Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 21: Formatting and Giving Your Presentation

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Defining Transitions Between Slides

Transitions are the visual movement from one slide to the next in your presentation. The transitions between slides can add or take away from the effect that you are trying to create.

For example, you can add to the excitement of a sales team presentation with varied and interesting transitions, or you can damage your image of professionalism by using wild transitions with strange sounds during a presentation to a key client.

StarOffice provides dozens of slide transitions from which you can select. The Slide Sort view is used to apply transitions to slides. You can use other views if you prefer, but with the Slide Sort view you can set all the transitions at once and see that they all fit together nicely.

To begin choosing slide transitions, choose Slide Transition from the Presentation menu. The Slide Transition window appears. (See Figure 21.12.) Use this window to select slide transitions, apply them to slides, and preview the results.

Figure 21.12
The Slide Transition window contains dozens of options for setting up transitions.

Notice that the Slide Transition window isn't like a dialog box--it can stay open as you work on the slides. Just choose the transition that you want to use at any time. You can close the window by choosing Slide Transition again from the Presentation menu (or by clicking the Close button in the upper right corner of the window).

Tip - All the transition options are not going to be explained here (including timed automatic transitions and adding a sound to a transition). You can experiment with these on your own by selecting the Extras button in the Slide Transition window.


Several parts of the Slide Transition window require an explanation. The main part of the window contains two drop-down lists.

From the top list, you select which set of transition effects are displayed in the boxes below the list. Favorites is selected by default. Other choices include Fade, Spiral, Stretch, and Uncover. If you select any of these the set of diagrams below the list changes.

The second list is the speed of the transition. Medium is selected by default. You can choose Slow or Fast from the list to change how rapidly the slide transition you define occurs.

Across the top of the Slide Transitions window are several buttons. From left to right they are

To apply a transition to a slide, follow these steps:

1. Open the Slide Transition window by selecting Slide Transition from the Presentation menu.

2. Click on the slide to which you want to apply a transition. (Make sure that the Update button is not selected.)

Note - When you apply a transition to a slide, you are defining what transition is displayed to arrive at that slide--not from that slide to the next slide. This is apparent as you use the Preview window.


3. Select a transition type from the drop-down list.

4. Select a transition by clicking on one of the small graphic images below the list.

5. Select a speed from the drop-down list.

6. Click on the Apply button (the green check-mark) to apply the selected transition to the current slide. A transition tag appears below the slide. If the Preview window is already open, the transition is also previewed as you select the Apply button.

Tip - You can see if a slide has a transition applied to it by noting whether a transition tag appears below it in the Slide Sort view (see Figure 21.13).


Figure 21.13
The Slide Sort view displays a small tag or icon below each slide that has a transition applied to it.

7. Click on the Preview button to open the Preview window (see Figure 21.14). The current slide appears in miniature in the Preview window.

Figure 21.14
The Preview window enables you to review how the slide transitions will actually look while still in the slide sorter view.

8. Click in the Preview window to see a demonstration of the transition that you have selected.

Note - The transition Preview shows the transition to the current slide from a black background, rather than from the previous slide. It's still a good idea to review the entire presentation as a slide show (with all transitions in place) before showing it publicly.


9. Click on another slide in the slide sorter and repeat the process of assigning a transition to it.

Tip - In the Slide Sort view, you can click and drag a box around several slides, or you can hold down Shift while clicking on several slides at once. With several slides selected, you can apply a transition to all of them at once.


Sams Teach Yourself StarOffice® 5 for Linux in 24 Hours

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Hour 21: Formatting and Giving Your Presentation

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