0

I am a big fan of Ubuntu. I have recently switched from Latex to LibreOffice Impress for PPT because it seems that with Impress you can quickly create slides. I am using LibreOffice 3.4.4 OOO340m1 (Build:402) on Ubuntu 11.04. I am saving them as .ppt format. However, facing the following problems. It is really frustrating and forcing me to use Windows/MAC just for making slides.

  1. Font is changing from Arial to TimesNewRoman specifically for Tables when I reopen an Impress presentation.

  2. Tables are stretched if I reopen an Impress presentation. Impress is not allowing me to compress them (the stretched tables) and I have needed to make a fresh table.

  3. Several other modifications are reverting back when I reopen an Impress presentation. For example, the "transparency" change to the borders (e.g., for rectangular shape).

  4. Arbitrarily Impress is crashing.

It would be great if someone help me to resolve these issues.

Thanks.

5
  • 1
    On my experiences it is not a good idea to modify Microsoft-ppt-files with LibreOffice. Microsoft is not that open with their specifications for their file formats. So save the files in OpenDocument format and everything will work well, however, Microsoft Office seems to support Open Document standard as good as Internet Explorer follows the W3C-Standards for HTML :-D, so please also do not rely on Microsoft Office reading and modifying Open Document files correctly.
    – Michael K
    Nov 21, 2011 at 11:49
  • Sorry. I should use Impress presentation instead of PPT. I mean that facing problems when I reoprn the slides that I made with Impress. The problem is that I needed to send these slides as ppt format to my Professor who is using MAC...
    – samarasa
    Nov 21, 2011 at 11:52
  • and you DID save them as Open Document Format (i believe it was odi format) and not as Microsoft ppt format?
    – Michael K
    Nov 21, 2011 at 11:53
  • No, I have saved them as PPT format. I am facing the problem when I reopen the slides.
    – samarasa
    Nov 21, 2011 at 11:55
  • then please try first to create a new file, put some things on some slides which did not work, save it as the default (odf), reopen it and see whether it works this way. As I said it is the blame of Micro$oft, that they do not publish good enough information on their file formats. Further its a blame for Micro$oft that they do nearly never use open standards, nor support such standards. They always try to create their own things in order to make it hard for people to switch to another (maybe better) solution than theis products. Lets hope this will once in a while people will realize this.
    – Michael K
    Nov 21, 2011 at 11:59

3 Answers 3

1

LibreOffice support for ppt format is far from perfect and quite worse than support for doc or xls. The problems that you are experiencing are expected.

You should save your slides as .odp, the OpenOffice native format and only use ppt when you want to share it with another people. That way they will keep the same when you save and open then.

Unluckily you can still experience issues when you export then to ppt, if you need perfect compatibility, you will need to use PowerPoint or convince the other part to use Impress or a more compatible program.

One off-topic idea is to ask your teacher to use Google Docs. It could be easier to sell it to a teacher focusing in its collaboration features.

1

If your teacher only have to print and mark your slide show then you can export your slide show as a pdf file. Just go to file- export as pdf. Your teacher can make annotations using adobe/firefox if he/she needs to make recommendations.

1

It would be better to save it as an odp (open document presentation) and click on the pdf button on the toolbar and send your presentation as a pdf. You can't have transitions etc with this method, but it gets over the problem of having things in the wrong place.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .