Inserting other objects

OpenOffice.org 2.x Impress Guide

Chapter 7: Spreadsheets, Charts, and Other Objects

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Inserting other objects

Impress offers the capability of inserting in a slide various types of objects such as music or video clips, Writer documents, Math formulas, generic OLE objects and so on. A typical presentation may contain movie clips, sound clips, OLE objects and formulas; other objects are less frequently used since they do not appear during a slide show.

This section covers the part of the Insert menu shown below.

Part of the Insert menu.

Movies and sound

To insert a movie clip or a sound into a presentation, select Insert > Movie and Sound. Select the media file to insert from the dialog, to place the object on the slide.

To insert media clips directly from the Gallery:

1. If not already open, open the Gallery by selecting Tools > Gallery.
2. Browse to the Theme containing media files (for example the Sounds theme).
3. Click on the movie or sound to be inserted and drag it into the slide area.

The Media Playback toolbar is automatically opened; you can preview the media object as well as resize it. If the toolbar does not open, select Tools > Media Player.

The media playback toolbar (movie clip).

The Media Playback toolbar consists of the following elements:

• Add button: opens a dialog where you can select the media file to be inserted.
• Play, Pause, Stop buttons: control the media playback.
• Repeat button: if pressed, the media will restart when finished.
• Playback slider: selects the position within the media clip.
• Timer: displays the current position of the media clip.
• Mute Button: when selected, the sound will be suppressed.
• Volume Slider: adjusts the volume of the media clip.
• Scaling drop-down menu: (only available for movies) allows scaling of the movie clip.

The movie will start playing as soon as the slide is shown during the presentation.

Note that Impress will only link the media clip, therefore when the presentation is moved to a different computer, the link will most likely be broken and as a consequence the media will not play. An easy workaround that prevents this from happening is the following:

1. Place the media file to be included in the presentation in the same folder where the presentation is stored.
2. Insert the media file in the presentation.
3. When sending the presentation to a different computer, send also the media file and place both files in the same folder on the target computer.

Impress offers the possibility to preview the media clips that are to be inserted by means of the provided media player. To open it select Tools > Media Player. The media player is shown in below. Its toolbar is the same as that of the Play Media toolbar described above.

The embedded media player in OpenOffice.org.

OLE objects

Use an OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) object to insert in a presentation either a new document or an existing one. Embedding inserts a copy of the object and details of the source program in the target document, that is the program which is associated to the file type in the operating system. The major benefit of an OLE object is that it is quick and easy to edit the contents just by double-clicking on it. You can also insert a link to the object that will appear as an icon rather than an area showing the contents itself.

To create and insert a new OLE object:

1. Select Insert > Object > OLE object from the main menu. This opens the dialog below.


Insert OLE Object dialog.

2. Select Create new and select the object type among the available options.
3. Click OK. An empty container is placed in the slide.
4. Double-click on the OLE object to enter the edit mode of the object. The application devoted to handling that type of file will open the object.

To insert an existing object:

1. Select Insert > Object > OLE object from the main menu.
2. In the Insert OLE Object dialog, select Create from file. The dialog changes to look like the one below.
3. To insert the object as a link, select the Link to file checkbox. Otherwise, the object will be embedded.
4. Click Search, select the required file in the file picker window, then click Open. A section of the inserted file is shown on the slide.

Inserting an object as a link.

Other OLE objects

Under Windows, the Insert OLE Object dialog has an extra entry, Further objects.

1. Double-click on the entry Further objects to open the dialog shown below.


Advanced menu to insert an OLE object under Windows.

2. Select Create New to insert a new object of the type selected in the Object Type list, or select Create from File to create a new object from a file.
3. If you choose Create from File, the dialog shown below opens. Click Browse and choose the file to insert. The inserted file object is editable by the Windows program that created it. If instead of inserting an object, you want to insert a link to an object, select the Display As Icon checkbox.


Insert object from a file.

Formulas

Use Insert > Object > Formula to create a Math object in a slide. When editing a formula, the main menu changes into the Math main menu.

Care should be taken about the font sizes used in order to make them comparable to the font size used in the rest of the slide. To change the font attributes of the Math object, select Format > Font Size from the main menu bar. To change the font type, select Format > Fonts from the main menu bar.

For additional information on how to create formulas, refer to Chapter 11 (Getting Started with Math) in the Documentation/OOoAuthors User Manual/Getting Started guide, or Chapter 16 (Math Objects) in the Documentation/OOoAuthors User Manual/Writer Guide.

Note that unlike in Writer, a formula in Impress is treated as an object, therefore it will not be automatically aligned with the rest of the text. The formula can be however moved around (but not resized) as any other object.