Neil Lucock <neil@nlucock.freeserve.co.uk>
Krishna Tateneni <tateneni@pluto.njcc.com>
Revision 1.10.00
Copyright © 1999, 2000 Krishna Tateneni
Copyright © 2001, 2002 Neil Lucock
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
KPresenter is the presentations program in the KOffice suite of productivity applications.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Important
Please check http://docs.kde.org for updated versions of this document.
KPresenter is the presentations program in the KOffice productivity suite. Using KPresenter, you can prepare a set of slides for use in an on-screen slideshow or for printing. Your slides can include text and graphics in a variety of formats, and of course, you can embed all sorts of objects using KParts.
The KOffice productivity suite consists of a number of applications which are designed to work together. Overview documentation for KOffice is available, as well as manuals for each component of the suite. The components of KOffice are:
KWord - a frames based wordprocessor.
KSpread - a spreadsheet application.
KPresenter - a presentations application.
KFormula - an editor for mathematical formulae.
KChart - an application to draw charts and diagrams.
KOffice is a free (or open-source) software project which is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
A Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this chapter, KPresenter is introduced using a simple tutorial. We shall walk through the most basic steps that are involved in creating a presentation, and adding some basic effects.
When you start KPresenter, the Choose Template dialog appears.
The default option is Start with an empty document. Select the template labeled Title (highlighted in red) by clicking on it. This also selects Create new document from a template.
Now click OK. This brings up the slide editor window, where you can view and edit the slides (and objects contained in them) in your document. At the moment, we just have one slide, with one object on it, which is a text box.
Double-click the text box. The cursor changes to a vertical bar to show that you can now type some text.
Go ahead, type some text!
Click away from the text to de-select the text box when you are done typing.
Add a new page
Let's now add a new slide to our document. To do so, click the Insert menu, and then click on Page.
This brings up the Insert Page dialog.
Click OK to accept the defaults, which will add a new page after page 1.
The Choose dialog comes up so that we can decide what the new slide should look like. This time, double click on the One template (highlighted in red.)
The new slide now appears in the editing window. To change between pages of your presentation, you can select slides in the pane to the left (highlighted in red for this screenshot).
The newly inserted page has two text boxes. There is one for a title, and another to contain a bulleted list of items.
Double-click and type a title. Then double-click on the second text box. Note that a bullet automatically appears when you start typing. Type some text and end the paragraph by pressing the Enter or Return key. As you type new paragraphs, bullets automatically appear in front of them.
You can de-select the text box by clicking away from it.
Insert a picture
Let's go back to the first page now. Use the list of slides on the left of your screen.
In this section, we'll liven our presentation up a bit by adding a nice logo to the title page. To do so, the first step is to click on the Insert menu item, and then on Picture.
This brings up a file selection dialog. To learn about this or other standard KDE dialog boxes in detail, please consult the KDE documentation. You can browse by clicking on folder icons or by using the browser style buttons on the toolbar (highlighted in red.) Clicking the up arrow takes you up one directory level.
Find the file named koffice-logo.png, which may be in a different directory than the one shown in the screenshot below. You can also choose any other graphic file if you like! Select the file, and click Open.
The logo graphic is now visible in the top left corner of the editing window. There are selection handles (little black squares) visible around the border of the graphic.
Place the mouse cursor anywhere in the middle of the logo, and drag it to the middle of the title page.
That's it. Now you have a picture on the title page!
Add a shadow to the title text
Let's continue enhancing our title page by adding a shadow behind the title. Right click anywhere on the title text. This achieves two things: the text box containing the title is selected, and a menu pops-up.
Select the Shadow option in the pop-up menu.
The Shadow dialog pops up. The distance between the shadow and the text is currently 0 so the shadow cannot be seen (this part of the dialog box is highlighted in red.)
Increase the distance value to 3. The effect of changing the distance can be seen in the preview window. Now click OK.
Now the title has a shadow!
Change the color of the title text
Let's finish by changing the color of the title text from black to blue. To do so, select the title text by double-clicking the text box.
Change the color to blue by clicking on the dark blue icon in the color palette on the right side of the editing window (this icon is highlighted in red.)
Changing the color of the selected text to blue changes its appearance. The exact color that highlighted text turns depends on your system color scheme.
Now click away from the text to de-select it.
Now that there are two slides, why not try a slide show! To start the slide show, press the play button (the gray arrow) on the top toolbar. The first slide should appear on your screen.
To advance from the first slide to the next, just click anywhere on the screen, or use the Page Down key.
To exit the slide show, right click, and then select the Exit presentation option from the pop-up menu.
The KPresenter Screen
Here is the default KPresenter Screen Layout.
At the top there is the menu bar. All KPresenter functions are available from the menus, which are described in detail in Chapter 6
Below the menu bar are the toolbars. There are several toolbars. You may hide and show toolbars as you prefer. The toolbars are described in detail in the section called “The Toolbars”.
