OpenOffice.org Impress, a part of the OpenOffice.org office suite and developed by Sun Microsystems, is a presentation program similar to Microsoft PowerPoint. In addition to being able to create PDF files from presentations, it is also able to export presentations to SWF files allowing them to be played on any computer with a Flash player installed. It is able to view, edit and save files in several file formats, including the .ppt format, which is used by Microsoft PowerPoint.

The program lacks ready-made presentation designs, although third-party templates are readily available on the Internet. An advantage that Impress has over PowerPoint is that it is distributed under an open source licence and so is freely available for download without charge.

OpenOffice.org Impress users can install the Open Clip Art Library, which adds a large gallery of images for general presentation and drawing projects. Linux distributions Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva and Ubuntu have provided the ready-to-use openclipart package for download and install from their online software repositories.

Released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public Licence, Impress is free software.

See also

• Open Clip Art Library
• Comparison of office suites

References

External links

• Impress Official Page
• Impress Presentation FAQ
• User resources at OOo Wiki
• OpenOffice.org 2 Guidebook
• OpenOffice.org Blog

Templates and resources

• Presentation Templates from the official documentation page
• OpenOffice.org Impress Templates
• Extension Repository for OpenOffice

Guide and Articles

• OpenOffice.org 2.x Impress Guide
• First Steps in Impress, updated for OpenOffice.org 2.0
• Differences In Use Between Impress and Powerpoint
• TuxMagazine issue 10 (free PDF download after registration)
• OpenOffice.org 2.0 Impress: the Confusing Duckling Becomes a User-Friendly Swan by Solveig L. Haugland

• Delivering Effective Presentations with OpenOffice.org's Impress