Videos in OpenOffice - solution :-)

[kolbjorn]

After having read page up and page down on the internet concering the problems with OpenOffice (Impress) and videos inside presentations, I've not discovered a solution to the problem. It's not as "elegant" as in Powerpoint, but it's working and is perfectly acceptable for now.

What I do is this:
First, install Xine and its dependencies.
Secondly, instead of inserting the video itself into an Impress presentation I simply insert a textbox with the desiered text, highlight the text and inserting a hyperlink into it, pointing to the selected video. This way Xine will pop up (without taking Impress out of presentation mode!) and show the video.

After the video has finished I simply close the video window and continue my presentation. Impress is never out of presentation mode during these videos. This is a great feature with OpenOffice as opposed to Powerpoint which jumps out of presentation mode if external programs are started.

I used the way of showing videos last week when I held presentations for about 600 students in 5 different schools in Norway, and it worked like a charm!!

-Kolbjorn

[ilja]

Thank you very much. I moved it to the How-To forum.

[kwj]

Yes, it is frustrating that videos are not fully supported under openoffice.

Another possibility to view videos in ooimpress using an external viewer is the following:
1) Prepare a script which can pop up your video using an external viewer like for example xine.
2) Put an image (or some other oo-object) on a slide. We will set it up so the video starts when you click on this image.
3) Select the image and click the "interaction" button in the lower part of the left ooimpress panel
4) In the field "Action at mouse click" select run program and type in the name of your shell script (better use the full path)
5) Press OK
6) Now everytime you click the image the video will pop up in the external viewer.

Karsten.

PS. It would be nice if it wasn't necessary to prepare the script, i.e. if one could put in directly the program name with a parameter (i.e. "/usr/bin/xine /mydirectory/mymovie.mpg") in the interaction dialog, but that does not work for me.

[niloppa]

there's answer in this link ===> www.open_office_vieos_solution.hat_i.com (linoczka.blox.pl/html)

[sailor]

This is good information to know...I am creating a powerpoint presentation for our family reunion and I may have to use my laptop (with FC4 only) to power it....thanks for the tip :)