The Outline and Preview panes give an overview of your entire presentation. The Preview pane provides thumbnails of each slide, and allows you to drag and drop to change the order. The Outline pane provides a hierarchal tree of each slide, and also the objects inside the slides. As well as overview, this allows you to easily select objects which may be covered by others, or otherwise difficult to grab directly on the slide.
Detailed Guides
This chapter describes how to perform some common tasks in KPresenter.
Create an HTML Slideshow is a way of turning an existing presentation into WWW pages.
Procedure 4.1.
First make a few slides to include in the show. I reused the slides from the tutorial.
You can then click on the Create HTML slideshow icon (outlined in red)
or use the menu (under File) to start the wizard that guides you through the process.
A dialog box asks if you want to use an existing file. Click No if this is the first time you have used it. The Yes option allows you to use the details you have previously entered for your HTML slideshow.
You will then get a dialog box asking for a few details.
Fill in each field and ensure that you get the path details correct, as this is where KPresenter will save your new HTML files and pictures. Click on Next when you are done.
If the path you select here does not exist, KPresenter will ask if you would like to create it.
Here you can configure the style of the web pages, and also specify the zoom for the slides. This means, if you originally designed your slides to display full screen on a 1280 x 1024 pixel LCD screen, and used image sizes to suit this, you could scale the slides to 50% to enable them to fit nicely in a much smaller web browser window.
You may also set a default text encoding, if necessary, and specify a document type for the pages.
In most cases the defaults will be fine, and you can press Next to continue to the next page.
Now you can customize the colors of the web pages.
When KPresenter creates the web pages for you, the text colors for the navigation will be whatever you set here. The colors for the actual slides will be unchanged.
Click the colored bars to choose a color scheme that suits you.
The Next buton brings a dialog box that allows you to change the name of each slide.
Finally, save the configuration before you close the dialog box, by pressing the Save Configuration... button.
What we have now are new HTML and pictures directories, created where we earlier set the path.
There is also an index.html file to launch your web slideshow.
You can see how it works by using your file manager or web browser to open the index.html file. Click where it says, and the first page of your presentation is displayed. It then works the same as a KPresenter slideshow.
Each click on the screen takes you to the next slide.
FTP it all to your website, remembering to keep the directory structure intact, and the world can admire your work.
Creating KPresenter Templates
It is very easy to add new templates to KPresenter's library.
If you have made a presentation in a style you would like to use again, you can save it as a template.
This tutorial will show how we can make a new template and save it.
Procedure 4.2.
Open KPresenter and create a new document.
I chose a plain background with a text entry box. right mouse button click on the work area and you get a Slide Background dialog box.
Under Format you will find Page Background which opens the same dialog box.
I want the background to look attractive. In the top Combo box you can choose to use a picture or some clipart for the background.
I have left this at the default Color/Gradient option. In the next Combo box down I have chosen Vertical gradient, clicked into the two long boxes below it and chosen two colors.
You can alter the start positions of the colors in the gradients by clicking in the Unbalanced Check box. This lets you use the pair of X and Y sliders. Sometimes one slider will not do anything at all, it depends on what type of gradient you have chosen.
Remember to choose contrasting colors first. If you leave both white, you will not see anything. When you have a color scheme that you like, click Apply and OK to close the Dialog box.
The page should now be in the colors you chose. Double click in the text box to add a heading.
When you are happy with your template, click File on the Menu Bar and choose Template Manager.
This Dialog box allows you to select where you want your template to be saved.
I chose to save mine under the Screen presentations menu and called it Tutorial Template. Click OK to close this Dialog box.
Now close the document you have been working on (do not save it) and KPresenter will show the Choose Dialog box.
You want to Create a new document from a Template. Click to open the Screen Presentations tab and there is the template we made earlier.
General Hints and Tips for Great Presentations
Okay, you've decided to use KPresenter for your presentation. Before you start making transparencies or animated slide shows, go and find a piece of paper and sit down at a desk away from the computer. It doesn't matter whether you are doing a teaching session or trying to convince the boss that your plan, policy or idea should be adopted, you need to figure out what you are trying to say. Write down all the subjects you need to cover, try to get them in the order you think will make sense. Don't put any details in yet, just decide on headings and the structure of your talk.
Under each heading make a note of what facts you need to cover. You are trying to build a convincing argument. Consider grouping your facts into things must be included, things that should be included and things that it would be nice to cover if you had plenty of time.
Once you have written down all the things you need to say, consider the time available to do it in. Ten minutes seems ages when you start, but it is very difficult to actually get much across in so short a time. Get your sheet of paper and a clock with a second hand. Practise your presentation over and over again. This has many benefits. Firstly, you get the timing right. If someone says you have ten minutes, never go over the allowed time. Secondly, when you actually do it in front of a live audience, it will not be the first time you have done that presentation. Third, you get the words right in your own head. You will find ways of saying things about the subject. If you've heard yourself do this presentation several times, you will know what you are going to say next and how you are going to say it.
