OpenOffice.org is a Microsoft Office clone, pretty close to Office 2003. It’s open source software that you download and install on your computer, sponsored by Cisco, but also somewhat independent, as open source software tends to be.
OpenOffice is a suite and its presentation piece is called Impress. (Fun and little known fact: I’m the co-author of OpenOffice.org For Dummies. It was written a few years ago and is now out of date, so I won’t give you a link.)
There are other free Office alternatives, such as LibreOffice (also open-source), but OpenOffice.org is the most widely known. In my experience, many students and very small businesses use it. You can open Microsoft Office files and save files in Microsoft Office format as well. In fact, you can set Microsoft Office format as the default for saving your files.
Note: Everyone calls it OpenOffice, but they want you to call it OpenOffice.org for legal reasons.
After you unpack and install OpenOffice, you can choose Start>All Programs>OpenOffice.org3.3>OpenOffice.org Impress to start the presentation module. (3.3 is the version I downloaded.) By default, you see this wizard. To start a new presentation, choose Empty Presentation and click Next.
The Design step (#2) appears, where you can choose a background and output (screen, paper, etc.) if you want. I chose Noise Paper. Then click Next.
On the next page (#3), you can choose a slide transition and slide timing. Then click Create. You see your new presentation.
The interface looks pretty similar to PowerPoint 2003, although the task panes on the right are a little different. Nevertheless, if you know PowerPoint 2003, you’ll be right at home. The views are above the slide.
Here are some pointers:
- To access the master, expand the Master Pages item in the task pane, right-click the selected master, and choose Edit Master.
- Layouts are also in the task pane on the right. Click the Layouts item to expand it and see your options.
- I wasn’t able to figure out how to bottom-justify the text in the title placeholder, something I like to do. If you figure it out, please leave a comment!
- Right-click objects to find tools that you need. For example, use the toolbar at the bottom to insert shapes and right-click a shape to format the line and area (fill).
- On the bottom toolbar, there’s a Gallery button that gives you a good number of backgrounds, bullets, buttons (like website buttons), and even sounds.
- The rightmost button on the toolbar brings you into Slide Show view.
- OpenOffice has a full range of animations. You can find them by clicking Custom Animation in the task pane.
Give it a whirl and see what you think!
Hi Ellen
I did use it for some time but did not enjoy it. I am very accustomed to working on MS PPT (all the short cuts, the look and feel, etc). Change is tough. Moreover, unless one is forced to change, he/she will never like to change. Given than MS PPT is affordable, I dont see why people need to worry about Open Office.
Would like to know if there are things which Open Office can do and MS PPT cannot.
Vivek,
OpenOffice has some interesting drawing features that PowerPoint doesn’t have. For example, you can add a custom “glue point” which is like a connector point. I’m not aware that you can place a custom one in PowerPoint. You can also dimension objects: I have a friend who designed her house in OO’s Draw program; you can import those drawings into Impress. I think most of the differences are in the drawing tools, as these are. OpenOffice can export to SWF; PowerPoint can’t.
On the other hand, Impress is missing some major PowerPoint features, such as narration and chart animation. I’m sure there are more.
Regarding the cost, it’s all relative. “Free PowerPoint” gets a million global Google searches per month, which is just amazing.
This is great info for those people who are not aware of free alternatives for Powerpoint. With YouTube video’s on the rise, powerpoint is a great way to promote a product or service there and to make a quality powerpoint presentation for free is a great help to new businesses that can’t afford the price tag offered by Microsoft.
Great info, thanks!
One question, I have openoffice and I like it. However, when I open a Powerpoint presentation (I had MS office on my previous computer, but I just switched to a newer laptop that doesn’t have MS Office) from my previous computer my new laptop won’t open it. Any tips?
Thanks
I haven’t used OpenOffice for a while (I actually wrote a book on it a long time ago, OpenOffice.org For Dummies, but it’s out of date now).
It might not open pptx files. I’d check their documentation. You might have to find someone with PowerPoint to save it in the 2003 .ppt format for you.
Nevermind, I figured it out, thanks!
Thanks for sharing.