Neil Lucock

neil@nlucock.freeserve.co.uk

Krishna Tateneni

tateneni@pluto.njcc.com

Anne-Marie Mahfouf

annemarie.mahfouf@free.fr

&kpresenter; presents different types of interfaces for you to interact with the program. Perhaps the most familiar type of interface is the menu which appears on the top of the &kpresenter; window. Clicking on the menu items gives you a list of commands from which you can choose the one you want. Many of the commands can also be accessed directly by holding down &Ctrl; or &Alt; and pressing another key on your keyboard. In the next section, each of the menu commands is described in brief. In addition to the menus, &kpresenter; also has a set of toolbars. Each toolbar consists of a collection of icons. A toolbar icon often presents a convenient shortcut to a command that is found in one of the menus. The toolbars The toolbars You can move the toolbar around by dragging the handle, shown here in red. Toolbars can be docked or attached to any side of the &kpresenter; window. If you like, you can also have the toolbar float in its own window, separated from the main &kpresenter; window as shown in the screenshot below: Floating toolbar Floating toolbar If you don't like dragging toolbars around, right click on the handle and a menu pops up as shown in the screenshot below: Toolbar context menu Toolbar context menu The first few items in the popup menu have to do with the placement of the toolbar. You can choose any of the four sides of the &kpresenter; window, or have the toolbar float in a separate window. Choosing Flat hides the toolbar. To unflat a hidden toolbar, &LMB; click on its handle. Choosing the next item in the menu, Text Position, leads to an additional menu which lets you control the appearance of the items in toolbar. This additional cascading menu is shown in the screenshot below: The toolbar modes menu The toolbar modes menu The default view of the toolbar is icons only. In this view, if you don't know what a particular icon means, you can hold the mouse over the icon, and after a second or so, a little hint pops up in a highlighted text box as shown in the screenshot below: Tooltips Tooltips You can choose to display the toolbar items as text instead of icons, or even to combine both icons and text. If you want both text and icons, the cascading menu allows you to select whether the text appears beside the icons or below them. All four styles of displaying toolbar items are shown in the screenshot below: The toolbar styles The toolbar styles The &kpresenter; menus are discussed in the following sections. &Ctrl;N File New Begins a new presentation. The startup dialog will open, allowing you to choose a template for your presentation. &Ctrl;O File Open... Opens an existing presentation. A standard &kde; file open dialog will appear, allowing you to choose a file to open. File Open Recent Displays a list of recently opened files for you to choose from. &Ctrl;S File Save Saves the currently open presentation. If you have not previously saved it, you will be asked to name the file. If you have previously saved the presentation, it will be resaved with the same name. File Save As... Saves the currently open presentation with a new name. File Reload Reload the currently active file. File Import... Import a presentation that was previously created in one of several common formats. File Export... Export the currently open presentation to one of several common formats for use in another application, or for exchange with someone who does not have access to &kpresenter;. File Mail... Open a new email message in your selected email client with the current &kpresenter; document attached. File Create HTML Slideshow... Starts the HTML wizard, which is described in the section . File Create Memory Stick Slideshow... Starts the Memory Stick dialog, which is described in the section . Template Manager Allows you to save the current slide as a template. In future the template will be available for you to use to build slides with. Creating a template is further discussed in section . File Use Current Slide as Default Template Sets the current slide as your default template. Especially useful if you have created a template of your own to fit into corporate style guidelines, or if you just use a particular layout very often. &Ctrl;P File Print... Prints the presentation. More precisely, it opens the print settings dialog, where you can adjust the settings before printing your presentation. File Print Preview... Displays the presentation with a &PostScript; viewer, exactly as it would look if printed. File Document Information Allows you to enter information about the document. This includes information about the author, and an abstract on the documents contents. &Ctrl;W File Close Close the current presentation. You will be given an opportunity to save any changes first. &Ctrl;Q File Quit Close &kpresenter;. You will be given an opportunity to save all changes in all open presentations first. &Ctrl;Z Edit Undo: Last task Undo the last action you performed. &Ctrl;&Shift;Z Edit Redo: Last undone task Redo the last action you undid. If you have not undone any actions, or the last undo