Presenting with Impress
LibreOffice
Chapter 8 · Presenting with Impress
Word & PowerPoint Chapter 11 answered a question this whole course has circled back to repeatedly: where does a presenter's own extra detail belong, if not on the visible slide? Impress answers it the same way, under its own name — the Presenter Console. This chapter also flags one genuine, honest gap between the two applications worth knowing about before you need it.
The Same Concept: What the Presenter Sees vs. What the Audience Sees
On a dual-monitor setup, the audience's screen shows only the current slide, full-screen — exactly as designed. The presenter's own screen shows considerably more, privately, exactly the split Word & PowerPoint Chapter 11 established for PowerPoint's own Presenter View.
The Presenter Console
With a second display detected, Impress's Presenter Console shows the presenter, on their own screen: the current slide, a preview of the next slide, Speaker Notes, and an elapsed-time clock — the same four pieces of information PowerPoint's Presenter View provides, just under Impress's own name for the same feature.
Speaker Notes in Impress
View → Notes attaches private text to an individual slide — the same concept as Word & PowerPoint Chapter 11's Speaker Notes, visible only through the Presenter Console or when printed separately as reference notes pages, never to the live audience.
Rehearse Timings
Slide Show → Rehearse Timings runs through the deck in presentation mode while recording how long you actually spend on each slide — the same practice-and-record behaviour Word & PowerPoint Chapter 11 covered for setting up realistic, timed automatic advancing based on a genuine rehearsal rather than a guessed duration.
Setting Up the Slide Show
Slide Show → Slide Show Settings offers a "Loop and repeat after" option for continuous, unattended looping — functionally the same job as PowerPoint's own "Browsed at a kiosk" mode — organized here as a checkbox within one settings dialog rather than PowerPoint's separate set of named presentation-mode options.
Exporting
File → Export As → Export as PDF produces a static, printable reference — the same job as PowerPoint's own Create Handouts, and just as robust and reliable in Impress. For a self-contained video export, though, it's worth being upfront: Impress's own video-export support has historically been less mature and less consistently available across versions than PowerPoint's dedicated Create a Video feature. If a genuine video file is specifically needed, it's worth verifying your exact Impress version's current export options directly rather than assuming full feature parity with PowerPoint here.
| Feature | PowerPoint | Impress |
|---|---|---|
| Private presenter view | Presenter View | Presenter Console — same four elements |
| Private per-slide notes | Speaker Notes | Notes (View → Notes) — same concept |
| Recording real per-slide timing | Rehearse Timings | Rehearse Timings — same name, same job |
| Unattended, looping playback | "Browsed at a kiosk" mode | "Loop and repeat after" in Slide Show Settings |
| PDF export/handouts | Create Handouts | Export as PDF — equally robust |
| Self-contained video export | A dedicated, mature Create a Video feature | Less consistent — verify your specific version's support before relying on it |
Hands-On Exercises
Add Speaker Notes to a slide explaining detail that shouldn't be visible during the live talk. Open the Presenter Console (on a dual-monitor setup, or simulate it) and confirm exactly what the presenter sees versus what the audience-facing screen shows. Identify which Word & PowerPoint chapter's exercise this most directly mirrors.
📄 View solutionYou need a presentation to loop continuously and unattended at a trade show booth. Describe exactly which setting in Slide Show Settings accomplishes this, and how this compares structurally to how PowerPoint organizes the same capability.
📄 View solutionA colleague wants to send a self-contained video of their Impress presentation to stakeholders who couldn't attend live, assuming Impress can do this exactly like PowerPoint's Create a Video feature. Explain what they should actually verify first, and what alternative export this chapter confirms is reliably available in the meantime.
📄 View solutionChapter 8 Quick Reference
- Presenter Console — current slide, next-slide preview, Notes, and a timer for the presenter; the audience sees only the clean current slide
- View → Notes — private per-slide detail, the same concept as PowerPoint's Speaker Notes
- Rehearse Timings — same name, same job as PowerPoint's own feature
- Slide Show Settings → "Loop and repeat after" — Impress's equivalent of "Browsed at a kiosk"
- Export as PDF — robust and reliable, matching PowerPoint's Handouts export
- Video export support is less consistent than PowerPoint's — verify your specific version before relying on it
- Always test the Presenter Console on the actual presentation equipment beforehand