[Copying slides from one presentation to another]

users
#1

Thank you for responding; maybe you've figured this out for me.

       I'll be attempting this soon,

#2

Enviar: martes 17 de abril de 2018 a las 22:44
De: anne-ology <laginnis@gmail.com>
Para: users@global.libreoffice.org
Asunto: Re: [libreoffice-users] [Copying slides from one presentation to another]

       Thank you for responding; maybe you've figured this out for me.

       I'll be attempting this soon,

Anne,

Do you have the help files installed? I don't generally use Impress, but I know from changes in Writer that I have had to look for things (including the Insert Document function from 5.x). I just opened Impress (6.0.3.2) and a) (based on Virgil's reply), found the insert file function slide function (oddly to me, under Slide rather than Insert) and b) checked the help file which in an sub-entry for insert has instructions for inserting either a whole file or selected slides.

This is similar to changes in Writer, although, actually, more accessible in the Impress help file than the Writer one. Actually, I cannot find equivalent help in Writer at the moment as the Insert document is now handled by Insert text from document which I do not see documented or at least clearly indexed (at least in my Spanish-language help files), neither do I see the possibility of selecting only part of the text before insertion (which makes the label for the command misleading).

Anne and Virgil,

I am not sure why some menus have changed, but I think that we have to recognize that LO faces two issues. First, some of the menus are exceedingly long at this point (at least in Writer) and so subject to reorganization. Second, some functions may be redone rather than completely lost, and redoing should, perhaps be our first assumption leading us to either hunt around, check the help files, or, later, resort to the forum.

In addition, since we are using the bleeding edge version of LO, we have to expect not only changes, but perhaps some flaws in those changes and be prepared to give feedback. I have discovered one problem with resizing related to Gtk3 in 6.0. I find one change in Word annoying (where one could formerly create columns by marking the text and clicking "columns" and now must insert a section and then the text in the section). There feedback is the crucial thing. The column command change may be related to changing and expanding functionality or simply a lack of understanding of good workflow for the users (although I will give the benefit of the doubt here). In this case I am foregoing feedback at the moment because, while I find the prior organization more flexible and reasonable in terms of workflow, I cannot say it impedes my work. It simply changes the order in which I do things.

Best,
Roy

#3

Roy,

Thank you for your thoughts on menu-redesign.

My comment about not knowing why this particular change was needed was
not intended as a complaint, although I can see how it could have been
taken that way.

I am *extremely* grateful to the LO developers for their overall
consistency in user interface from one release to the next. I'm
especially grateful that they have never followed Microsoft's lead with
the ribbon, a total redesign that did nothing other than take up screen
real estate.

I can understand why some things may make more sense in a different
place on the menu. For example, "Insert > File..." may give the
impression that the only thing that can be inserted is an entire Impress
file rather than select slides from that file, or a user might think it
refers to files other than other Impress files. By moving the function
to "Slide > Insert Slides from File..." a user may more clearly
understand what the function provides.

I consider a change like this to be extremely minor, and once learned, I
will quickly forget that there used to be a different way.

And, given the open source nature of LO, it always seems that the help
files lag behind the improvements to the program itself.

Virgil

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
Yes, I tend to think it's inevitable that documentation lags behind
implementation - unless one makes promises that may not be able to be kept
or that restrict development or that are going to be broken and then need
to be rewritten. I too think LO gets it right.

'Recently' 'the' Documentation Team became quite a lot larger. Up until a
couple of years ago the English Team was mostly reliant on a very tiny
number of total stars - unsung heroes imo. It was led by 1 individual who
really didn't want the job of leading the team but who was accidentally
really good at leading and just couldn't help doing so. She even hid for a
few months once but had set things up so well that most of us lurkers
hadn't even realised.

Nowadays that's all changed. Many more people seem to be involved at
higher levels and new people are joining all the time. It's still not the
discussion-group that it was in the earlys but it seems to get a lot of
work done on the Published Guides and seems to have expanded it's remit a
bit and liases with the translators more.

