Printing Handouts in OpenOffice.org Impress

Note: See also a related article I wrote for TechTarget.com on creating presentations in OpenOffice.org 2.0.

Visitor Steve Ford had a question recently.

hello,
my instructor at school uses powerpoint slide presentations. i can't figure out how to print 4 to 6 slides on to 1 page.  my screen shows what i want to print, but when i print the screen all i get is 1 slide on the paper. 

Steve's question is in regard to one of the most unnecessarily complicated tasks in OpenOffice.org. The quick answer to his specific question is this:  with a presentation open,  choose File > Print, then click the Options button. In the upper-left Contents quadrant of the Printer Options window, make sure only the Handouts option is marked. Then click OK and print from the Print window.

Here's the full answer, however, to how to print handouts from soup to nuts in 1.x and 2.0 versions of the software.

 

Printing Handouts, 2 to 6 to a page, in OpenOffice.org 1.x and StarOffice 7 and before
First, create your presentation and get it how you want it.

Specifying the Number of Slides Per Page

Choose View > Master > Handout or click the Handout View icon on the right side of the work area.

You'll see the layout window where you can see how many slides you'll have on  a page.

Choose Format > Modify Layout. You'll see the Modify Slide window where you can change the number of slides on a page. Select a different number if you want and click OK.

Setting Up and Formatting Handouts

The default page layout is Landscape. If you want Portrait (vertical), choose Format > Page and select Portrait, then click OK.

 

Back in the main layout window, drag the slide placeholders to different locations if you want to change where they are.

If you want horizontal lines for people to take notes on, you'll need to use the line tool to draw a set of 3-4 lines by the first slide yourself. To make them even after you've drawn them, select them all and choose Alignment > Right (or Left, or Center).  Click the image to see a bigger version if you want.

To distribute them evenly after you've drawn them, select them all and choose Distribution. Choose Vertical and Center. Then copy that group of lines when they're how you want them (might want to group them first), and copy the lines to the other slides on the page.

When you're done, it should look something like this.

If you want a page number at the bottom of each piece of paper (not every slide), use the Text tool to draw a text box at the bottom of the page, and type the word page if you want. Then choose Insert > Fields > Page Number to add an automatically incrementing page number.

Printing Handouts

Now that you've done the setup, you're ready to print.

Choose File > Print.

Click the Options button.

In the Contents section of the Printer Options window, make sure that only the Handouts option is selected.

The default is for Drawing to be selected and that's all. That means you get one big slide per page. You absolutely must select Handouts here to print handouts. If you leave Drawing selected, your printer will also spit out a printout of your presentation with one slide on every page.

Click OK in the Printer Options window to save the changes and close the window.

If you want to print just a subset of the pages, in the Print window, select the Pages option and type 1, 1-6, etc. The page count refers to slides, not pieces of paper. Also, if you want to print slides 1-6 and 13-18, you need to type a semicolon between the ranges, as in 1-6;13-18

That's all! That last part is the secret. Getting to the layout window was too complicated, and setting up the note-taking lines was a bit of a pain to do manually, though at least those lines will stay there now that you've done them. But the last part, marking Handouts, is the main tricky thing that is really hard to find.

Printing Handouts, 2 to 6 to a page, in OpenOffice.org 2.0 and StarOffice 8
It's a lot like printing handouts in 1.x. Read through that section if you haven't already. I'm going to go over the few differences here.

Specifying the Number of Slides Per Page

This is simpler and different than 1.x. In your open presentation, just click the Handouts tab above the slide view.

In the slide layout view that appears, you want to look to the right and find the Layouts tab.

Now choose the number of slides you want per page.

Setting Up and Formatting Handouts

This is the same as 1.x. See the 1.x setup and formatting section.

Printing Handouts

This is the same as 1.x. See the 1.x printing section. As before, be sure to select just the Handouts option in the Printer Options window.

 

Comments

[Othalian]

Hi

I have been attempting to print off multiple slide and notes on one page. Is this possible?

I know that I can do one page with one slide and one note, but cannot find out how to have more on one page. I hope you can help.

Regards

Othalian

[Solveig]

Hi,

"I have been attempting to print off multiple slide and notes on one page. Is this possible?"

I think you can use the printer settings to achieve this. For mine it's in the Finishing tab, Pages Per Sheet field. Does this solve your problem? I just tested it and it worked for me.

Thanks for writing.

Solveig

[Kasper Andersen]

Have some problems Printing my handouts..

