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Create Simple Flash Presentations for the Web with OpenOffice or StarOffice Software

by Corey Liu

Overview

One of the new features in StarOffice 7.0 software and OpenOffice 1.1 is the ability to export a presentation file to flash format. This feature should be sufficient for simple general usage, although currently you cannot create the professional level of flash presentations with StarOffice software or OpenOffice that you can with offerings from Macromedia or other companies.

Before Getting Started

The flash export function is available in StarOffice 7.0 software or later and OpenOffice 1.1 or later. You need to install either StarOffice 7.0 software or OpenOffice 1.1 before getting started. One great feature about StarOffice software and OpenOffice is that both of them support multiple platforms. You can install StarOffice software or OpenOffice on Windows, Linux, the Solaris Operating System, and some other platforms.

StarOffice software can be purchased and downloaded directly from Sun; see the StarOffice Software web page. An evaluation version is also available for download. OpenOffice can be downloaded for free from OpenOffice.org.

Step 1: Create or Import a Presentation with Impress

To create a presentation with StarOffice or OpenOffice software, an application called Impress is available. Impress in StarOffice or OpenOffice software is equivalent to PowerPoint in Microsoft Office. You can even import a presentation file created in PowerPoint to Impress. If you are already familiar with PowerPoint, using Impress should not be a problem because it's pretty similar to using PowerPoint. In the following example, we will use the Autopilot feature in StarOffice and OpenOffice software to create a new presentation.

After launching the Impress program, an Autopilot dialog box should appear. Figure 1 shows the Autopilot Presentation.

Figure 1: Autopilot Presentation

Following the instructions of the Autopilot, you should be able to create a new presentation either from scratch or from existing templates. After a few steps, a simple presentation can be created.

Step 2: Export Your Presentation to Flash Format

The next step is to export your presentation file to flash format. Select File menu and then click on the Export option; a file selection dialog box appears, and then you can choose to export your current presentation to all kinds of different formats, such as HTML, PDF, or flash. Click on the button on the right side of File Format column and select Macromedia Flash (SWF) as your output format. Figure 2 shows the screen where you select the Export option.

Figure 2: Select Export Format

Now you have created a flash presentation from the Impress tool.

Step 3: Put the Flash Presentation on Your Web Page

To put the flash presentation on your web page, you can use any HTML editor or even a simple text editor. Here we choose to use the HTML editor included in StarOffice and OpenOffice software to do the job. Let's assume we want to create a brand new web page and embed our flash presentation in that web page.

First select File menu and then click on the New option; you can then opt to create a new HTML document.

The HTML editor included in StarOffice and OpenOffice software is a feature-complete one. You can use it to create professional web pages just like any other commercial HTML editor. For example, with this tool you can easily create forms, tables, and frames, or insert objects like applets written in the Java programming language. In our example here, we want to insert our flash presentation into a web page. Select Insert from the menu and click on the Object option; click on the Plug-in option, and an Insert Plug-in dialog box will appear (see Figure 3). Click on the Browse button to select the flash presentation file you just created, and then it's done.

Figure 3: Insert Plug-in Dialog Box

After you have inserted the flash presentation into your web page, you should be able to see it from the HTML editor. You can adjust its size by dragging its borders with your mouse.

To make things simple, this will be the only content of the sample web page. Save the HTML document and upload both the HTML document and the flash presentation file to the web server. Please be sure to put them in the same directory on the web server. Now you can launch the web browser and open the web page with the flash presentation you just created (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: View Flash Presentation in a Web Browser

If you prefer using a text editor to embed the flash presentation in your web page, or you want to insert the flash presentation in an existing web page, you can insert the following code in your HTML document:

<P>
   <EMBED SRC="test_flash.swf" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
          NAME="Object1" ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="622" HEIGHT="378" />
   <BR CLEAR=LEFT /><BR />
</P>

Limitations

It is a known issue that you may lose some of the special effects in your presentation if you export it to flash format with Impress. If you need precise special effects or animations in your flash presentation, you may still need other commercial tools to achieve this. For very simple flash presentations, the method we use here should be enough.

About the Author

Corey Liu is a user and system administrator of Solaris systems. Currently he is working in the semiconductor industry as an applications engineer in Taiwan.

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