Slide masters and styles

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org 3

Chapter 6. Getting Started with Impress

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• Parts of the main Impress window
• Working with views
• Creating a new presentation
• Formatting a presentation
• Slide masters and styles
• Working with slide masters
• Adding and formatting text
• Creating tables
• Adding graphics, spreadsheets, charts, comments and other objects
• Setting up and running the slide show

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A slide master is a slide that is used as the starting point for other slides. It is similar to a page style in Writer: it controls the basic formatting of all slides based on it. A slide show can have more than one slide master.

OOo uses three terms for this one concept. Master slide, slide master, and master page all refer to a slide which is used to create other slides. This book uses the term slide master, except when describing the user interface.

A slide master has a defined set of characteristics, including the background color, graphic, or gradient; objects (such as logos, decorative lines, and other graphics) in the background; headers and footers; placement and size of text frames; and the formatting of text.

All of the characteristics of slide masters are controlled by styles. The styles of any new slide you create are inherited from the slide master from which it was created. In other words, the styles of the slide master are available and applied to all slides created from that slide master. Changing a style in a slide master results in changes to all the slides based on that slide master; it is, however, possible to modify each individual slide without affecting the slide master.

Slide masters have two types of styles associated with them: presentation styles and graphic styles. The pre-packaged presentation styles can be modified, but new presentation styles cannot be created. However, not only can the prepackaged graphic styles be modified, but new graphic styles can also be created. What styles to use and when to use them is described later in this chapter.

Presentation styles affect three elements of a slide master: the background, background objects (such as icons, decorative lines, and text frames), and the text placed on the slide. Text styles are further divided into Notes, Outline 1 through Outline 9, Subtitle, and Title. The outline styles are used for the different levels of the outline to which they belong. For example, Outline 2 is used for the subpoints of Outline 1, and Outline 3 is used for the subpoints of Outline 2.

Graphic styles affect many of the elements of a slide. Notice that text styles exist in both the presentation and graphic style selections.