Resizing the slides in OpenOffice Impress Handouts

This excellent tip comes to me from Robert.

You can specify the number of slides in your Presentation handouts. Click the Handouts tab at the top  of the work area and you get this view. Pick 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 slides per page.

But sometimes the slide placeholders are kind of small. Really small. It varies a bit depending on what your page orientation was when you made the change.

One thing you can do is switch between number of slides per page, like from 6 to 2 to 3. That can help.

Another approach, you're thinking is "Hey, why not resize the slides????" That would be nice, but when you move your mouse over the corner handle, you get the "denied!" ghostbusters symbol.

But, this is not the end of the line. Robert's type is that the size of the object is protected, with a window you've seen before, the run-of-the-mill Position and Size window. How to get to that window? Just select the slide object, and choose Format > Position and Size, or press F4.

See? The size was protected. No wonder you couldn't resize it.

So unmark the Size checkmark. It's that simple.

You might want to, just for consistency among the sizes of your slides, set the measurement of the slide here. It's easiest to select Keep Ratio, and just set the width. Click OK.

Or you can move your mouse over the corner handle and resize manually. Hold down the Shift key to keep the aspect ratio consistent.

Repeat for the other slides.

You will need to reposition the slides.  Drag them manually. To align them, select two or more, right click and choose Alignment, and the option you need.

Probably Unnecessary but Optional Additional Help for Even Spacing of Slides

Distribution, which helps you make slides evenly spaced apart, isn't available, so turn on View Grid and Snap to Grid if you want a little help.

To make the grid a little darker, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Appearance.

To make changes  to the grid itself, expand the Impress option and make changes under the Grid suboption.

 

You can also zoom in for better magnification to help you make adjustments.

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Comments

[Ben Parsons]

This is great, thank you for the info.

Gotta wonder though, why did OpenOffice decide to have this box checked, why not format the slides properly automatically when the layout is changed, why are they so small etc...
I've just spent over an hour messing with Evince and Acroread PDF exporters, when ONE SINGLE CHECKBOX was the only thing holding OpenOffice back from being a useful app on its own.

[Solveig]

Hi Ben,

There are definitely some surprising defaults. Tools > AutoCorrect > Options > Apply Styles in Writer is one of my pet peeves -- removes automatic formatting when you press Enter.

[Bill K]

Great, thanks for this tip. For as long as I've used OOo (since the 1.x days) if I want to export handouts to a pdf I have to print the handouts to a pdf. Now, in 3.0.1, when I do this the new print dialog lets me select handouts to print (good), and how many slides per handout page to print (okay), but it then ignores the slide layout I set up using the method you describe above. It doesn't completely ignore my handout layout, because it uses the page orientation I set (portrait or landscape), but it loses all the size and spacing information. Do you know a way around this?

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[Andrea]

This trick doesn't work any longer, at least not in OpenOffice.org 3.0-3.2. See http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=94055

[Leonard]

Thanks a great deal!

I'm in university and have been searching for half a day for the solution to size my slides nicely so I can fit in some written notes!

Your guide really helped me! (At least for the next few years of my study)

Cheers,
Leonard