Presentations are slide shows and are an easy way to create training courses and training aids for classes and step by step learning. Presentations can incorporate text, images, sounds and even video.

In this article I'm going to show you step by step how to create a slide show training program with a free piece of software called open office.

Presentations can be used for any classroom or seminar style training and appeals to:

• Community and training Classes
• Education (schools, colleges, university)
• Advertising, marketing
• Business training classes
• Workshops
• Seminars
• and more...

There is also a market for a “services” business model for
making productions using the same process and the same software, for example (weddings and special occasions) incorporating pictures, videos and background music.   


Creating our own presentation here’s how
(we’re going to be using openoffice presentation suite in this guide for the people that don’t own Microsoft office - openoffice is free)



Before you get started

Plan ahead. Think about the purpose of your presentation and your audience. Are you wanting to create a standalone photo display that is intended to run unaccompanied? A report combining text and images (and optionally sound or video) to accompany an oral report or discussion? Do you already have the images (and optional music and video clips) that you need?


Think about your text. Your presentation should not be too text-heavy. Text in a presentation should present an outline of what you're planning to say-- not actual paragraphs of content. Like an outline, it shows the main points- a summary.


In fact, you may want to write out an outline before you begin entering anything into your presentation-- though there's also an outline mode in your presentation software.

Alternatively, I encourage users to prepare a list of questions; each question (and an outline of the answer) can easily become a slide in the presentation.


Getting started

If you've got OpenOffice.org installed onto a computer running Windows, there are two ways to start a new presentation. The default installation puts a folder into the Start Menu labelled OpenOffice.org 2.0, with icons inside it with the names of the various components. Click on the one named OpenOffice.org Impress to start a new presentation.

Choosing a slide design again gives you a paltry selection of pre-made designs; if you choose one (of two) it is applied to all slides. Again, I'm going to leave things empty and click Next. (Note that you can skip all these preliminary stages by clicking Create at any time)

Slide transitions are, perhaps, more interesting... transitions appear when you move from one slide to another, letting the next slide fade in or appear from the top-left corner on down. Any transition you choose now will be applied to all slides; again, you can ignore this now and add transitions later, which also lets you apply a different transition effect to each slide if desired.



You can preview each of a long list of transitions in the preview window by clicking the little arrow next to the words currently reading: No Effect. (Note that on older, slower computers, transitions that appear smooth in the preview window may in fact be slow and unbearable displayed on the full screen).


Another choice here: the default presentation type requires a mouse click (or pressing Enter or the right-arrow key) to move to the next slide. If you want a kiosk-type presentation where slides change on their own, select Automatic then set the duration for each page.


When you've made your choices, click Create.


And you'll see the interface


The interface has three main areas: On the left, there are small versions of each slide, currently with only one slide appearing. When there are multiple slides, you can scroll up and down, and select an individual slide. The centre section has a larger view of the currently-selected slide, allowing you to add text, images, etc. Notice that along the top of this section are tabs, allowing you to switch from this Normal view to Outline view, a view of your handouts, notes, etc.







On the right, you'll see a variety of pre-made slide layouts. In this section, you can also see options for Master Pages (the same slim selection we passed up on when we were getting started), Custom Animations (more on that later), and (again) Slide Transitions.



Let's start by moving our mouse over to the right-hand slide layout in the top row (in that right, Layouts panel). Notice that if you let your mouse cursor point there for a moment, a label: Title Slide pops up. Click it and see how the slide in the centre section changes and now has the Title Slide design, complete with hints: Click to Add Title and Click to Add Text. (These hints, along with the grey lines outlining the different areas don't appear in the actual presentation or if you print your file). Feel free to give your publication a title, and add your name, date, etc. In the lower section. Don't worry about background colour, pictures, etc for now.



Work flow

There are two main ways to create a presentation. Some people prefer to type right into slides, as they appear in the Normal view pictured above, creating new slides as needed. An alternative is to work in Outline view, by clicking on the second, Outline tab.



When you do that, you simply type an outline, and the software creates new generic slides everytime you make a new main heading by pressing Enter. When you press Enter to move to a new line, a new slide is created... instead, press Tab to change it to an indented sub-heading. Pressing Tab again, indents further. If you've indented too far, hold the Shift key down while you press Tab to move one level back to the left.


After you've added all your text, you can move back to Normal view, change the slide layouts and add graphics, etc.

Instead, we're going to type right into slides in the Normal view.

When you need to add a new slide, either click on the Insert menu and choose Slide or right-click in an empty piece of the left-hand Slides panel and pick New Slide from the popup menu:







Notice how the new slide is also formatted as a title slide (since that's what you picked last)... look over the various sample formats in the Layouts section on the right. You can use the scrollbar for that section to see additional layouts. Perhaps most popular are the ones with a title and two columns, one for text, and one (with a picture of a house) for an image. There are versions with the image on the left or with the image on the right. Note that there are similar-looking layouts with the picture of the house replaced with a bar-graph. Unless you are planning to add a graph from data contained in a spreadsheet, you don't want one of those!

