the appropriate text. For this slide (slide #14), type Demonstration within the textbox.

  1. Now that the appropriate title has been entered into the textbox, the title needs to be repositioned into the center of the slide. To do so, place the pointer on the border of the textbox, not on the green resizing boxes positioned along the textbox border. When doing so, the pointer transforms itself into a target symbol, indicating that repositioning the textbox can be performed. Holding down the left mouse button, drag the textbox and center it within the slide layout. After doing so, release the left mouse button and click within the blank area of the slide layout to deselect the textbox.

  1. Next, we need to add our final slide to the presentation. With slide #14 already selected, click on the Insert menu and select Slide from the menu options that appear. A new slide is created after slide #14.
  1. With slide #15 already selected within the Slide Pane, locate the Task Pane on the right side of the Impress application window.
  1. In the Layouts page within the Task Pane on the right side of the application window, select the Title Only layout again.
  1. Click in the textbox provided with the slide layout. The textbox is the area indicated labeled Click To Add Text. When you do so, a cursor appears indicating that you can begin typing the appropriate text. For this slide (slide #15), type Questions and Answers within the textbox.
  1. Like the previous slide created, the title needs to be repositioned into the center of the slide. To do so, place the pointer on the border of the textbox, not on the green resizing boxes positioned along the textbox border. When doing so, the pointer transforms itself into a target symbol, indicating that repositioning the textbox can be performed. Holding down the left mouse button, drag the textbox and center it within the slide layout. After doing so, release the left mouse button and click within the blank area of the slide layout to deselect the textbox.

Inserting and Formatting Text
The two additional slides for the presentation have now been created. Next, the text within each slide needs to be formatted to improve the presentation’s appearance and readability. As you have learned in the previous section, inserting text within a slide is as simple as clicking within a provided textbox and typing when the cursor appears.
Formatting text within an Impress document is very similar to formatting a Writer word processing document or a Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentation. Moreover, many of the formatting options available in word processing applications are also available within Impress. For this lesson, we will make several formatting changes to the titles of each slide, as well as add a shadow effect to the text within each slide to improve the readability of the slide when presented on paper or overhead screen.
To properly format the text within each slide in the lesson file, follow these steps:
  1. With the presentation file open, select the first slide within the Slide Pane located on the left side of the Impress application window.
  1. In the editing window located in the center of the application window, select the title textbox by clicking on it once with your left mouse button. With the textbox selected and the cursor visible, select the text within the textbox by holding down your left mouse button and dragging over the text to highlight it. This is the same method as selecting text within Writer or other word processing applications.

  1. For the text contained within the title area of the slide, the following formatting attributes will need to be applied: Bitstream Vera Sans font type, 48 point font size, bold typeface and text shadow effect applied. Click on the Format menu located at the top of the Impress application window and select Character from the menu options that appear.
  1. When the Character window appears, click the Font tab located at the top of the window. Select the appropriate font type size and typeface as specified in Step #3.

  1. Next, click on the Font Effects tab at the top of the Character window. To add a shadow effect to the text selected, click within the Shadow checkbox provided. Then click the OK button to apply the formatting options to the selected text.

  1. To apply the shadow effect to the text within the body text of the slide, select the text within the body textbox. Then click on the Format menu, select the Character menu option that appears and click on the Font Effects tab at the top of the Character window when it appears on the screen. Click within the Shadow checkbox provided to enable text shadowing and click the OK button to apply the formatting option.

  1. Repeat steps one (1) through six (6) for each of the remaining slides within the lesson file. Upon completion, all of the text within the presentation document will be properly formatted.
While selecting the Character menu option provides you with the most comprehensive selection of text formatting options, the most common format options are also available within the Standard toolbar located above the editing area. Do so by simply selecting the text to be formatted within the editing window and click on the appropriate format button or popup menu located in the toolbar.
Inserting Bullet and Numbering Lists
When selecting the appropriate slide layout from the Layouts page within the Task Pane, the text within the Body textbox will automatically bullet the text when typing. Therefore, having to manually select to bullet the text is unnecessary. However, there may be times where you may want to reformat the body text from a bulleted list to a numbered list. While we will want to leave the appropriate body text within the final document of this lesson as bulleted lists, here is an example of how you could transform a bulleted list into a numbered list:
  1. With the presentation file open, select the second slide within the Slide Pane located on the left side of the Impress application window.
  1. Select the text within the body textbox. Then click on the Format menu, select the Bullets and Numbering menu option that appears and click on the Numbering Type tab at the top of the Bullets and Numbering window when it appears on the screen.

  1. Select the appropriate numbering format within the selection area provided. Click the OK button to apply the formatting option.