KPresenter does not produce Speaker's Notes at the time of writing, but I'm happy to just use ordinary slides. Produce some slides for yourself, printed on plain paper, and some for use with the Overhead Projector. Make the text on your slides nice and big, you need to be able to read it at a distance. I use 14 or 16 point text, experiment to find a size that you can read easily. I never write out a script.
If you are using an Overhead projector, learn how to use it beforehand. Make sure that the bulb works, that the spare bulb is still okay. Clean the lens and display plates. If you are not used to working with projectors, practise. Ensure that the projection screen itself is clean. It's probably best, when timing yourself, to allow for five seconds (count “one thousand and one, one thousand and two....”) to change each slide. That way you know you don't have to rush. If you need to point at something on a slide, you can use a pointer and point at the display screen, find a laser pointer or put a pencil on the transparency itself. Be warned, these tend to roll out of place when you nudge the table.
Consider where you are going to stand. You can not stand in front of your display, so off to one side is probably your best option if you want your audience to be able to see. I often project a picture onto a wipeboard and draw over the top of it. If you are using a PC with a digital projector you can draw over the top of your slides with KPresenter's pen tool. Remember, drawing freehand with a mouse is a skill that needs practise. If you are using an Overhead projector, you can use transparent overlay slides and a pen over the top of your computer generated ones.
When you are doing the presentation do not accidently look into the light, it's easy to do. If you are not going to use the machine for a few minutes, turn it off. Practise to get where you are going to stand sorted out. Check the room you intend to use for electrical sockets and learn how the blinds work and where the light switches are. Good preparation not only makes you less likely to make mistakes (inanimate things can be a nightmare in front of an audience) but also gives you confidence. Always have a “Plan B” ready if something refuses to work. Have a paper copy of your slides with you. You can photocopy and distribute these to your audience if the equipment fails.
I have not said much about the content yet. At present all you have is a piece of paper with everything you want to say on it. Before you make anything, ask youself if their understanding of what you are saying is going to improved by showing them a picture. Bad presentations consist of a series of slides full of text. The presenter then reads the slide to the audience (who have already read it as they can read faster than someone can say it aloud). Try to avoid writing anything on the slide, except a title and a number. Draw a picture of what you need to say, then explain the picture to them. That way they do not get ahead of you (they can read faster than you can speak, remember?) and you look like you know it. You do not know it, you are using the picture as a series of prompts. A slide should support what you are saying, not duplicate it. A slide should be the focus of the audience's attention, not a distraction.
An example. I teach Railway staff how to respond to accidents. I wanted to use a slide to discuss how you can move dangerous loads from a derailed or damaged rail vehicle to a road vehicle after an accident. The slide I made had a simple drawing of tank wagon, the kind used for carrying gases or oils. On the side I wrote “Lethal Chemical Company” so that I do not have to explain it. I wanted to make several important points. First, you must get any overhead electric wires turned off before you do anything if they are within a certain distance. I drew one of the supporting structures and drew an arrow with the safety distance on it. Then I wanted to say that you must not transfer the wagon's contents in darkness or thunderstorms. I drew a moon and a lightning bolt above the vehicle. You must get specialist advice, so I drew a sheet of paper and wrote the word “Plan” near the vehicle. You also have to ensure that the vehicle does not move when the weight inside is removed. I drew little red wedges by the wheels. Everything I need to talk about is on this drawing. All I have to do is look at the drawing and it tells me what I need to cover. When I have covered all the things in the drawing, I have finished on that subject.
In general, only use a slide or picture if it shows something that adds to what you are saying. Finally, relax and try not to rush through it all. Talk to them, not at them and remember that a presentation is about whatever message you are trying to get across. KPresenter is a useful tool. It can help you to get that message over, but it can not do the job for you.
The Menu and Toolbar Items
KPresenter presents different types of interfaces for you to interact with the program. Perhaps the most familiar type of interface is the menu which appears on the top of the KPresenter window.
Clicking on the menu items gives you a list of commands from which you can choose the one you want. Many of the commands can also be accessed directly by holding down Ctrl or Alt and pressing another key on your keyboard. In the next section, each of the menu commands is described in brief.
In addition to the menus, KPresenter also has a set of toolbars. Each toolbar consists of a collection of icons. A toolbar icon often presents a convenient shortcut to a command that is found in one of the menus.
