Similar to Microsoft Office's PowerPoint, OpenOffice.org Impress can create presentations for meetings, trade shows, family reunions, parties and other events. Though it may not look as sophisticated, Impress has many of the same functions as PowerPoint, making it intuitive to a native PowerPoint user.
For the user accustomed to keyboard shortcuts there are some differences between the two applications but for the most part, many of the common keyboard shortcuts are the same. Keyboard shortcuts can be very efficient since they keep hands on the keyboard rather than pausing to move to the mouse to start or complete an action. Below are some examples of keyboard shortcuts that can be used in Impress.
Basic Keyboard Shortcuts
- Ctrl + O will open an existing presentation
- Ctrl + S will save a presentation
- Ctrl + P will print a presentation
- Ctrl + W closes the window
- Ctrl + Z is the undo action - deletes last action
- Ctrl + Y is the redo (or repeat) action - will reapply (or repeat) last action
- Ctrl + X Cut (or move) selection
- Ctrl + C Copy selection
- Ctrl + V Paste - place selection in new location
- Ctrl + F opens the Find & Replace dialog
- Ctrl + A selects all
- F7 activates spell check
- Ctrl + Q will quit application
- F1 opens Help
Below are some keyboard shortcuts for navigation. These can save time while working in a presentation. Some will go to different parts of the presentation while others will help greatly while typing in a presentation.
Navigation Keyboard Shortcuts
- Page Up goes to previous slide
- Page Down goes to next slide
- Ctrl + Home go to first slide
- Ctrl + End go to last slide
- Ctrl + Backspace will delete word to cursor's left
- Ctrl + Enter move to next placeholder when typing
- Arrow Key wil move selected object up, down, right or left
- Shift + Enter will go to next line and omit bullet
Below are some keyboard shortcuts for formatting options. Each shortcut will apply given action to text that has been selected first.
Formatting Keyboard Shortcuts
- Ctrl + B will bold selection
- Ctrl + I will italicize selection
- Ctrl + U will underline selection
- Ctrl + E to center align text
- Ctrl + L to left align text
- Ctrl + R to right align text
- Ctrl + J to justify text
The following keyboard shortcuts can only be used when in presentation mode (while presentation is running). These shortcuts can be especially helpful with controlling the slide show.
Keyboard Shortcuts for use while in Presentation Mode
- Esc will end slide show
- Slide # + Enter will display selected slide
- Type B to toggle screen black
- Type W to toggle screen white
Many of these same shortcuts work in PowerPoint as well so transitioning to Impress should be fairly intuitive. Another plus is the price tag (or lack thereof) for Impress. In fact, the entire productivity suite for OpenOffice.org, including Impress, is free to download, use and share.
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