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 [email protected] 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.
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.
Posted by: Michaël | January 12, 2006 at 02:29 PM
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
Posted by: Solveig | January 14, 2006 at 05:35 AM
Thanks so much for this. It was really getting on my nerves!
Posted by: underblog | March 01, 2006 at 08:02 AM
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.
Posted by: Sunglok Choi | March 30, 2006 at 06:53 PM
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?
Posted by: Wim Cossement | May 03, 2006 at 07:14 AM
This morning the Ctrl+DB click works.
I don't know why
Posted by: Tom | May 28, 2006 at 08:26 PM
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!
Posted by: Cox377 | May 29, 2006 at 03:53 AM
Hi Tom,
I always attribute stuff like that to gremlin infestation. ;>
Posted by: Solveig | June 07, 2006 at 04:53 AM
Hi Cox377,
Glad it helped!
Solveig
Posted by: Solveig | June 07, 2006 at 04:54 AM
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.
Posted by: Paul | June 10, 2006 at 08:04 PM
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! ;> ).
Posted by: Solveig | June 11, 2006 at 08:11 AM
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
Posted by: Twinkle | September 27, 2006 at 11:01 PM
Thanks for the tip, I couldn't have figured out that by myself!
Posted by: Miika Komu | November 03, 2006 at 02:57 AM
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.
Posted by: hnhn | March 01, 2007 at 09:52 AM
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.
Posted by: Solveig Haugland | March 01, 2007 at 04:13 PM
It didn't work for me. Using OOo 2.0.4 on Ubuntu 6.10.
Clicked in the gray area without resuts...
Posted by: Usul | March 29, 2007 at 03:01 PM
Ok, it worked. I closed all the Impress windows, reopened it and doubleclicked on the gray area while holding ctrl key.
Posted by: Usul | March 29, 2007 at 04:59 PM
It's tricky. I sometimes have to close and reopen.
Posted by: Solveig Haugland | March 29, 2007 at 06:28 PM
Oh thank you. This has been driving me insane.
Posted by: Debbie C | July 26, 2007 at 10:53 AM
It was driving me nuts and couldn't find until today. Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Narsi | September 29, 2008 at 09:24 AM
Thanks for the help, that problem was really pissing me off...
Posted by: annoyed impress user | December 05, 2008 at 08:05 AM