Each toolbar has a thin stippled area, which acts as a handle for that toolbar. The stippled area is shown highlighted in red in the screenshot below:
Clicking on the toolbar handle results in that toolbar being “flattened” so that you have some extra space for viewing the main editing window:
Clicking on the toolbar handle a second time brings the toolbar back. You can also move the toolbar around by dragging the handle. Toolbars can be “docked” or attached to any side of the KPresenter window. If you like, you can also have the toolbar “float” in its own window, separated from the main KPresenter window as shown in the screenshot below:
If you don't like dragging toolbars around, right click on the handle and a menu pops up as shown in the screenshot below:
The first few items in the pop-up menu have to do with the placement of the toolbar. You can choose any of the four sides of the KPresenter window, or have the toolbar “float” in a separate window. Choosing Flat hides the toolbar. (If you right click on the handle of a hidden toolbar, this item appears as Unflat instead.)
Choosing the last item in the menu, Mode, leads to an additional menu which lets you control the appearance of the items in toolbar. This additional cascading menu is shown in the screenshot below:
The default view of the toolbar is icons only. In this view, if you don't know what a particular icon means, you can hold the mouse over the icon, and after a second or so, a little hint pops up in a highlighted text box as shown in the screenshot below:
You can choose to display the toolbar items as text instead of icons, or even to combine both icons and text. If you want both text and icons, the cascading menu allows you to select whether the text appears beside the icons or below them. All four styles of displaying toolbar items are shown in the screenshot below:
The KPresenter menus are discussed in the following sections.
File Menu
- File->New (Ctrl+N)
Begins a new presentation. The Create Document dialog will open, allowing you to choose a template for your presentation.
- File->Open... (Ctrl+O)
Opens an existing presentation. A standard KDE file open dialog will appear, allowing you to choose a file to open.
- File->Open Recent
Displays a list of recently opened files for you to choose from.
- File->Save (Ctrl+S)
Saves the currently open presentation. If you have not previously saved it, you will be asked to name the file. If you have previously saved the presentation, it will be resaved with the same name.
- File->Save As...
Saves the currently open presentation with a new name.
- File->Reload
Reload the currently active file.
- File->Import...
Import a presentation that was previously created in one of several common formats.
- File->Export...
Export the currently open presentation to one of several common formats for use in another application, or for exchange with someone who does not have access to kpresenter.
- File->Create HTML Slideshow...
Starts the HTML wizard, which is described in the section the section called “Create an HTML Slideshow”.
- Template Manager
Allows you to save the current slide as a template. In future the template will be available for you to use to build slides with. Creating a template is further discussed in section the section called “Creating KPresenter Templates”.
- File->Use Current Slide As Default Template
Sets the current slide as your default template. Especially useful if you have created a template of your own to fit into corporate style guidelines, or if you just use a particular layout very often.
- File->Print... (Ctrl+P)
Prints the presentation. More precisely, it opens the print settings dialog, where you can adjust the settings before printing your presentation.
- File->Print Preview...
Displays the presentation with a PostScript® viewer, exactly as it would look if printed.
- File->Document Information...
Allows you to enter information about the document. This includes information about the author, and an abstract on the documents contents.
- File->Send File...
Create a new email message and attach the file so you can send it to someone else.
- File->Close (Ctrl+W)
Close the current presentation. You will be given an opportunity to save any changes first.
- File->Quit (Ctrl+Q)
Close KPresenter. You will be given an opportunity to save all changes in all open presentations first.
Edit Menu
- Edit->Undo: Last task (Ctrl+Z)
Undo the last action you performed.
- Edit->Redo: Last undone task (Ctrl+Shift+Z)
Redo the last action you undid. If you have not undone any actions, or the last undo action is not reversible, this menu item is disabled.
- Edit->Cut (Ctrl+X)
Copy the selected item to the clipboard, and remove it from the document.
- Edit->Copy (Ctrl+C)
Copy the selected item to the clipboard, while leaving it intact in your presentation.
- Edit->Paste (Ctrl+V)
Insert the contents of the clipboard into your presentation.
- Edit->Delete (Ctrl+Delete)
Remove the currently selected item from your presentation.
- Edit->Select All (Ctrl+A)
Select all the objects and text on the current slide.
- Edit->Deselect (Ctrl+Shift+A)
Deselect any currently selected objects.
- Edit->Find... (Ctrl+F)
Search for text within the presentation.
- Edit->Find Next (F3)
Find the next occurrence of a piece of text within a presentation.
- Edit->Find Previous (Shift+F3)
Find the previous occurrence of a piece of text within a presentation.
- Edit->Replace... (Ctrl+R)
Replace one or more occurrences of a piece of text in your presentation with a different piece of text.
- Edit->Copy Slide
Copy the current slide to the clipboard.
- Edit->Duplicate Slide
Insert an exact copy of the current slide.
- Edit->Delete Slide
Delete the current page from the presentation. You will be asked to confirm this action.
- Edit->Duplicate Object...
Create a duplicate of the currently selected object. A dialog will display allowing you to set some options for the duplicate, e.g. if it should be rotated, or scaled, or offset to a new position on the slide.
