How can the pivot point of the Spin animation be moved in Impress?

[vought]

Hi all. This is my first post here. Thank you for the wonderful info available here. I searched for my question but apparently no one asked for it before!

I want to animate a rectangle to spin from an initial position do a final one. Every time I select the Emphasis spin animation, the rectangle can only pivot from its centre. How can I move that pivot point to one of the corners so that the spin is executed from there?

[Nexodakis]

Hi,

To change the pivot point, drag the small circle in the center of the object to a new location.

Impress : Rotating Objects
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/sdraw/guide/rotate_object.html?DbPAR=IMPRESS

[vought]

That I know. What I need is, as I explain in my initial post, how to do that as an animation.

[vought]

Could someone please provide some help?

[Regina]

It is not possible to change the rotation center of the spin animation. But you can use this workaround: Draw a rectangle, that has its center where you want to be the rotation center, and that is large enough to cover your shape. Then group your shape and the rectangle. Enter the group and set fill and line of the rectangle to ‘none’. Exit the group. Now set the spin animation to the group.
animateGroup.odp (13.3 KB)

[vought]

Interesting. I tried what you suggested, but then I found another issue. When I draw the rectangle that is to be used to engulf my shape and I move it to where I want, the center is not moved with it. It remains stationary on the spot I drew it. Can you please tell me how can you see the position of the center while you move it?

[Regina]

I mean the geometric center of the rectangle, not its default rotation center. The geometric center is the intersection of the middle points of the edges. You might estimate its position easier, when you set the fill of the rectangle to “none” so that your shape is visible behind the rectangle. If a visual estimate of these two lines is not accurate enough, you can do e.g.

• Mark the desired rotation center of your shape with guides. You can drag a vertical and a horizontal guide from the rulers. Then drag the rectangle so, that the guides go through the middle points of the edges of the rectangle. Deleting a guide line is in the context menu of the guide line.
• Or you temporarily connect the middle points of the edges of the rectangle with straight connectors. The intersection of the these two connectors is the center of the rectangle. When the right position is found, delete the connectors.
• Or you determine the numerical coordinates of the desired rotation center of your shape. If nothing is selected you see the coordinates in the status bar when you hover the desired rotation center with the mouse. Then click on the rectangle and open the “Position and Size” dialog of the rectangle (context menu or F4). On the “Position and Size” tab of this dialog set the base point of the position to the middle option and after that, enter the coordinates of the desired rotation center. Using this dialog you can at the same time set the size of the rectangle to suitable values. In that case, there too set the base point to the middle option before entering values for width and height.

When working visually it is helpful to use a larger zoom then 100%. Depending on the desired position of the rotation center it might be helpful to disable “Snap to grid”.

[vought]

Ok. I see. I’ll give it a try. One last question. Is this the way to do it on OpenOffice? I don’t remember doing this there the last time I used it some years ago.

[Regina]

Neither Apache OpenOffice nor PowerPoint allow to set the rotation center of the “Spin” animation. And the very first OpenOffice.org version 1.1.5 did not even provide a “Spin” animation.

[vought]

Ok. Thank you for the information.