LibreOffice Tuesday T&T: Impress Presenter Screen

LibreOffice Impress is a valuable presentation software, with plenty of advanced features. One of the most liked by skilled presenters is the so called Presentation Screen, which shows the current and the next slide on screen, and the notes. It helps the presenter to maintain the rythm of the presentation, and to remember the details of the talk.

According to LibreOffice default configuration, the Presenter Screen shows only if the PC is connected to two displays. For some people this is a feature, for some others this is a bug. In fact, it is possible to launch the Presenter Screen instead of the Presentation Screen (full screen image of the slide), by following these instructions:

Open Expert Configuration via Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Advanced. Search for StartAlways. You should get the node org.openoffice.Office.PresenterScreen with line Presenter. Double-click that line to toggle the boolean value to true.

Once you have restarted LibreOffice Impress, when you launch the presentation either by hitting F5 or by choosing Slide Show > Start from First Slide, you will not only open the Presenter Screen but you will also launch a virtual Presentation Screen (which can even be shared or captured, if you are speaking at a virtual conference or recording a webinar or a talk).

Thanks to my fellow OSI BoD member Elana Hashman for suggesting the contents of this Tip & Trick with this blog post.