View Menu
- View->New View
Opens another window with the same presentation loaded so you can work on more than one slide at a time.
- View->Close All Views
Close all views on the presentation. You will be given a chance to save any changes, or to cancel closing.
- View->Split View
Splits the window into two (or more) views on the same presentation. The default split is horizontal.
- View->Remove View
Close only the currently active view. The presentation, and any other views you have open, remain open, and any changes you have made remain unsaved.
- View->Splitter Orientation
Toggle the split view between Horizontal (the default) and Vertical.
- View->Show Sidebar
Toggle the display of the sidebar where you can see an overview of all the slides in your presentation.
- View->Show Header
FIXME: Find out about headers
- View->Show Footer
FIXME: Find out about footers
- View->Formatting Characters
Show a visual representation of “non printing characters”, such as tabs and paragraph markers. This can be a useful aid to precisely positioning text.
This item is a toggle, if enabled, formatting characters are visible, if disabled, they are not.
- View->Help Lines
When working in KPresenter you can drag a “help line” from either the horizontal or vertical ruler onto your document. This guide line will not print or display in the finished presentation, it is simply to help you align objects on screen. If this item is enabled, these help lines will be visible. If this is disabled, they will not be visible.
Help lines work across slides, allowing you to align objects the same way across multiple slides.
Disabling (hiding) help lines does not delete them. If you have created help lines, and then disabled this item, enabling it again will retain the help lines you created.
- View->Help Line to Front
By default, placing objects on a slide will cover any displayed help lines. You can make them visible again with this menu item, and while it is enabled, they will not be covered up.
- View->Grid
If enabled, KPresenter will display a grid of dots representing the intersections of imaginary horizontal and vertical lines. You can use these dots to precisely position objects on the slide.
- View-> Grid to Front
By default, placing objects on a slide will cover the displayed grid. You can make it visible again with this menu item, and while it is enabled, it will not be covered up.
- View-> Snap to Grid
If this is enabled, when dropping or moving objects on the slide the top left corner of the object will “snap” or move, to the nearest grid point.
This does reduce your freedom to freely position objects on the slide, however it also helps things to line up precisely. It is easily disabled or enabled with this menu entry, allowing you the best of both worlds.
- View->Zoom
This submenu allows you to zoom in or out of the slide. Several predefined zoom levels are available, including Whole slide to scale the entire slide so as to be visible in the size window you have open, and Width to scale the slide so it fills the entire width of the window, although you may now have to scroll vertically. There are also several other scaling choices, from 33% up to 500%.
Insert Menu
- Insert->Special Character... (Alt+Shift+C)
Insert a special character. This might be a character you don't have a key for on your keyboard layout, for instance ü on a US Keyboard.
- Insert->Variable
Here you can insert a variable that is filled in with a value that may be updated as you update the document.
- Insert->Link...
Insert a hyperlink to a file, a website, or an email address.
- Insert->Comment...
Enter a small note that does not display during the real presentation. You might use this to comment on a colleagues text, or to leave a note for yourself about something to do later.
- Insert->Slide... (F2)
Add a new page to your presentation. A dialog will open allowing you to choose a template, and whether to insert the new page before or after the currently selected page.
- Insert->File...
FIXME: What to do with this?
- Insert->Text (F10)
Add a new text object. Click and drag to create a frame where you wish the text to appear.
- Insert->Autoform
FIXME: This name is a little awkward, I didn't know what it was. Perhaps 'stencil' might be a better term? Shape would work, but it's already used.
Insert a pre-drawn shape that, such as an arrow or a connecting line.
Click and drag to draw a box stretching from the top left to the lower right, where you wish the autoform to display. It will be inserted and automatically scaled to the size of your box.
- Insert->Chart (F12)
Insert a chart. Click and drag to define the size of the chart. Some default data will be displayed. Double click to edit the data and choose the type of chart to display, using the embedded KChart editor.
FIXME: KChart has it's own help file, but a brief overview of charting in this doc wouldn't go astray either.
- Insert->Table (F5)
Insert a table. Click and drag to define the size of the table.
A KSpread open dialog will display. You may import a spreadsheet that you have saved in one of many formats, including plain text files. You may also choose to create a new and empty table.
Double clicking on the table will allow you to edit the contents.
- Insert->Object
FIXME: This needs a section of it's own
An object is an embeddable file, in one of many formats.
A common use of this action is to insert scaleable clipart in vector format.
- Insert->Picture... (Shift+F5)
Insert a raster image. These are not as easily scaleable as vector images or “clipart”. KPresenter currently understands many formats, including .tiff, .jpg, .png and many more.
- Insert->Line
You can insert several types of lines. Line drawing is described further in the section.
- Insert->Shape
You can insert several prepared shapes, in vector format. These are editable just like lines you have drawn yourself. Using the drawing tools is described in detail in the drawing tools section.