Notice also that the layout suggests that any text you add in the text frame will appear bulleted. You can turn this off, but it's a reminder that your text is an outline-- in point form. Choose the slide design with the little house on the left. Type in a title and some bullet points of text. Notice that you can type too much text to fit on the slide. If that happens, you could select your text and set it to a smaller size... but better might be to limit the amount of text on that slide and add it to another slide-- your audience can't digest too much text at one time.






Note the little picture of the greenery on the left, along with the hint: "Double-click to add graphics". Do it. You'll be prompted to choose a picture from a file on your PC: You can navigate to another location to find a picture of your choice stored on you computer.


Notice that when you insert a picture this way, it is automatically resized to fit in the available space. Once the picture is inserted onto the slide, you can click on it to select it. With it selected, you can move it around the slide with your mouse, resize it (by dragging one of the little green boxes along the sides), or delete it by pressing the Delete key.







If you Delete the picture you just inserted... You’ll notice that there's no obvious way to add a different picture. Here's what you can do (and you do this to add a picture on your title slide or anywhere else):


Click on the Insert menu. Choose Picture and then From File.

This time, the dialogue box will go to the same folder where you found the first picture. Pick the same picture or another one. Notice that this time, the picture is not automatically placed or sized... move your picture and resize it as needed.


Using the Insert/Picture/From File menu item lets you add multiple pictures onto one slide and make any arrangement you like.





Insert additional slides, adding text and images as needed.


There is a lot of 'eye candy' in presentation software... you can spend huge amounts of time fiddling with fonts, sizes, animations, transitions, backgrounds, and more. My suggestions:
•    Add your basic text and pictures first... when you've got all the content entered, then (if time permits) fiddle with the background, transitions, and animations (in that order).
•    More eye candy is not necessarily better. It's easy to create a presentation that distracts your audience from your content. Ask yourself whether your presentation is effective at communicating with your audience. Don't add special effects just because you can!



Backgrounds

Assuming you've created all your slides and added your text and images, you may decide that you want something other than a plain white background. To change the background on one (or more) slides, select a slide from the Slides list on the left. Then click on the Format menu, then choose Page and finally, click on the Background tab. You'll get an empty-seeming dialogue box because your Fill is currently set to None. Click on the little arrow beside the word None, and you'll see several choices: Colour, Gradient, Hatching, and Bitmap. Clicking Colour lets you choose from a drop-down list of solid colours or shades.



Gradient gives a range of choices of 'gradient fills', which are smooth blends from one colour to another. Hatching is (in my opinion) a set of boring cross-hatch patterns. Bitmap lets you choose from a range of pre-made pictures: sky, water, marble, rocks, bricks, leaves, etc. Each will be previewed if you select it. Choose what you like then click OK.






When I do that, a small dialogue box pops up asking "Background settings for all pages?" Clicking Yes applies that background to all your slides, clicking No applies it to the selected slide (or slides) only.

Make sure your text is still clear and easy to read if you change the background.



You can also change the text font and colour by clicking “format” then “character” a new pop up appears now toggle between the three tabs “font” “font affects” “position” to choose your text





Setting transitions

While you might have set a default transition when first creating your presentation file, you can set or change the transition at any time - for one (or more) slides or for all the slides in your presentation. To do this, look near the bottom of the right-hand panel “Tasks” for the a label: > Slide Transition . Note the little arrow to the left of the words. The arrow pointing to the left indicates that this section is closed, while the Layouts section is opened. Clicking on the arrow or the words Slide Transition opens that section.







From the slide transitions tab, you can apply a number of different transitions, modify the speed of the transitions add sounds to the transitions and set if you want the transitions to change to the next page automatically or at the click of a mouse.


Animations

While transitions are effects that apply to the whole slide when it first appears, animations are special effects applied to individual blocks of text (even to single letters) or to graphics, after the slide has appeared.

I'm not going to go into detail about animations; you can access these features by selecting the “Custom Animation” option in the right-hand panel (or by clicking the Slide Show menu and selecting Custom Animation).

Experiment! With the animations but  remember It’s the context and covering everything you need to cover that’s important when creating a presentation.

The presentations I have made in the past, I keep transitions simple and the flashy way out animations to a low.

In my opinion by doing this the presentations look more professional and it’s quicker and easier for me to produce.  





Once you have pieced together your presentation Remember to save it, Go to “File” then “save as” then Name the file your saving a save it in a file / folder you will easily find again.


Burning to CD-Rom / DVD

All that’s left for us to do now is to burn our presentation to a CD-Rom or DVD.


To do this you need to use a file burning program, most PC’s come with a Record / burning program pre-installed. 


Open up your burning program select the file / presentation you want to burn then press “Burn copy”


And your ready to start selling!


Note: if you want to put art work on the disc, don’t use printed labels, they can damage Drives and DVD players.


take a quick look at the summery.



Summery for creating presentations

•    Can use public domain (FREE) information to put productions together
•    There’s No cost - Presentations are FREE for us to create
•    One sale and we’re in profit
•    Reproduction cost are low - A CD-Rom in a Jewel case
•    Higher perceived value then a Book
•    Easy to ship
•    Low shipping cost,  
•    Easy to ship worldwide
•    Very High profit margins
•    No stock - when we sell one we just print it off and post it.
•    Can be delivered digitally (download)
•    Can be added to other products to increase value