OpenOffice.org Impress, the presentation application of OpenOffice.org, has a few cool, new extensions that you might find very useful. If you’ve been using proprietary presentation applications and find OpenOffice.org Impress lacking in the bells and whistles that you used to enjoy , I am sure you will find these extensions helpful in closing that functionality gap.
eVoice
eVoice 1.0.0 is an extension that lets users add sound clips to each slide. While it is ideal for adding narration, you can also use it to record sound clips directly from a sound system or MP3 player. All you need is a microphone and sound card , and a two-way jack to input the music. Once you install eVoice, the eVoice item appears on the top level of menus. To use it, select Insert . A dialog box appears with options to Record, Stop, Play, and Pause.
Recordings are represented by a gray object that can be dragged and dropped around the slide as you design your slide layouts. When you run the slide show, the gray object becomes invisible . The limitation with adding sound files is that eVoice only allows one sound clip per slide. Adding a second sound clip will delete the first.
eVoice will work on OpenOffice.org 2.1 and StarOffice 8 Update 5 or higher running on Windows and Linux operating systems. Its filesize is less than 200 KB.
Sun Presentation Minimizer
Sun Presentation Minimizer by Sun Microsystems, Inc. reduces the size of a presentation. Minimizing the file size results in maximizing the speed of your slide show . It also makes your presentation easier to upload onto a web site and faster to download.
When you install Sun Presentation Manager, you will find an item on the Tool menu which you can access easily. When you click on this option, a wizard appears, which provides step by step directions for reducing the size of your slide show. Files are compressed by removing unnecessary items, such as unused master files or hidden files and the cropped areas of photos. It reduces the resolution of images and graphics and converts OLE objects into static images , which makes them uneditable.
You have the option of specifying which of these file-reducing measures to implement. There are also pre-set options from the first slide from which you can choose. You can even save your own current options as a pre-set.
Generally, the Sun PPT minimizer is most effective on slide shows that are packed with embedded objects and graphics. The sizes of presentations can be reduced from 15-75% of the original size, depending on the contents of the original slide show. The amount of space you are saving is indicated in the wizard. It saves the reduced file under a different filename so you do not accidentally overwrite the original.
It is compatible with OpenOffice.org 2.3 and StarOffice 8 Update 8. The file sizes vary from 300 KB to 1 MB depending on the operating system .
One more thing- the Sun Presentation Minimizer also works on Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
PhotoAlbum
PhotoAlbum 0.4.0 lets users convert a set of photos saved onto a folder into a simple slide show in just four clicks.
To begin using it, download the extension, open the PhotoAlbumInstaller_1-2.sxc file, and press the Install button. The Photo Album menu is added by default as Top Menu ‘Photo Album’ . Then restart OpenOffice.org. If the Photo Album menu doesn’t appear, quit OpenOffice.org and the Quickstarter, then launch them again.
Make sure that the images you plan to include in the slide show are saved into a separate directory. Images are embedded in numeric then in alphabetical order so ensure that you arrange the images accordingly (e.g., in numerical order such as 1.jpg, 2.jpg,…and so on or according to alphabetical order , such as a.jpg, b.jpg,…..and so on. )
Access OpenOffice.org then go to Photo Album- Create Photo Album. Note that the “Photo Album” menu appears on all OpenOffice,org applications – not just Impress. Select the directory where you saved your images. The extension automatically creates an album for you on Impress with one image per slide, and filling the entire slide.
Slide transitions are set to display random transitions and is set to loop constantly by default. Nonetheless, you can edit these settings after you create the album. Slide transitions are set from Slide Show – Slide Transitions, and the loopback from Slide Show – Slide Show Settings – Type.
PhotoAlbum makes it easy for you add multiple images to a presentation. Thus, it saves you the trouble of having to select Insert – Picture-From File for each and every image. Photo Album is system independent and is only 5.88 KB.
OpenOffice.org extensions can be downloaded from the OpenOffice.org extensions repository at:
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/