- Insert->Clipart... (F4)
Insert scaleable clipart in vector format. KPresenter can currently import clipart in the .wmf or “Windows Meta File” format, which is common on Windows®.
- Insert->Scan Image...
Scan an image with a scanner. This requires you have a scanner installed. FIXME: Document how to set up a scanner that KPresenter can use.
Format Menu
- Format->Select
If you have been using a tool such as the line drawing tool which does not allow you to select other objects, you can use this menu item to return to the normal selection cursor.
- Format->Rotate
Changes the cursor to a double headed curved arrow. Drag with the cursor to rotate the object on the slide. When you are happy with the position of the object, click to stop rotating.
If you change your mind and wish to cancel the rotation, you can press the Esc key to cancel, or use Edit->Undo to later undo it.
- Format->Arrange Objects
This is where you can manipulate the stacking order of objects on the slide.
An object that is on top, will cover, either partially or fully depending on it's size, all other objects beneath it. Meanwhile an object on the bottom of the sack may not be visible at all, as it is covered up by other objects. An object in the middle may be partially covered by other objects, while partially covering yet more objects itself.
You can send the selected object down or up a layer, or directly to the top or bottom of the stack.
- Format->Align Objects
In the submenu you can quickly align all the currently selected objects with a side of the slide, or center them either vertically or horizontally.
- Format->Shadow Objects
This put as colored copy of either text or a drawn object behind it. You can make nice “dropped shadows” for logos with this tool. To work with text, ensure that you have the text box selected (you will see the six small black boxes around the outline) You choose the color, select which way the shadow is going to fall and select a distance. For text it looks nice if you set the distance to two or three. Click Apply to see the result.
- Format->Group Objects
If you are drawing, you might want to make something out of several rectangles or circles. Arrange the individual parts where you want them, select one, then hold down the Shift key as you click in the others you want to group together. Click Group objects and from then on they act as if they are just one thing. It glues things together.
- Format->Ungroup Objects
If you decide that you want to alter an object that is made out of several pieces, you can unglue it with this tool. Click somewhere away from the object to deselect it, then click to select one of its parts.
- Format->Page Layout...
Allows you to set the page details. You can specify the margins, the orientation, either portrait (higher than wide) or Landscape (wider than high) formats. There are many templates, such as screen, A4, US legal.
- Format->Slide Background...
Allows you to alter the background to your presentation slides. Your options are color, (which lets you set either a plain color or one of many gradients) Clipart (which gives a dialog box to let you find your clipart on your hard drive) or picture, which again gives a dialog box to find the picture you want.
If you want a plain color, click in the box to select it. Gradients only work when you have chosen two colors. The picture option allows you to center the picture, zoom it to cover the entire slide (if it is smaller than the screen, this is very useful) or tile it. This is used when you want a small pattern to repeat across the page. It's probably best used with patterns rather than pictures of logos.
You can get rid of a picture by selecting another one or choosing a color/gradient.
- Format->Properties
The properties dialog for an object allows you to maniplate it in a very detailed manner
Text Menu
This menu modifies text and gives a few word processing tools to use when you are making presentations with extensive amounts of text in them.
To have any effect you must have first created some text by making a text box (the tool to the left of the main screen with ab in the center). Once you have a text box, double click inside it to make the insertion point appear. It looks like a vertical line. Write a few words, e.g. “Kpresenter can do everything I need”, then sweep across the text while holding the left mouse button to highlight it. It should make a gray rectangle appear behind the text. Anything included within the rectangle will be affected by the tools you use under this menu.
- Text->Default Format
FIXME: What is this? A reset to defaults? Find out.
- Text->Font...
Click the Font menu entry to show the dialog box.
This lets you change the font you are using, the style e.g. change from Bold to Italic, the size and the character set. A preview window shows how it will look, click Ok to change the selected text in your presentation or Cancel to return without making changes.
- Text->Paragraph... (Alt+Ctrl+P)
FIXME: Find out and describe how this works
- Text->Color...
This tool is used to change the color of the selected text.
The Color Selector dialog has a series of useful tools.
On the left is a box with various colors in it. Clicking on the color you want selects it and makes it appear in the square box in the lower center of this dialog box.
To the right of the colored box is a vertical grayscale slider tool. You can make the color you have chosen darker or lighter by sliding the small triangle to the right or clicking in the slider box itself.
Underneath the color choice box on the left are values for H, S & V (Hue, Saturation and Value) and R, G & B (Red Green and Blue). Color values can be typed into the boxes if you want to match a known color used in a drawing or picture.
On the top right is a drop down box. The default display is Recent Colors. Click the colored square you want in the display to choose it. Custom Colors allows you to maintain a separate group of colors you prefer to use. Once you have found a color you like, add it to this group with the Add to Custom Colors button underneath this dialog box. There is no tool provided to remove colors from this.