Changing Slide Background Color or Pattern
Now that the text within the slide presentation has been formatted properly, the next thing to do is to change the background color for each slide from white to turquoise to improve the appearance of the presentation. To change the slide background color for this presentation, follow these steps:
  1. With the presentation file open, select the first slide within the Slide Pane located on the left side of the Impress application window.
  1. Click on the Format menu and select Page from the menu options that appear.

  1. When the Page Setup window appears, click on the Background tab located at the top of the window.
  1. Impress provides several formats within the popup menu to change the color or pattern of a slide presentation, including applying a solid background color, applying a pre-defined gradient pattern, applying a hatching pattern in combination with a solid background color and applying a bitmap image as a background pattern. For this lesson, select Color from the popup provided and choose Turquoise from the color options provided.

  1. Click the OK button to complete the selection. A dialog box will appear asking whether the selection made should be applied to all slides within the Impress document or to apply to the current slide only. Click the YES button to apply the color selection to all slides within the presentation. Each slide within the presentation will now have a Turquoise background.

Inserting Graphics and Clip Art
Often, users will add graphics and clip art to help convey the message they are presenting in their presentation. In this lesson, we will add a couple of images to our presentation for such a purpose. To do so, follow these steps:
  1. With the presentation file open, select slide #7 within the Slide Pane located on the left side of the Impress application window.
  1. To insert an image into the slide, we will need to change the Layout page selected for the slide. With slide #7 selected within the Slide Pane, select the Title, Clipart Left, Text page in the Layouts page within the Tasks Pane. This the fifth layout listed in the left-hand column.

  1. Within the editing area located in the center of the Impress application window, double-click on the graphics box that has been placed on the left-hand side of the slide. When doing so, an Insert Picture window will appear.
  1. When the Insert Picture window appears, use the navigation buttons located in the upper-right corner of the window to locate the image files associated with this lesson. These photos can be found in the Lesson 08 folder, which is contained within the Lesson Files folder associated with this book. Once you have located the images, use your mouse to click on the image file lesson_08_image01.jpg to select it. If you wish to see a preview of the image within the Insert Picture window, make sure the Preview checkbox is selected by clicking within it. To insert it within the brochure, click the OPEN button.

  1. Next, we are going to insert an image into slide #10. To do so, select slide #10 within the Slide Pane located on the left side of the Impress application window.
  1. Again, to insert an image into the slide, we will need to change the Layout page selected for the slide. With slide #10 selected within the Slide Pane, select the Title, Clipart Left, Text page in the Layouts page within the Tasks Pane. This the fifth layout listed in the left-hand column.

  1. Within the editing area located in the center of the Impress application window, double-click on the graphics box that has been placed on the left-hand side of the slide. When doing so, an Insert Picture window will appear.
  1. When the Insert Picture window appears, use the navigation buttons located in the upper-right corner of the window to locate the image files associated with this lesson. Again, these photos can be found in the Lesson 08 folder, which is contained within the Lesson Files folder associated with this book. Once you have located the images, use your mouse to click on the image file lesson_08_image02.jpg to select it. If you wish to see a preview of the image within the Insert Picture window, make sure the Preview checkbox is selected by clicking within it. To insert it within the brochure, click the OPEN button. The insertion of graphics within the presentation document is completed.


Using Spellcheck
Like a word processing document, you can use the OpenOffice.org spell check tool to check for spelling errors for words contained within an Impress presentation document. Potential spelling errors are indicated where words are underlined in red. To use the OpenOffice.org spell check feature to check for errors within the document for this lesson, follow these steps:
  1. In the Slide Pane, select the first slide in the presentation by clicking on the icon with your left mouse button. This will allow the spellcheck tool to begin looking for spelling errors at the beginning of the document rather than in the middle or end of the document.
  1. Go to the Tools menu and select Spellcheck from the menu that appears. You may also press the F7 key on your keyboard to begin checking for spelling errors.
  1. If any potential spelling errors appear, OpenOffice.org will indicate the potential error and give you a list of possible suggestions to correct the spelling.
  1. If you see a spelling suggestion that would correct the error, select it from the Suggestions list and click the CHANGE button.
  1. If you believe that the word in question is spelled correctly, you can click the IGNORE ONCE button to proceed to the next potential spelling error. If the word in question is spelled correctly and you use it often when creating documents, you may click the ADD button to add it to the Spellcheck dictionary.
  1. When you have completed checking for potential spelling errors, click the CLOSE button to exit and return to the document.
Saving the Document
Now that the slide presentation has been completed, the document file needs to be saved like any other presentation document. OpenOffice.org supports a number of file formats for opening and saving spreadsheet documents, including the native OpenDocument and Microsoft PowerPoint formats. To save the document to your computer’s hard drive or removable disk, follow these steps:
  1. Click on the File menu and choose Save As from the menu options that appear.
  1. A window will appear and prompt you to choose a location to save your document. Choose the location you want to save a document to in the Save In popup field.
  1. In the field File Name, type the name you would like to save the file as.
  1. In the Save As Type popup menu, select the file format you wish to save the document as, including the OpenDocument Presentation (.odp) or Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) file format.

