Welcome to the spoken tutorial on Custom Animation in LibreOffice Impress.
In this tutorial, we will learn How to use custom animation in the slides in Impress.
This tutorial is recorded using Ubuntu Linux OS version 18.04 and LibreOffice Suite version 6.3.5
Let's open our presentation Sample-Impress.odp.
This file has been provided to you in the Code files link on this tutorial page
Please download and extract the file. Make a copy and then use it for practicing
Let’s click on the thumbnail ‘Potential Alternatives’ from the Slides Pane.
This slide is now displayed on the Workspace.
Let’s learn how to use custom animation to make our presentation more attractive.
Close the Slides pane for better visibility
Move the cursor slowly on the first textbox and you will see a hand icon.
Now click the left mouse button.
Then go to the Sidebar and click on the icon named Animation.
First let’s learn how to decrease the width of the Sidebar section for a better view of the Workspace.
Notice the gray slider on the left side of the Animation section.
Move the cursor on it until the mouse turns into a double horizontal arrow.
Hold the left mouse button on the slider and drag it to the right side.
Adjust it as much as you require, without hiding any of the fields.
In the Animation section, there is an empty white box.
This box will display the animations which we add to the presentation for preview purposes.
Since we haven’t added any animations yet, this box appears blank.
Below the box, click on the Plus button named Add Effect.
This Add Effect button allows us to set animation options.
It enables Category and other fields below the Add Effect button.
In the Category drop-down, the option Entrance is selected by default.
Entrance option controls the way the item appears on the Slide show.
Click on this drop-down.
Here we can see many other options that control the way the item appears on the Slide show.
I will keep the option Entrance.
Now, in the Effect list, scroll down and choose the Diagonal Squares effect.
Notice that the preview of the selected transition effect is displayed in the Workspace.
This is because the Automatic Preview checkbox is selected by default in the section.
If not, go to the bottom of the section and check the Automatic Preview option.
Alternatively click on the Play button to see the preview.
In the Animation box, notice that the first animation has been added.
Now in the same slide, select the second textbox to the right, as explained earlier.
Under the Animation section, click on the Add Effect button.
Keep the Category as Entrance.
Under Effect, scroll down and select the Wedge effect.
Notice that the preview of the selected transition effect is displayed in the Workspace.
Notice that this animation has also been added to the Animation box.
Next, select the third Body textbox.
In the Animation section, once again click on the Add Effect button.
Notice that subsections below the Add Effect button are not enabled.
This is because the selected textbox has two sentences.
In such case, by default ‘Appear’ effect is applied to the textboxes
If you still wish to apply the animation to such a textbox, you can apply it individually.
In the Animation box, click on the ‘Arrow to the right’ icon next to the third animation.
Notice that the third animation is split into two individual animations of two sentences.
By selecting the individual lines, we can set animations for each one of them.
We can see that the Effect list and other options are enabled.
Choose the animation effect as per your choice.
We will keep the default effect ‘Appear’ for both sentences of the third textbox.
Click on the ‘Down arrow’ icon next to the third animation to hide the individual lines
Notice that the animations in the list, are in the order in which we have created them.
We can also select more than one animation to preview.
To do this, hold down the Control key on the keyboard while selecting all the animations.
Then click on the Play button.
Notice that the preview of all the animations we selected are played in the Workspace.
In the Animation box, let’s select the third animation.
Below the Animation box, notice arrow buttons named Move Up and Move Down.
Using these buttons, we can change the order of the animation, if we want to.
Each animation comes with certain default properties.
Let’s look at the default properties for the animation and learn how to modify them.
In the Animation box, double-click on the first animation in the list.
The Effect Options dialog box appears on the screen.
By default the Effects tab is selected.
In the Settings section, click on the Direction drop-down and select From right to top option.
This has the effect of starting the animation from the right and moving to the top as it progresses.
Click the OK button to close the dialog box.
Click on the Play button to see the change in the animation.
Go to the Animation box once again and double-click on the first animation.
In the Effect Options dialog box, click on the Timing tab.
Go to the Delay field and press the Plus button to increase the delay time to 1.0 second.
This has the effect of starting the animation after one second.
Click the OK button to close the dialog box.
We can also set the delay and directions in the Animation section.
Now click on the Play button.
We observe the effect of the one second delay which we made in the animation.
Go to the Animation box and double-click on the second animation in the list.
In the Effect Options dialog box, click on the Text Animation tab.
Text Animation tab offers various options to animate the text.
Click on Group text drop-down.
Select ‘By 1st level paragraphs’ option if it is not already selected by default.
Select the checkbox of Automatically after.
Then in the value field, increase the seconds to 2.
This choice displays each item from a bulleted or numbered list and its animation separately.
Use this option when you want to thoroughly discuss one item point, before moving on to the next.
Click the OK button to close the dialog box.
Now click on the Play button. We observe the effect of the two seconds delay which we made in the animation.
Finally, let’s view all three animation effects at once.
Go to the box and hold down the Control key while selecting all three animations in the list.
Go to the bottom and click on the Play button. You can see all the three animation effects that we have made.
Close the Animation section.
Lets open the Slides pane
Animation is a good way to break the monotony of a presentation and Helps to illustrate certain item points clearly
However, be careful not to overdo it!
Too much animation will take the attention of the audience away from the subject under discussion.
All the animations effectively show up in the Slide Show Creation tutorial in this series.
Let us save all these changes for future use and then close the presentation file.
With this, we have come to the end of this spoken tutorial. Let us summarize.
In this tutorial, we learnt: How to use custom animation in the slides in Impress.
As an assignment. Open “Practice-Impress.odp” file
Select slide 2 and type a sentence in the 2nd Body textbox
Create different custom animations for both Body textboxes
Check the Effect Options for each animation
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This spoken tutorial was originally contributed by DesiCrew Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in 2011 This is Arvind and Manish from IIT Bombay signing off. Thank you for watching.