40 Colors and Web Colors might be used if you wanted to make a web page with a small number of colors to keep the file size small for faster downloads. The Royal group gives colors from brown to purple via yellow and blue. Named Colors are a nice spread of colors with names.
At the bottom of the right side we have a color picker. It is the pipette icon from art programs. If you have a picture displayed on your screen, you can choose a color you like from the picture. Click the tool, then click on the picture to select a color you like. Underneath is the name of the color (if it has one) and the HTML value (starting with #) of the color. If you want the text in a web page to match a color you have chosen, you can put this value in your html code.
Once you have a color you like, click Ok to change its color on the page or Cancel to return without making changes.
- Text->Style Manager (Alt+Ctrl+S)
FIXME: Write a separate 'Working with styles' section
The style manager allows you to create an entire set of attributes that will be applied to selected text all at once.
- Text->Import Style...
Here you can import styles you have defined in another KPresenter document.
- Text->Style
Apply a style you have defined to the currently selected text.
- Text->Create Style From Selection
Copy the properties of the currently selected text and save them as a style that you may apply to other of text.
- Text->Align (Alt+L)
Align has a submenu giving several options: Align Left, Align Center, Align Right, and Align Block which is also commonly known as “justify”.
Text is by default aligned at the left margin of a text box.
- Text->Type
Turn the currently selected text into a list, either numbered or bulleted. If you choose numbered, you can then select a numbering style, and likewise if you choose bulleted you can choose the style of bullets to use.
To change a list back to plain text, select None as the style.
- Text->Increase Depth (Ctrl++), Text->Decrease Depth (Ctrl+-)
Increase Depth and Decrease depth move the list paragraph to the right (Increase Depth) or back to the left (Decrease Depth).
The diagram shows indented text, different styles and colors of bullet points.
- Text->Extend Contents To Object Height, Text->Extend Object To Fit The Contents
Extend Contents to Object Height and Extend Object to fit the Contents help to resize text within the text box or make the text box fit the text you have typed or pasted into it.
- Text->Insert Page Number
Insert a page number.
FIXME: Find out if this is dynamic
- Text->Change Case...
Change the case or capitalization of the currently selected text.
You may choose between several styles of capitalization, including all lower or upper case, book style capitalization where each word except conjunctions has an initial capital letter, and sentence style capitalization where the first word in a sentence is capitalized.
- Text->Spellcheck
KPresenter can automatically spell check text as you type it, which you can enable and disable here.
If you prefer to check spelling on demand than automatically, you can begin a spelling check here.
- Edit->Enable Autocorrection
FIXME: Confirm what this does:
If this is enabled, common spelling errors will be corrected as you type. e.g. if you type Teh it will be corrected to The automatically.
- Text->Apply Autocorrection...
If you did not choose to enable autocorrection, you can apply it on demand here.
Slide Show Menu
- Slide Show->Configure Slide Show...
FIXME: Write a working with slideshows section
You can set up the properties for the entire slide show here, including whether to show the duration on screen, which of the slides in a presentation to include, and several other global settings.
This is discussed in detail in the FIXME: link to presentation section.
- Slide Show->Edit Slide Transition
Apply transition effects to the currently open slide. This is where you can choose how the transition from one slide to the next will be handled.
The transition effects you select here are applied on the transition from this slide to the next.
- Slide Show->Start
Begin the slideshow from the current slide.
- Slide Show->Start From First Slide
Begin the slideshow from the first slide.
- Slide Show->Go To Start (Home)
Go directly to the first slide in the slide show.
- Slide Show->Previous Slide (Page Up)
Go back to the previous slide in the slide show.
- Slide Show->Next Slide (Page Down)
Go to the next slide in the slide show.
- Slide Show->Go To End (End)
Go immediately to the final slide in the slide show.
The Settings Menu
The Settings menu allows you to customize KPresenter.
- Settings->Toolbars
The items in this submenu are toggles, that is, you can both enable and disable the display of specific toolbars here.
- Settings->Type Anywhere Cursor
FIXME: Find out what this is
- Settings->Configure Autocorrection...
Autocorrection is KPresenter's ability to correct common typing errors or expand abbreviations independently of the spell checking function. There are several common typing errors entered for you by default such as replacing teh with the and you can add as many more as you like.
The ability to expand abbreviations can save you a lot of typing time, if you often repeat text whether in the same pressentation or in multiple presentations.
For instance, if you work for “Company with a really really long name Inc.” then you might define an autocorrection entry so that whenever you type myJob or some other piece of unique text, it will be replaced with “Company with a really really long name Inc.”.
Autocorrection can be applied automatically as you type, or only on demand when you choose it from the Text menu.
- Settings->Configure Key Bindings
Configure Key Bindings allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to actions that KPresenter menus or icons contain.