I use the same settings as adviced above, Only problem is that when I print it, the pages are empty.

I use OO 2.0 Danish version.

Been trying with multible computers and printers, seems like its a common problem... but when i search the web i cant find a proper solution to this problem. :(

[Kasper Andersen]

Found the solution. :)

Problem, all my printers was set to print greyscale, by default.
When I asked OO to print with Default colors it all worked. :)

[Mike]

Is there a way to turn off the background for printing? Since I have a dark colored background with white letters I get black slides with white letters. Is there a way to print the handouts with black text on white background?

[Solveig Haugland]

Hi Mike,

>> Is there a way to print the handouts with black text on white background?

I think you can get at this by experimenting with the print options. Choose File > Print, click Options, and choose either the grayscale or the black-and-white print option.

Solveig

[Dhananjay]

I am trying to print handouts by selecting Handout (6 pages per page) and then selecting handout in the Options menu of print.I am selecting gray scale printing from printer properties. But after printing all I get are blank papers. Could any body help me in deciding what could be going wrong?

[anon]

If you choose black and white instead of grayscale it seems to work as intended. obviously a bug.

I dont understand why theres not a builtin 3 per page notes layout. If you want to print like that you have to manually adjust every time you want to print. Unless im missing a way to save a layout?

[Lydus]

Thanks for clearing this out. That default Drawing option made me hate openoffice for a minute. Especially because the Dutch translation says that the drawing checkbox is for printing pictures.

[Karin Dalziel]

Thank you so much! That would have taken me ages to figure out!

[jacob richardson]

thank you so much- i dont understand why they just dont make it easier. is it really that difficult to add it to the printing page, or even print preview page (which they dont have). just like to thank you!!!!!!!!

[Solveig Haugland]

I just think that a lot of developers figure if it's possible, it doesn't need to be obvious or easy. ;> I'm hoping for a simple obvious checkbox for this feature, and for the "leave the page number off the first page" feature, in the next big release.

Solveig

[Yun Zhang]

I have tried to use Black&White instead of Greayscale to print handouts without the backgroud. It does work but the problem is that every slide doesn't have a frame with it. It is not nice to just see the outlines listes on the page.

[Mike]

I have just spent excess time trying to figure out the formats, tables and all the excessive crap on OO.
I just want a basic text package.
I'll write in HTML (far simpler)and stuff OO.
Too much bloody options...

[Anton Lebedev]

Thanks for this great article! It really helps a lot!

[Essam Rageb]

I need to email my ppt (in black and white) slides handout? but because the file is too large, I have to make a hard copy, scan it into the PC, zipp it and email it! Is there a better way? please help

[Solveig]

Hi Essam,

If the file is too big, see if you can delete or reduce the size of some graphics, perhaps send those separately.

Also, if it is still in .ppt format, choose File > Save As in OpenOffice.org and save it in Impress .odp format. The size might be reduced.

Solveig

[Randy]

Is there a way to save the handout layout once you get it all configured. The lines you create stay but the slide layout goes back to default.

[Randy]

OK, I am going to answer my own question. If you create a powerpoint like 3 slide handout with lines, OO.o will save the layout when you save the document, as long as you don't ever select another layout from the handout layout list. As soon as you click one of the other layouts all of your work on the 3 slide handout goes away except for the lines you added. So, as long as you are going to always print handouts using the layout you created and you never select a different layout, you are good to go.

[Solveig Haugland]

Hi Randy,

Yeah, this is a little tweaky--even in 2.3 you can't change, then go back. :(

[Cortar]

hola como le puedo hacer en open office para recortar una pantalla, ejemplo cuando le doy en print screen se guarda la pantalla del sistema entonces en el office normal la funcion que busco es la de Crop que esta en Picture.... gracias y espero que me ayuden

[Solveig]

Hi Cortar,

I'm sorry I don't speak Spanish. There should be a spanish-speaking mailing list associated with OpenOffice.org. If you direct your same question to users@openoffice.org, one of the responders will know the mailing list.

Solveig

[david gunnells]

It would be nice to be able to save/import/export the various notes, handouts, etc. layouts.

Considering the various bugs files/duped/commented on but little feedback from the developers, I don't expect to this any time soon.

Unfortunately. :(

[Angela]

Thanks so much for the tip about Black & White printing. I could print them out in colour following the OO help, but got the blank page when I tried greyscale. Black & White prints just fine.
I've been trying to print handouts from OO for about 6 mths.