Saving Impress Templates

users
#1

From what I read in the documentation I should be able to create a
Template, save it as a Template, and then it should appear in
Available for Use on the right. When I do that it isn't working, so
either I am doing it wrong or the documentation is missing something.

What I am seeing is that when I am in Impress and go to Save as
Templates-->Save As Template, the window that opens only has one tab,
Documents, and not the four tabs I am used to seeing (Documents,
Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings). If I go to
File-->New-->Templates in Impress I see all four tabs, but Templates I
saved in the Documents tab do not appear.

So, am I reading the documentation wrong? Or is something wrong here?

This is LO 4.3 on Windows 7. I'll see what I get when I do it on a Linux box.
Thanks,

#2

Kevin O'Brien wrote:

What I am seeing is that when I am in Impress and go to Save as
Templates-->Save As Template, the window that opens only has one tab,
Documents, and not the four tabs I am used to seeing (Documents,
Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings).

The four tabs in File > New > Templates are to select which type of new document to create, and it will then show the templates for that type. When saving, the document type is already determined (if you're in Impress, it's a presentation) so there's no point showing the other options, since it wouldn't make sense to save a presentation as a spreadsheet template.

If I go to
File-->New-->Templates in Impress I see all four tabs, but Templates I
saved in the Documents tab do not appear.

For me, templates saved from Impress appear in the "Presentations" tab (in a quite old LibreOffice 4.0.4). Is that not the case for you?

It may be that the template manager is looking in a sub-folder. In that case, click on "All Templates" to get back to the top level, and then go into the folder you saved the template in (probably "My Templates").

I think "Documents" refers to Writer (word processor) documents:
- Writer Documents
- Calc Spreadsheets
- Impress Presentations
- Draw Drawings

Mark.

#3

Chapter 2 of the Impress Guide say that you won't see the relevant template folder if it is empty. Catch-22, eh?!

Here's what it suggests you do:

Saving templates to a hidden folder
This procedure is for a LibreOffice installation that has yet to have any user created or imported templates for use in Impress. Any empty template folders are hidden in the Template Manager and a work-around is necessary to save the first template into the My Templates folder.
1) Go to File > Save As Template on the main menu bar to open the Template Manager dialog. By default the Template Manager opens at the Documents page.
2) Double click on the MediaWiki folder to select it and activate the Save icon, then click the Save icon.
3) Specify the template name in the pop-up dialog and click Accept. The template is saved into the MediaWiki folder. This appears in the MediaWiki folder on the dialog page of the file type being saved, which is Presentations.
4) Close the Template Manager dialog.
5) Go to File > New > Templates on the main menu bar to open the Template Manager dialog again.
Note: Closing and opening the Template Manager is necessary so that the following steps can be carried out to move your template into the My Templates folder.
6) Select the Presentations tab to open the dialog page for presentations (Figure 32).
7) Double-click the MediaWiki folder to open it.
8) Select the template you have just added and the file handling controls are displayed.
9) Click the Move to folder icon and select My Templates from the drop list that appears. Your template will be moved from the MediaWiki folder to the My Templates
folder.
10) Close the Template Manager dialog.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#4

Brian, thank you, that worked, and I doubt I would have thought of it
any time soon. But I have gone over the Impress Guide and I don't see
this in there. I am using the IG4.2, which I believe is the latest,
and the section for Working with Templates begins on Page 47, and I
just cannot find your solution in there anywhere. Are you using a
different version of the Impress Guide, perhaps?

Thanks,

#5

So far, it looks like this workaround needs to be done every time you
attempt to save a Template. So it does not look like a first-time only
problem, it looks like a general bug.

Regards,

#6

I filed a bug on this. It does seem like the best course of action at
this point.

#7

Hi Kevin,

Kevin O'Brien schrieb:

From what I read in the documentation I should be able to create a
Template, save it as a Template, and then it should appear in
Available for Use on the right. When I do that it isn't working, so
either I am doing it wrong or the documentation is missing something.

Here are my steps, which work with LO4.5 (dev) on Windows 7.

1. Start with new Impress document and make all your settings.
2. File > Templates > Save as Template. You should see tab "Documents" with parts "My Templates" an "Presentation Backgrounds"
3. Click on "My Templates". "Presentation Backgrounds" might work too, but I have not tested it.
4. Click on the "Save" icon, enter a template name into the input field. Click OK.
5. Close the document without saving.

To make sure the template is there, goto File > Templates > My Templates. To use it immediately, use File > New > Templates.

To see it in the side pane you need to restart LibreOffice. The list is refreshed when LibreOffice starts. I think, it is a shortcoming of the sidebar, that it has no option to regenerate the list.

Kind regards
Regina

#8

What I am seeing is that when I am in Impress and go to Save as Templates-->Save As Template, the window that opens only has one tab, Documents, and not the four tabs I am used to seeing (Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings).

Chapter 2 of the Impress Guide say that you won't see the relevant template folder if it is empty. Catch-22, eh?!
Here's what it suggests you do:
[...]

Brian, thank you, that worked, and I doubt I would have thought of it any time soon. But I have gone over the Impress Guide and I don't see this in there. I am using the IG4.2, which I believe is the latest, and the section for Working with Templates begins on Page 47, and I just cannot find your solution in there anywhere. Are you using a different version of the Impress Guide, perhaps?

Yes: I was reading the 4.0 Impress Guide (perhaps unhelpfully: sorry). No, there appears to be no similar explanation in the 4.2 guide. Does that mean the problem claims to have been solved?

So far, it looks like this workaround needs to be done every time you attempt to save a Template. So it does not look like a first-time only problem, it looks like a general bug.

Does restarting LibreOffice solve this?

Brian Barker

#9

I not only tried restarting LibreOffice, I tried rebooting for good
measure.<g> No dice either way. My bug is
https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=87640. But the
folks who have looked at it don't think it is a bug. I may need to do
more testing.

#10

Hi Kevin,

Kevin O'Brien schrieb:

I not only tried restarting LibreOffice, I tried rebooting for good
measure.<g> No dice either way. My bug is
https://www.libreoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=87640. But the
folks who have looked at it don't think it is a bug. I may need to do
more testing.

please look into Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Paths, which paths are listed in the category Templates. Perhaps there is something wrong.

Kind regards
Regina

#11

I'm pretty sure the problem you identified has not been solved. But I
think at this point I need to carefully work through each step on a
clean installation. I am certain the first save is still a problem,
but less certain on subsequent saves.

Regards,

#12

Regina, I am pretty sure this did not work when I did this with my
first Template that I saved. That did seem to work when I used the
work around that Brian offered. And it does appear that you need to
restart LibreOffice for anything you have saved to appear. So I am
trying to figure out exactly where the line is between a bug and a
shortfall in the documentation.