[Solved]How to create a Master slide, dictionary, templates

[John_Ha]

Despite searching and reading the manual, there is something I am not seeing!

First, I would like to create a presentation where every slide has the same background which is an image I have (the green + white line). Adding just this image is simple by right click a slide > Slide > Set background picture ..., and it appears on all slides.

I would like to add a second image (the logo) although I guess I could add the logo to my original background image.

I would like a "text area" at the top for each slide's title, where I maintain the same font, size, colour etc across all slides.

Then, when I add a new slide it would come complete with the background, the logo and the text box.

See below. Adding a new slide always gets the two text areas which I cannot delete.

background.png (8.72 KiB) Viewed 1298 times

Second, although I have a dictionary in Writer, it does not seem to be there for Impress - all my words are underlined and Tools > Languages ..., does not show any dictionary.

Third, I was somewhat surprised to find my Presentation Templates seem to be stored in C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenOffice 4\share\template\en-GB\presnt. There are two - prs-novelty.otp and prs-strategy.otp. Tools > Options > OpenOffice > Paths ..., gives the templates path as C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user\template but they aren't there.

Any help to get me out of my confused state will be greatly appreciated.

[FJCC]

I used the Windows Snipping tool to grab an image of your desired slide from your post and I saved it as a jpg. Then I:
1. Made a new empty presentation
2. Went to Format -> Area and on the Bitmaps tab I used the Import button to make my jpg one of the available bitmaps.
3. Went to Format -> Page and on the Backgrounds tab set the Fill to Bitmap and chose my jpg. I turned off Tile and selected Auto Fit. I answered Yes to the Background for all Pages question.
4. Went to View -> Master -> Slide Master. I resized the title box to fit over, approximately, where you want the box repeated on every slide. I also changed the font size to 32 and selected the Palatino Linotype font.
5. I selected View -> Master -> Master Elements and turned of the Date, Footer and slide number
6. I went back to normal view.
When I insert a slide, I can use Format -> Slide Layout to choose whether the slide has the title box, which I think you always want, or the big box for lists.

It should be possible to put the logo in as an element of the Master, but I didn't try that.

You can save the presentation as a template in My Templates.

Does all of that work?

[John_Ha]

FJCC

Many thanks - your step-by-step "idiot's guide" was exactly what I needed and, when I followed each step, it did exactly what I want.

I had read about the "Import" in Bitmaps but I couldn't find it. Also, another thing I wasn't seeing was that, while you cannot delete the text boxes in the Master, you can delete them in any slide created from the Master.

You can save the presentation as a template in My Templates.

I put it in C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user\template, the Templates folder specified in the Paths, and Impress located it when I created a new presentation and selected From template.

Now I just have the spellcheck problem to fix. Do you know why spellcheck works perfectly in Writer with the GB-English dictionary installed, but no dictionary is shown in Impress when I go Tools > Language? All my text is marked as spelling errors.

[John_Ha]

Now I just have the spellcheck problem to fix. Do you know why spellcheck works perfectly in Writer with the GB-English dictionary installed, but no dictionary is shown in Impress when I go Tools > Language? All my text is marked as spelling errors.

Don't you hate it when you answer your own questions.

It seems that you have first to mark text with a language by highlighting the text and going Format > Character ..., and choosing the language. That text is then marked as, say, UK English, and spell checked with the UK-English dictionary if it is installed. See [Solved] Setting Default Dictionary

I am still surprised that Tools > Languages ..., does not show any dictionaries being installed even after marking my text as UK-English.