What I Learned in OpenOffice Training in Green River, Wyoming: Docking the Slide Pane in Impress

I just found a very byzantine solution to an annoying problem.

I'm doing training this week and was finishing up my slides for an Impress class and accidentally undocked the Slides Pane. It was floating all over the place and I couldn't dock it again.

I understand that in some versions you can just drag the Slides Pane back to the edge and it'll redock. Sometimes you can hold down Ctrl and drag it back, and it'll redock.

But not with the December 2.0 update of OpenOffice.org.

I finally found the solution in one of the users@openoffice.org mailing list archives.

You have to hold down Ctrl, then double-click the gray area next to the word slides in the slides pane. Not the top title bar Slides but the second time Slides appears.

See this screen shot. I'll do a better one when I'm done with the training class but you'll see what to do when you click on this thumbnail and look at the big screen shot. You have to hold down Ctrl, then double-click the circled area. This will dock your pane again.

Phew.

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Tags

OpenOffice.org  open office  OpenOffice.org training  open office training  open source  open source training  Office 12  Linux  Ubuntu  education  Microsoft Office  migration 

Comments

[Michaël]

What version are you using? I'm also on Ubuntu (well, Kubuntu actually, but that shouldn't make a difference I think), using the 1.9.122 version that came with Breezy 5.10, and I can just drag that window and dock it. I'll e-mail you a picture of how it docks.

[Solveig]

Hi Michael,

I downloaded the December update and that's the version. Good to hear that you can do the drag to dock in other versions. (Have updated my blog to reflect your comment.)

Solveig

[underblog]

Thanks so much for this. It was really getting on my nerves!

[Sunglok Choi]

Thanks for your good posting. I have a same problem in my OpenOffice. But I can't do that. By your post, I can attach the slide window to OO again.

[Wim Cossement]

Thanks for this tip, this was irritating the snot out of me! :-)
I normally don't need all those windows, since I only use Impress to convert PowerPoints from Windows users to PostScript so I can send them to the plotter.

Is there a way to get your preferred window setup (as few as possible) rememberd btw?

[Tom]

This morning the Ctrl+DB click works.
I don't know why

[Cox377]

Cheers for that, it's been bugging me for a while now and i adventually got round to trying to sort it. Cheers for the tip!

[Solveig]

Hi Tom,

I always attribute stuff like that to gremlin infestation. ;>

[Solveig]

Hi Cox377,
Glad it helped!
Solveig

[Paul]

Thank you so much. I had the same annoying problem. What I think is worse, is that Google is a much better help tool than the one built in to OpenOffice.

[Solveig]

Hi Paul,

Google is a superior tool for finding just about anything, I think. I used to have to use it to find anything on Sun's web site (when I worked there! ;> ).

[Twinkle]

Thank u very very much for the tip .. I have been struggling with this issue for a while.. Your tip really worked :)

Thanks a million

[Miika Komu]

Thanks for the tip, I couldn't have figured out that by myself!

[hnhn]

Thanks for the tip! I was getting quite angry about this issue. Actually the "Tasks" pane has a menu that allows you to dock/undock it, so why not "Slides"? Certainly a potential RFE.

[Solveig Haugland]

Glad it was useful! This has been one of most used tips I've found. I certainly was annoyed before I figured out the solution.

[Usul]

It didn't work for me. Using OOo 2.0.4 on Ubuntu 6.10.
Clicked in the gray area without resuts...

[Usul]

Ok, it worked. I closed all the Impress windows, reopened it and doubleclicked on the gray area while holding ctrl key.

[Solveig Haugland]

It's tricky. I sometimes have to close and reopen.

[Debbie C]

Oh thank you. This has been driving me insane.

[Narsi]

It was driving me nuts and couldn't find until today. Thanks a lot.

[annoyed impress user]

Thanks for the help, that problem was really pissing me off...