In the last few days I've seen a number of friends struggle with OOo. Mostly it comes through as tweets and dents and complaints. Like every other piece of software, OpenOffice.org has a learning curve. People struggle with other pieces of software, ask questions, report bugs and work to improve their toolkit. I admit that I'm as bad as the next person when it comes to reporting UI bugs about OOo, but it still amazes me a bit that people would rather complain about their tools than learn how to use them without resentment, or work to improve them.

For those who don't have the inclination to read documentation for a tool they're only going to use once or twice a year, here's an outline of how I use OOo to create new presentations.

1. Start in the outline mode. Above the slides you can see several tabs. One of these is outline. Click that tab. See the little square icon at the top that's vaguely bullet-like? That signifies "slide." Start typing. You're making a heading. Press enter and then press tab. You now have your first bullet point on your first slide. Repeat these steps to generate the table of contents (or "outline") for your presentation. Once you have the structure for your talk you can work on formatting and finesse.
2. Create and customize templates. Once you've created your outline it's time to go back and add some finesse. Switch to the "Normal" tab (which is essentially the edit mode). Your slides may look ugly. That's fine. We're going to fix that. Navigate to View -> View master. A new slide will come up. Customize the way this looks to suit your needs. Add a background image if it's relevant. If you want multiple slide designs (e.g. "intro" vs. "data") create these templates now. When you've finished creating templates, close the master view. There should be a little window floating around that has a button to "close master view."
3. Apply templates. Now that you've created the master templates, it's time to apply them. In the "normal" view, right click on a slide and choose, Slide -> Slide design. Choose the master template that is appropriate (repeat for each slide). In the right hand side on your screen you will also see "layouts." You can choose the most appropriate layout for each slide as well. By default a blank slide with no text is used. Once you've added content to the outline you will see that a new slide layout is selected. The layout is the only option you should customize per slide. All other formatting changes should be done in the master templates with new master templates being created as appropriate. Update: At this stage I also import my photos. I do a lot of whole-slide photos, but this is still a step that's done AFTER I've created the outline.
4. Adjust the order. Once things are written you need to go back through and make sure the content is in the right order. Run through your slides in presentation mode (F5 to start a slide show, Esc to return to the editing view) and see if they make sense. If they don't, return to the editing view for your slide show and choose the "Slide Sorter" tab. Change the order of your slides by dragging them into the correct order.

Formatting Notes:

• If the slides look like text is wrong or otherwise not "following the rules" make sure that you have default formatting applied to the fonts. Sometimes when you copy from other applications it caries formatting with it. Although it doesn't appear to be formatted, it might be. Select the rogue text, right click and choose "Default Format."
• You must change the colour of the bullets separately from the colour of the text on the master slide view. This is a feature, not a bug. To adjust the bullet colour select all of the text in the editing window. Right click on the selected text and choose, "Numbering and Bullets." In the window that pops up choose, "Customize." Change the "colour" which appears in the middle of the screen (or use a graphic bullet if you prefer). Click "ok" to apply your changes.

I'm also thinking about starting up the screen casting software and showing you how I get myself ready to start working on a new presentation. Please let me know if there's anything specific you want covered and I'll do my best to fit it in.

Update #2: This is just information on how to use your presentation software. If you want more information on how to deliver a conference presentation (and you've got time to sit through it) you may find my Presenting You workshop and session from DrupalCon useful.