If you try to assign a shortcut that is already used, it will give you a warning message. Highlight what you want to do (in the picture, I have chosen to make a keyboard shortcut to About KDE).
Click the radio button to the Custom Key setting and type the key you want to use. I assigned Control key and Y to bring up the “About KDE” dialog box.
The button shows what has been assigned. Click OK to make the changes, click Default to restore whatever was assigned as default, click Cancel to do nothing and leave the dialog.
Configure Toolbars allows you to add or delete icons on each of the toolbars.
At the top is a Drop Down box to enable you to choose which toolbar you want to modify. In the picture Koffice Shell is selected. If I want to add the About KDE icon to that toolbar, I click the entry in the left window. The arrow pointing right becomes available, if I click the arrow the About KDE entry is added to the selected toolbar. the left arrow is available when you click in the right side window. It allows you to remove an icon from a toolbar. The up and down arrows become active when items on both sides are selected. You can move the highlight in the right side window up and down with the keyboard arrow keys or by clicking on the arrows with the mouse. The Configure Kpresenter menu entry gives two menu boxes.
The Interface icon on the left allows us to adjust the time settings on the autosave feature. The bottom two sliders allow the Raster settings to be adjusted. This still needs a little more work. They control the minimum size of objects (such as boxes) drawn on screen. You may find that you can not make a box smaller than a certain size.
The second icon is labelled Color
It changes the background color of the text box as you type text in (in the picture, I have made it green. There is a color choice dialog box). The Text boxes are white by default. If you had a dark background color and you wanted to put some white text over it, you could color the text box so that you could see what you were typing. When you have finished, the area around the text would revert to whatever the background color was. The Default button restores the original settings.
Help Menu
- Help->KPresenter Handbook (F1)
Invokes the KDE Help system starting at the KPresenter help pages. (this document).
- Help->What's This? (Shift+F1)
Changes the mouse cursor to a combination arrow and question mark. Clicking on items within KPresenter will open a help window (if one exists for the particular item) explaining the item's function.
- Help->Report Bug...
Opens the Bug report dialog where you can report a bug or request a “wishlist” feature.
- Help->About KPresenter
This will display version and author information.
- Help->About KDE
This displays the KDE version and other basic information.
Configuring KPresenter
General Tab
- Create root/affix combinations not in dictionary
- Consider run-together words as spelling errors
- Dictionary:
- Encoding
- Client
- Ignore case when checking words
- Ignore accents when checking words
- Check words with numbers
- Ignore uppercase words
- Show misspelled words in document
IgnoreAll Tab
- Word
- Add
- Remove
- Clear Ignore All Word History
Dictionary Tab
- Word
- Add
- Remove
- Clear Dictionary
Misc
- Undo/Redo limit:
- Display links
- Underline all links
- Display comments
- Display field code
- Print slide notes
Grid
- Resolution X (mm):
- Resolution Y (mm):
Document Defaults
- Default font:
- Global language:
Document Settings
- Create backup file
- Autosave (min):
- Starting page number:
- Tab stop (mm):
Cursor
- Cursor in protected area
- Direct insert cursor
FIXME: Does this set defaults, or do these change every time a tool setting is altered from anywhere in the app.
Questions and Answers
Things you might like but KPresenter does not yet do (and what to do about it)
Powerpoint Files. KPresenter does attempt to import Microsoft® Powerpoint files but it does not always work perfectly. It depends on the Powerpoint file version and what is in the file. You can always import pictures for the background image and re-type any text. It's not the ideal solution, re-doing the entire presentation. However, just bear in mind that Powerpoint does not even attempt to read KPresenter files.
Taking notes or minutes. One piece of software allows you to make notes during the meeting and puts them into a word processor. If you are speaking, someone else should be taking notes. If you really must do this sort of thing, take a note pad and pencil.
Credits and License
KPresenter
Program copyright 1998-2000 by Reginald Stadlbauer <reggie@kde.org>
Current maintainer is Laurent Montel <montel@kde.org>.
Contributors
Werner Trobin <trobin@kde.org>.
David Faure <dfaure@kde.org>
Toshitaka Fujioka <fujioka@kde.org>
Lukáš Tinkl <lukas@kde.org>
Thorsten Zachmann <t.zachmann@zagge.de>
Ariya Hidayat <ariya@kde.org>
Percy Leonhardt <percy@eris23.de>
Documentation based on the work copyright 1999-2000 by Krishna Tateneni. Portions are copyright 2000-2002 Neil Lucock <neil@nlucock.freeserve.co.uk>
This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Installation
KPresenter is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org/.
KPresenter can be found in the koffice package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main FTP site of the KDE project.
In order to compile and install KPresenter on your system, type the following in the base directory of the KPresenter distribution:
% ./configure % make % make install
Since KPresenter uses autoconf and automake you should have no trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.