action is not reversible, this menu item is disabled. &Ctrl;X Edit Cut Copy the selected item to the clipboard, and remove it from the document. &Ctrl;C Edit Copy Copy the selected item to the clipboard, while leaving it intact in your presentation. &Ctrl;V Edit Paste Insert the contents of the clipboard into your presentation. &Ctrl;Delete Edit Delete Remove the currently selected item from your presentation. &Ctrl;A Edit Select All Select all the objects and text on the current slide. &Ctrl;&Shift;A Edit Deselect Deselect any currently selected objects. &Ctrl;F Edit Find... Search for text within the presentation. F3 EditFind Next Find the next occurrence of a piece of text within a presentation. &Shift;F3 EditFind Previous Find the previous occurrence of a piece of text within a presentation. &Ctrl;R EditReplace... Replace one or more occurrences of a piece of text in your presentation with a different piece of text. Edit Copy Slide Copy the current slide to the clipboard. Edit Duplicate Slide Insert an exact copy of the current slide. Edit Delete Slide Delete the current page from the presentation. You will be asked to confirm this action. Edit Duplicate Object... Create a duplicate of the currently selected object. A dialog will display allowing you to set some options for the duplicate, ⪚ if it should be rotated, or scaled, or offset to a new position on the slide. View New View Opens another window with the same presentation loaded so you can work on more than one slide at a time. &Ctrl;&Shift;W View Close All Views Close all views on the presentation. You will be given a chance to save any changes, or to cancel closing. View Split View Splits the window into two (or more) views on the same presentation. The default split is horizontal. View Remove View Close only the currently active view. The presentation, and any other views you have open, remain open, and any changes you have made remain unsaved. View Splitter Orientation Toggle the split view between Horizontal (the default) and Vertical. View Show Sidebar Toggle the display of the sidebar where you can see an overview of all the slides in your presentation. View Show Notebar Toggle the display of the notebar where you can see an overview of all the notes in your presentation. View Slide Master Toggle the display of the slide master where you can put objects that you want to appear on each slide in your presentation. View Formatting Characters Show a visual representation of non-printing characters, such as tabs and paragraph markers. This can be a useful aid to precisely positioning text. This item can be toggled. If enabled, formatting characters are visible; if disabled, they are not. View Guide Lines When working in &kpresenter; you can drag a guide line from either the horizontal or vertical ruler onto your document. This guide-line will not print or display in the finished presentation, it is simply to help you align objects on screen. If this item is enabled, these guide lines will be visible. If this is disabled, they will not be visible. Guide lines work across slides, allowing you to align objects the same way across multiple slides. Disabling (hiding) guide lines does not delete them. If you have created guide lines, and then disabled this item, enabling it again will retain the guide lines you created. View Add Guide Line... Opens a dialog to select the Orientation (Horizontal or Vertical) and choose a Position: View Show/Hide Grid If enabled, &kpresenter; will display a grid of dots representing the intersections of imaginary horizontal and vertical lines. You can use these dots to precisely position objects on the slide. View Snap to Grid If this is enabled, when dropping or moving objects on the slide the top left corner of the object will snap or move, to the nearest grid point. This does reduce your freedom to freely position objects on the slide, however it also helps to line up objects precisely. It is easily disabled or enabled with this menu entry, allowing you the best of both worlds. View Zoom This submenu allows you to zoom in or out of the slide. Several predefined zoom levels are available, including Whole Slide to scale the entire slide so as to be visible in the size window you have open, and Width to scale the slide so it fills the entire width of the window, although you may now have to scroll vertically. There are also several other scaling choices, from 33% up to 500%. &Alt;&Shift;C Insert Special Character... Insert a special character. This might be a character you don't have a key for on your keyboard layout, for instance ü on a US Keyboard. Insert Variable Here you can insert a variable that is filled in with a value that may be updated as you update the document. Insert Link... Insert a hyperlink to a file, a website, or an email address. This enables these locations to be linked to directly from within active presentations, with resources being handled as appropriately by other applications installed on your system. Insert Comment... Enter a small note that does not display during the real presentation. You might use this to comment on a colleague's text, or to leave a note for yourself about something to do