Setting Up the Slide Show

As mentioned in “Modifying a Slide Master”, Impress allocates reasonable default settings for slide shows, while at the same time allowing for customizing many aspects of the slide show experience. This section covers only some aspects; advanced techniques are explained in Chapter 9 (Slide Shows) in the Impress Guide.

Most of the tasks are best done in Slide Sorter view where you can see most of the slides simultaneously. Choose View → Slide Sorter from the menu bar or click the Slide Sorter tab at the top of the workspace.

One-slide Set – Multiple Presentations

In many situations, you may find that you have more slides than the time available to present them, or you may want to provide a rapid overview without dwelling on the details. Rather than having to create a new presentation, you can use two tools that Impress offers: hiding slides and custom slide shows.

To hide a slide, right-click on the slide thumbnail either in the Slide pane, in the Workspace area, or in the Slide Sorter view and choose Hide Slide from the pop-up menu. Hidden slides are marked by a slashed slide number.

If you want to reorder the presentation, choose Slide Show → Custom Slide Show. Click on the New button to create a new sequence of slides and save it.

You can have as many slide shows as you want from a single slide set.

Slide Transitions

Slide transition is the animation that is played when a slide is changed for the next slide in the presentation. You can configure the slide transition from the Slide Transition deck in the Sidebar. Select the desired transition, the speed of the animation, and whether the transition should happen when you click the mouse (preferred) or automatically after a certain number of seconds. Click Apply to all slides unless you prefer to have different transitions in the presentation.

The Slide transition panel has a very useful choice: Automatic preview. Select its checkbox and when you make any changes in a slide transition, the new slide is previewed in the Slide Design area, including its transition effect.

Automatic Slide Advance

You can set the presentation to automatically advance to the next slide after a set amount of time from the Slide Transition deck in the Sidebar. Go to Advance slide and select Automatically after, then choose the required amount of time in seconds that each slide will be displayed. Click on the Apply to All Slides button to apply the same display time to all slides.

To apply a different display time to each slide in your presentation, choose Slide Show → Rehearse Timings. Start the slide show and a small timer is displayed in the bottom left corner. When you are ready to advance to the next slide, click on the timer. If you mouse click on the display background or press the right arrow on your keyboard to advance the slide, Impress will keep the default time. Impress will memorize the timings for each slide and advance to the slide automatically after each timing ends when you run the slide show.

To automatically restart a slide show after the last slide has been displayed, go to Slide Show → Slide Show Settings on the menu bar. Select Auto and the timing of the pause between slide shows. Click OK when you have finished.

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Setting Up the Slide Show