Like Microsoft Office, Open Office is a productivity suite of applications. The two are comparable in many ways. Both can perform tasks of the big three applications; word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Unilke Microsoft Office, Open Office comes with no price tag. In other words, it is free to download and use for personal and business needs. For more information on what is OpenOffice.org click here.
The Similarities
Impress is Open Office's answer to Microsoft PowerPoint. Yes, Impress will produce a slide show complete with custom animations, slide transitions, movies and sound. Much of the main menu and toolbars are mirrored after the ones found in PowerPoint. For example, to save choose File - Save from the menu or click the Save button on the toolbar or if keyboard shortcuts are preferred the handy Ctrl + S will work just the same. Any super user of Microsoft Office will have little trouble working in Open Office.
The Differences
That being said, there are differences between PowerPoint and Impress. One positive difference is the ability to export a documents as a PDF. This is a helpful option that is included in Open Office, whereas with Microsoft Office this would be an add-on.
When first opening Impress, the Presentation Wizard appears. Navigate through the three steps to construct the presentation to include templates, background, presentation options and slide transitions. All of these options can be changed and/or added later while developing the presentation. If it is preferred to skip these steps, there is a Create button to go directly into a blank presentation.
The Impress window is divided into three parts; the slides pane, workspace and tasks pane. Different views of the workspace can be accessed through the navigation tabs at the top: Normal, Outline, Notes, Handout, Slide Sorter. The most time will be spent in the workspace when creating a presentation.
Adding custom animations in Impress is similar to PowerPoint. Many of the same effects are found within each application. While a custom animation can be added to a chart, the ability to make the chart categories or series appear one at a time is not available in Impress. The animation selected will apply to the entire chart.
Sound files can be added to an Impress presentation but not voice-over narration. Further, inserted sound files can only be played for the selected slide, not the entire show.
Though Impress can open and run a presentation created in PowerPoint, some things can get lost in translation. Impress will not display any three-color gradients, double and triple borders or round-dotted borders. If any of these are present they will be changed to two-color gradients, and borders to single round or square dots. Some transitions and animations are affected as well and may behave differently.
While Open Office Impress has many of the same features as Microsoft PowerPoint, there are some differences that can be somewhat limiting. The general guidelines for creating an effective presentation still apply and it is always a good idea to view the presentation up on the screen before the event to be sure there are no glitches that need to be addressed.
Even with some difference between PowerPoint, Impress is a powerful application that can produce presentations for business or home use. It dosen't hurt that the Open Office productivity suite is free to download and use.
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