later. F2 Insert Slide... Add a new page to your presentation. A dialog will open allowing you to choose a template, and whether to insert the new page before or after the currently selected page. InsertFile... Insert an already existing presentation. A standard &kde; file open dialog will appear, allowing you to choose a &kpresenter; Document (.kpr) or a OASIS OpenDocument Presentation (.odp), which will be inserted after the last slide in your current presentation. F10 InsertText Add a new text object. Click and drag to create a frame where you wish the text to appear. Insert Chart Insert a chart. Click and drag to define the size of the chart. Some default data will be displayed. Double click to edit the data and choose the type of chart to display, using the embedded &kchart; editor. F5 InsertTable Insert a table. Click and drag to define the size of the table. A &kspread; open dialog will display. You may import a spreadsheet that you have saved in one of many formats, including plain text files. You may also choose to create a new and empty table. Double clicking on the table will allow you to edit the contents. Insert Object An object is an embeddable file, in one of many formats. A common use of this action is to insert scaleable clipart in vector format. &Shift;F5 Insert Picture... Insert a raster image. These are not as easily scaleable as vector images or clipart. &kpresenter; currently understands many formats, including .tiff, .jpg, .png and many more. Insert Line You can insert several types of lines. Line drawing is described further in the drawing tools section. Insert Shape You can insert several prepared shapes, in vector format. These are editable just like lines you have drawn yourself. Using the drawing tools is described in detail in the drawing tools section. Insert Scan Image... Scan an image with a scanner. This requires you have a scanner installed. It opens the Acquire Image dialog to allow the use of the scanner. Format Select If you have been using a tool such as the line drawing tool which does not allow you to select other objects, you can use this menu item to return to the normal selection cursor. Format Rotate Changes the cursor to a double headed curved arrow. Click with the &LMB; onto an object and keep the button pressed.Drag with the cursor to rotate the object on the slide around its center. When you are happy with the position of the object, release the mousebutton to stop rotating. If you change your mind and wish to cancel the rotation, use EditUndo to later undo it. Format Zoom Allow you to zoom in or out in the current slide. You can see the zoom factor in the Edit toolbar, in the zoom indicator. The zoom factor indicator The zoom factor indicator Left clicking on the slide will Zoom In. Right clicking on the current slide will present you a menu to allow you to Zoom In, to Zoom Out, to Zoom Entire Slide, to Zoom Slide Width or Zoom Slide Height, to Zoom Selected Objects or Zoom All Objects which put back all objects in your view. This action has the same effect as ViewZoom on another form. Format Properties Open the Properties dialog for the currently selected object on your slide. The Properties dialog The Propertiesdialog The Properties dialog for an object allows you to manipulate it in a very detailed manner. You can change several properties for the selected object, like the text color if the object is text or the depth if the object is a picture. Format Arrange Objects This is where you can manipulate the stacking order of objects on the slide. An object that is on top will cover, either partially or fully depending on its size, all other objects beneath it. Meanwhile an object on the bottom of the stack may not be visible at all, as it is covered up by other objects. An object in the middle may be partially covered by other objects, while partially covering yet more objects itself. You can send the selected object down or up a layer, or directly to the top or bottom of the stack. Format Align Objects In the submenu you can quickly align all the currently selected objects with a side of the slide, or center them either vertically or horizontally. &Ctrl;G Format Group Objects If you are drawing, you might want to make something out of several objects. Arrange the individual parts where you want them, select one, then hold down the &Ctrl; key as you click in the others you want to group together. Click Group Objects and from then on they act as if they are just one thing. It glues things together. &Ctrl;&Shift;G Format Ungroup Objects If you decide that you want to alter an object that is made out of several pieces, you can unglue it with this tool. Click somewhere away from the object to deselect it, then click to select one of its parts. Format Shadow Objects... This puts a colored copy of either text or a drawn object behind it. You can make nice dropped shadows for logos with this tool. To enable this item, ensure that you have object(s) selected (you will see the six small black boxes around the outline.) You choose the color, select which way the shadow is going to fall and select a distance. For text it looks nice if you set the distance to two or