  1. Click the button SAVE to complete the operation.
(NOTE: If you are given a window prompt that warns you about saving the document as a Microsoft PowerPoint file, click the YES button. The OpenOffice.org development team has gone to great lengths to help ensure that your document saved in the PowerPoint format will open properly with Microsoft PowerPoint. However, because the programming code utilized to create the PowerPoint file format is proprietary and not available to the OpenOffice.org team to view for ensuring full compatibility with Microsoft PowerPoint, not all of your document’s formatting may open up 100% correctly when it is opened using the Microsoft PowerPoint application.)
Exporting a File as a Macromedia Flash Document
If you wish to have a slide presentation embedded within a website, or simply would like to send a slide presentation to someone who doesn’t have either OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Office loaded on their computer, you could save the presentation as a Macromedia Flash document. Macromedia Flash is used extensively for multimedia in website development and most web browsers already have the plug-ins preloaded to display Flash content. Even if you didn’t want to embed your presentation within a website, you could export a slide presentation as a Macromedia Flash document and anyone could view the presentation by simply opening it using the free Macromedia Flash Player. However, OpenOffice.org cannot edit a document that has been saved as a Macromedia Flash file. Therefore, if you wish to save a document for editing at a later date, save the document in its Native OpenDocument file format.
To save a document in the Macromedia Flash format, follow these steps:
  1. Click on the File menu and choose Export from the menu options that appear.
  1. A window will appear and prompt you to choose a location to save your document. Choose the location you want to save a document to in the Save In popup field.
  1. In the field File Name, type the name you would like to save the file as.
  1. In the Save As Type popup menu, select the Macromedia Flash (*.swf) file format.
  1. Click the button SAVE to complete the operation.
Viewing Slide Show
To view a slide show within the Impress application, click on the Slide Show menu and select Slide Show from the menu options that appear or simply press the F5 key on the keyboard. To exit a slideshow, press the ESC key on the keyboard to return to the Impress editing window.
Printing a Slide Presentation
Impress provides a number of options for users to print their slide presentations. For most educational and business presentations where slides need to be printed, users either wish to print their slides for a specific page size or need to print the slide presentation in a standard handout format. To print the Lesson 09 Impress slide presentation for a specific page size, follow these steps:
  1. If it isn’t already, open the completed Lesson 08 Impress presentation.
  1. Click on the Format menu, select Page from the menu options that appear and then select Page from the submenu options that appear.
  1. In the Layout Settings selection area, click the Fit Object To Paper Format checkbox.
  1. In the Paper Format selection area, select one of the format options provided.
  1. Click the OK button to complete the operation. Each slide selected is scaled to fit the printed page.

To print the Lesson 08 Impress slide presentation in the standard handout format, follow these steps:
  1. If it isn’t already, open the completed Lesson 08 Impress presentation.
  1. Click on the View menu and select Handout Page from the menu list that appears.

  1. Click on the Print button located within the Standard menu bar at the top of the Impress application window. You may also hold down the COMMAND (⌘) key and press P on the keyboard to prompt for the Print window, or click on the File menu and select Print from the menu options that appear.
Additional Resources
Martha C. Sammons: Using Computer Slide Presentations in the College Classroom
http://horizon.unc.edu/projects/monograph/CD/Language_Music/Sammons.asp
Manuella F. Essaka and Clive Young: The Importance of Good Design in Academic Presentations
http://www2.umist.ac.uk/isd/lwt/apt/prept/designing.htm
Presentation-Pointers.com
http://www.presentation-pointers.com/index.asp
OpenOffice.org: How to Create a New Impress Document Using a Template
http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/impress/NewImpressUsingTemplate_revised.pdf
OpenOffice.org: How to Insert Notes in a Presentation
http://documentation.openoffice.org/HOW_TO/impress/HowToInsertNotes.pdf
Review Questions
  1. What are two methods in which you can format text within an Impress presentation document?
  1. What menu option would you select to change the color or background of a slide?
  1. What would you need to do to view an Impress document as a slide show?
  1. (True or False) Spellcheck is a feature that is not available within the Impress application.
  1. (True or False) Bulleted lists can be converted to numbered lists within a slide, if desired.