template creation in Depress (I mean, Impress)

[desperate guest]

Our office just switched to Openoffice. I am a longtime M$ user and am frustrated by what I perceive the limitations with OO. I WANT to like it, but .....

I can't even create a background and save that as a template. I can get to Format, Area, then I pick a gradient (I had created one of my own, thought I saved it--since it appeared in the gradient list and all), and then when I click ok, it doesn't show up!!!! The background is still white. WHY???? WHY?????

Another thing that's driving me crazy is that on a different presentation I had managed to change the background, but then the text box (text frame?) was gray, which looked really stupid. I worked for a long time to try and get the darn thing changed, but it just didn't want to.

I am wondering if maybe there is a problem with this installation? My machine does not have any MS Office on it. Whenever I go to close out I get one of those annoying red circle X's and it says something like "I taunt you, M$ user! I am having an attitude regarding saving anything you do! Mwaaaaaaaa-HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!"

Help please? I really want to like OO.

Thanks!

[The Liquidator]

Hi Desperate guest

You need format/page to do this, not format/area. After selecting your gradient and clicking OK you should get a message "Background settings for all pages?" Whether you click yes or no you will then get the gradient assigned to that page. Clicking yes, will assign the gradient to all new pages, clicking no will assign it to that one only.

You may want to set up 3 slide styles:

Front slide, showing the topic

Second slide (say the speakers)

Third slide which will be the default for all subsequent slides.

Once you are happy then save it as a template. By this I mean select "save as" and give it a name but in the format box use OOo template format. I would recommend that you save it in the OOo\user\template directory and when you want to create a presentation based on it you select new\from template and you will find it in the "default" file.

Try it and see if it works and come back. I think your entire problem was the use of format\area, rather than format\page.

Ian

[desperate guest]

You were very helpful! I appreciate you for answering my question!