three. Click Apply to see the result of your settings for all selected objects on the slide without leaving the dialog. Format Page Layout... Allows you to set the page details. You can specify the margins, the orientation, either portrait (higher than wide) or Landscape (wider than high) formats. There are many templates, such as screen, A4, US legal. Format Enable/Disable Document Header Toggle the display of the header field on the current slide. Header content can only be added in the master slide but you can choose to display the header only on some slides with this action. Format Enable/Disable Document Footer Toggle the display of the footer field on the current slide. Footer content can only be added in the master slide but you can choose to display the footer only on some slides with this action. Format Slide Background... Allows you to alter the background to your presentation slides. Your options are Color/Gradient, (which lets you set either a plain color or one of many gradients) or Picture, which gives a dialog box to find the picture you want. Set the View mode: for this picture to Scaled, Centered, or Tiled. If you want a plain color, click in the box to select it. Gradients only work when you have chosen two colors. The picture option allows you to center the picture, zoom it to cover the entire slide (if it is smaller than the screen, this is very useful) or tile it. This is used when you want a small pattern to repeat across the page. It's probably best used with patterns rather than pictures of logos. You can get rid of a picture by selecting another one or choosing a color/gradient. This menu modifies selected text and provides a few tools familiar from word processing applications for your convienience for when you are making presentations with large amounts of text in them. The Text menu will only effect selected or highlighted text. Text Default Format Restores selected text to the system default font size, style and formatting. Text Font... The Select Font dialog contains options for selected segments of text: The Select Font dialog The Select Font dialog With this dialog, you can change the font, style and size of selected text. The preview box at the bottom allows you to approximate changes before you make them. &Ctrl;&Alt;P Text Paragraph... The Paragraph Settings dialog contains settings for larger blocks of text, such as paragraphs. Using this dialog, you can set indenting, line spacing, bullet/numbered list and border settings. Text Color... Use the Select Color dialog to have precise control over the color of selected text: The Select Color dialog The Select Color dialog Using the color spectrum box on the left, colors can be precisely defined for use in your document. The color tone can then be adjusted using the scale to the right of the spectrum box. The input boxes below the color spectrum allow color values to be entered, so that exact colors can be specified. Use the color picker to select colors from elsewhere in your document (⪚ images). &Ctrl;&Alt;S Text Style Manager The Style Manager allows you to create an entire set of attributes that will be applied to selected text all at once. See Working With Styles Text Import Styles... Here you can import styles that you have defined in another &kpresenter; document. Text Style Using this submenu, you can apply a style that you have previously defined to the currently selected text. Text Create Style From Selection Copy the properties of the currently selected text and save them as a style that you may apply to other text. Text Align Align has a submenu with several options: Align Left (&Alt;L), Align Center (&Alt;C), Align Right (&Alt;R), and Align Block (&Alt;J) which is also commonly known as Justify. Text is by default left-aligned. Text Type Using this submenu, you can format the currently selected text as a list, either of the numbered or bulleted type. If you choose numbered, you can then select a numbering style, and likewise if you choose bulleted, you can choose the style of bullets to use. To change a list back to plain text, select None as the style. &Ctrl;+ Text Increase Depth &Ctrl;- Text Decrease Depth Increase Depth and Decrease Depth move paragraphs in a list either to the right (Increase Depth) or back to the left (Decrease Depth). Text Extend Contents to Object Height Text Extend Object to Fit Contents Extend Contents to Object Height and Extend Object to Fit Contents help to resize text within the text box or make the text box fit the text you have typed or pasted into it. Text Insert Slide Number Insert a dynamically-updated slide number. This page number will automatically update when slides are added or removed from your presentation to reflect the correct slide value. Text Change Case... Presents a dialog that provides a variety of different case/capitalization options for the currently selected text. You may choose between several styles of capitalization, including all lower or uppercase, book style capitalization where each word except conjunctions has an initial capital letter, and sentence style capitalization where the first word in a sentence is capitalized. You can also toggle the case, so that