Creating a dynamic document with Draw and Impress

[ehbowen1]

Hi. I’ve been using Writer and Calc for a few years, but I’m inexperienced with Draw and Impress (and their Microshaft equivalents…). I’m a line employee at a hotel whose signature restaurant is due for a renovation, and I’m wanting to make a “suggestion box” video entry with ideas for a newly revamped menu.

Ideally, what I’d like to do is to create a layered PDF/Draw document with the various elements as individual layers and then be able to manipulate those layers with Impress. For example, if I discuss adding a stuffed pork chop entree, I’d like to have that text (Grilled Stuffed Pork Chops; Served with applesauce and brown rice stuffing, price) appear front and center during the voice-over and then move to its appropriate place on the menu and remain there while I go on to discuss the next elements.

I’m planning to generate the Impress presentation silent and capture it with a screen recorder (unless LibreOffice has added an mp4 conversion utility I don’t know about), then add voice-over, music, titles, and effects with Corel VideoStudio. I’ve got decent skill with the latter program; my main concern right now is generating the menu in Draw and presentation in Impress. Any suggestions?

[Hrbrgr]

I don’t quite understand what exactly you want to do.

Therefore the following questions:

• What is a PDF/Draw document?
• What exactly do you need Draw for?
• Why Impress, if you can create everything you describe in your explanations also in the video editor?
• You write “menu”, should the complete work serve as a menu for printing and as a presentation at the same time?

[ehbowen1]

I apologize for not being clear. I’m wanting to create a Draw document which can be exported to PDF to print the final version. But, as I’m discussing the various items, I want to use Impress to show the document being assembled piece by piece…highlight the various text, and preferably animate it going to its final position in the document. I canNOT do this in VideoStudio, not and ensure that it’s properly registered as I zoom and move around the document. I’m wanting to create the base slide show presentation in Impress and then, as I stated, add music, effects and such with VideoStudio. But the base presentation is what I need to work on first.

So, to clarify, how can I create a layered document in Draw so that I can manipulate the individual layers in Impress?

[Hrbrgr]

So, to clarify, how can I create a layered document in Draw so that I can manipulate the individual layers in Impress?

No.
You can edit multiple layers in Draw.
But if you transfer the content to Impress, you will lose all but one layer (total or individual).

My thinking is that you only need Draw if you want to create a drawing.

In Impress you have the possibility to have text and other objects flying in. I think this is the closest to what you have in mind.

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You can upload a file here, e.g. a Writer file, which contains the text for the menu and an image. Maybe someone can create a sample file for you.

[ehbowen1]

Suppose I create the base document in Draw (largely done already). Then, can I export individual layers to Impress and manipulate them there?

The Draw document as it stands now has 12 layers. So could I, say, have layers 1-3 exported to one file as the base background of an Impress slide, import layer 4 as its own object, manipulate/move it around in Impress, and then when time to go onto the next element change my base background to Draw layers 1-4 and work next with layer 5?

[Hrbrgr]

Yes. You can combine the layers as you like.
In Impress, the slides might look like this:

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But as already mentioned the layers have to be combined in Draw (per slide in Impress) and are then one element.