For example, use the toolbar at the bottom to insert shapes and right-click a shape to format the line and area (fill). Right-click objects to find tools that you need.If you figure it out, please leave a comment! I wasn’t able to figure out how to bottom-justify the text in the title placeholder, something I like to do.Click the Layouts item to expand it and see your options. Layouts are also in the task pane on the right.To access the master, expand the Master Pages item in the task pane, right-click the selected master, and choose Edit Master.Nevertheless, if you know PowerPoint 2003, you’ll be right at home. The interface looks pretty similar to PowerPoint 2003, although the task panes on the right are a little different. On the next page (#3), you can choose a slide transition and slide timing.

The Design step (#2) appears, where you can choose a background and output (screen, paper, etc.) if you want. To start a new presentation, choose Empty Presentation and click Next. (3.3 is the version I downloaded.) By default, you see this wizard. Note: Everyone calls it OpenOffice, but they want you to call it for legal reasons.Īfter you unpack and install OpenOffice, you can choose Start>All Programs>3.3> Impress to start the presentation module. In fact, you can set Microsoft Office format as the default for saving your files.

You can open Microsoft Office files and save files in Microsoft Office format as well. In my experience, many students and very small businesses use it. There are other free Office alternatives, such as LibreOffice (also open-source), but is the most widely known. It was written a few years ago and is now out of date, so I won’t give you a link.)

(Fun and little known fact: I’m the co-author of For Dummies. OpenOffice is a suite and its presentation piece is called Impress. 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. is a Microsoft Office clone, pretty close to Office 2003.

Openoffice slideshow