uppercase becomes lowercase, and vice versa. Text Spellcheck Use this submenu to utilize the spellcheck options. If you enable Autospellcheck, &kpresenter; will automatically check text that you enter for spelling errors. If you prefer to check spelling explicitly, rather than automatically, you can also force a Spelling... check here. Text Autocorrection Use this submenu to utilize autocorrection options. If you Enable Autocorrection, common spelling errors will be corrected as you type. For example, if you entered Teh, it would be autocorrected to The. If the autocorrection feature is not active, you can also Apply Autocorrection check here. Slide Show Configure Slide Show... You can set up the properties for the entire slide show here, including whether to show the duration on screen, which of the slides in a presentation to include, and several other global settings. Slide Show Edit Object Effect... Choose what effect you want to apply for the highlighted object. This is where you can set the order of appearance, how the object will appear, if you want a sound while the object appears and if you want some disappearance effects too. Slide Show Edit Slide Transition... Apply transition effects to the currently open slide. This is where you can choose how the transition from one slide to the next will be handled. The transition effects you select here are applied on the transition from this slide to the next. F12 Slide Show Start Begin the slideshow from the current slide. Slide Show Start From First Slide Begin the slideshow from the first slide. Slide Show Custom Slide Show... Opens a dialog to Add..., Modify..., Remove and Copy slides and Test the slide show in full screen mode. Home Slide Show Go to Start Go directly to the first slide in the slide show. PageUp Slide Show Previous Slide Go back to the previous slide in the slide show. PageDown Slide Show Next Slide Go to the next slide in the slide show. End Slide Show Go to End Go immediately to the final slide in the slide show. The Settings menu allows you to customize &kpresenter;. Settings Toolbars The items in this submenu can be toggled, that is, you can both enable and disable the display of specific toolbars here. Settings Configure Autocorrection... Autocorrection is &kpresenter;'s ability to correct common typing errors or expand abbreviations independently of the spell checking function. There are several common typing errors entered for you by default such as replacing teh with the and you can add as many more as you like. The ability to expand abbreviations can save you a lot of typing time, if you often repeat text whether in the same presentation or in multiple presentations. For instance, if you work for Company with a really really long name Inc. then you might define an autocorrection entry so that whenever you type myJob or some other piece of unique text, it will be replaced with Company with a really really long name Inc.. Autocorrection can be applied automatically as you type, or only on demand when you choose it from the Text menu. Please see the Configure Autocorrection section for a complete explanation. Settings Configure Completion... Autocompletion allows you to type the first few letters of a commonly used word (often technical or job specific), and tells &kpresenter; to finish typing the word for you. Please see the Configure Completion section for a complete explanation. Settings Configure Shortcuts... Configure Shortcuts allows you to assign a keyboard shortcut to actions that &kpresenter; menus or icons contain. Customize Shortcuts Customizing the shortcuts If you try to assign a shortcut that is already used, it will give you a warning message. Highlight what you want to do (in the picture, I have chosen to make a keyboard shortcut to About KDE). Click the radio button to the Custom key setting and type the key you want to use. I assigned Control key and Y to bring up the About KDE dialog box. The button shows what has been assigned. Click OK to make the changes, click Default to restore whatever was assigned as default, click Cancel to do nothing and leave the dialog. Settings Configure Toolbars... Configure Toolbars allows you to add or delete icons on each of the toolbars. Configuring &kpresenter; toolbars Configuring &kpresenter; toolbars At the top is a drop down box to enable you to choose which toolbar you want to modify. In the picture the Format toolbar is selected. If I want to add the Spelling icon to that toolbar, I click the entry in the left window. The arrow pointing right becomes available, if I click the arrow the Spelling entry is added to the selected toolbar. The left arrow is available when you click in the right side window. It allows you to remove an icon from a toolbar. The up and down arrows become active when an item on the wright side is selected. You can also move the highlight in the right side window up and down with the keyboard arrow keys. By clicking on the arrows with the mouse you can change the order of the entries in the menu. Settings Configure &kpresenter;... See the configure &kpresenter; section for a complete explanation of all &kpresenter; settings. &help.menu.documentation;