The 'in-built' help still seems to be a very tiny crew working with very
technical tools to build something that is easier to translate. Part of
that is to make sure it doesn't keep changing all the time. ie, it's what
we normal users think of as "stable". Fixing any of it's problems could
easily result in tons of work for hundreds of language teams even where the
translators have already corrected those things as they were going along.

A stupid fictional example would be adding a space after a full-stop in 1
sentence. That would send an alert to hundreds of translators and mark
their current translations as incomplete or wrong. Then for each of the
over a hundred languages one person would have to "Ok" it's translation and
another "Ok" it in the review process and another "Ok" it as being
proof-read and once accepted those 'translations' would be sent to all the
distros for their translator teams to "Ok"!

There is work being done to smooth some of that out and work-flows are
set-up to minimise it but the up-shot is that the in-built help is great
for non-English and the published guides are better for English.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications

Regards from
a Tom :slight_smile:

Roy,

Thank you for your thoughts on menu-redesign.

My comment about not knowing why this particular change was needed was
not intended as a complaint, although I can see how it could have been
taken that way.

I am *extremely* grateful to the LO developers for their overall
consistency in user interface from one release to the next. I'm
especially grateful that they have never followed Microsoft's lead with
the ribbon, a total redesign that did nothing other than take up screen
real estate.

I can understand why some things may make more sense in a different
place on the menu. For example, "Insert > File..." may give the
impression that the only thing that can be inserted is an entire Impress
file rather than select slides from that file, or a user might think it
refers to files other than other Impress files. By moving the function
to "Slide > Insert Slides from File..." a user may more clearly
understand what the function provides.

I consider a change like this to be extremely minor, and once learned, I
will quickly forget that there used to be a different way.

And, given the open source nature of LO, it always seems that the help
files lag behind the improvements to the program itself.

Virgil

Enviar: martes 17 de abril de 2018 a las 22:44
De: anne-ology <laginnis@gmail.com>
Para: users@global.libreoffice.org
Asunto: Re: [libreoffice-users] [Copying slides from one presentation to

another]

        Thank you for responding; maybe you've figured this out for me.

        I'll be attempting this soon,

Anne,

Do you have the help files installed? I don't generally use Impress, but

I know from changes in Writer that I have had to look for things (including
the Insert Document function from 5.x). I just opened Impress (6.0.3.2) and
a) (based on Virgil's reply), found the insert file function slide function
(oddly to me, under Slide rather than Insert) and b) checked the help file
which in an sub-entry for insert has instructions for inserting either a
whole file or selected slides.

This is similar to changes in Writer, although, actually, more accessible

in the Impress help file than the Writer one. Actually, I cannot find
equivalent help in Writer at the moment as the Insert document is now
handled by Insert text from document which I do not see documented or at
least clearly indexed (at least in my Spanish-language help files), neither
do I see the possibility of selecting only part of the text before
insertion (which makes the label for the command misleading).

Anne and Virgil,

I am not sure why some menus have changed, but I think that we have to

recognize that LO faces two issues. First, some of the menus are
exceedingly long at this point (at least in Writer) and so subject to
reorganization. Second, some functions may be redone rather than completely
lost, and redoing should, perhaps be our first assumption leading us to
either hunt around, check the help files, or, later, resort to the forum.

In addition, since we are using the bleeding edge version of LO, we have

to expect not only changes, but perhaps some flaws in those changes and be
prepared to give feedback. I have discovered one problem with resizing
related to Gtk3 in 6.0. I find one change in Word annoying (where one could
formerly create columns by marking the text and clicking "columns" and now
must insert a section and then the text in the section). There feedback is
the crucial thing. The column command change may be related to changing and
expanding functionality or simply a lack of understanding of good workflow
for the users (although I will give the benefit of the doubt here). In this
case I am foregoing feedback at the moment because, while I find the prior
organization more flexible and reasonable in terms of workflow, I cannot
say it impedes my work. It simply changes the order in which I do things.