I’m trying to use an external monitor to display the presentation of LibreOffice Impress.
I’ve used both Leap 15.0 and Leap 15.1 on KDE with ATI graphics and also two brands of laptops and my desktop, and have tried HDMI and VGA. They all seem to suffer the same results. So I would think this means it’s not a hardware issue. I’ve tried searching, but can’t find much of anyone else having problems.
My attempts have resulted in the presentation presenter view on the main monitor or on the external monitor with no actual “presentation”. I’ve used Slide Show settings selecting Display 2, Display 1, and All displays. By choosing “All Displays”, I’ve had half of the presentation on one monitor and the other half on the other monitor. I’ve tried the system settings display and monitor using all the combinations I can think of with no better luck. It doesn’t seem to be working the way I read it should.
From a base install of OpenSUSE and LibreOffice, what are the proper steps to get the presenter view on the main display and the presentation on the external display? Does something else need to be installed?
IMO
Your problem won’t be solved in anything related to Impress,
It’ll be in your KDE Display settings,
Sounds like your monitor(s) aren’t set to “clone” the main display which results in the second display configured as an extension of the first.
That is,
Assuming that’s the configuration you want which is for both monitors to display the same.
The clone I tried was only one of the permutations I had attempted. That was the only one which resulted in “something” (or half of something) on the other monitor which was “kind of” like what it should be. (I wonder why it wasn’t whole on both screens) Could very well be KDE. But with three different computers, it must be something not set up correctly, assuming that others can get it to work.
I have since found out that even the windows version of Impress has issues with certain external monitors. Using windows, I have tried many combinations and while I can see the desktop screen on the external monitor, it does not show the slide show unless I duplicate the monitors.
I have also used Leap 15.1, updated LibreOffice, and it doesn’t work either. I adjusted the display settings resolutions, and certain lower resolutions would show part of the display on the external monitor. I believe same case with the Windows computer. But nothing like it is intended.
If LibreOffice Impress is supposed show a full screen on an external monitor, what am I doing wrong that 4 different computers, 3 different operating systems, does not display on the external monitor?
I personally have run into one situation re: multiple monitors, and the solution was to manually configure the window displayed on each and every screen manually, it had nothing to to with the OS (running on MSWindows) or the application. There was no “full screen” option, only the necessity to manually configure the window to the exact pixels needed for that monitor. And, the windows had to be positioned accurately… The window would sometimes mis-align and you’d see the window slid off some edge.
I’d endorse each of your tries, I think I’d try those too in your situation.
I’ve also run into misc problems not just with Impress but also MS Powerpoint as a visiting speaker and of course don’t know their equipment. Probably like most people, I just make do with whatever works which generally means just making sure the display the audience sees is working and I end up turning my head around a bit. But then, I almost never read directly off slides and people who do that would have a problem.
May or may not have anything to do with your requirements…
Yes, I have the checkmark on the enable Presenter Console. I see the console from time to time of different options I’ve tried. But the main screen on the external is not right.
Not sure I fully understand, but sounds like that describes it. The external monitor is larger and has more pixels and that’s the default setting. What should I try - same as the laptop or just keep guess until something works half-acceptable?
And yes, I forgot to mention, arranging the monitors on the Display and Monitor system settings behaved in ways strange to me. Particularly odd to me was if they overlapped. Is that the expected behavior? I even placed one entirely within the other with interesting results. Should these monitor symbols be touching, overlapped, or not touching at all? I have little experience with more than one monitor so this behavior is all strange to me. And to fully test this, do I need to restart LibreOffice, re-login, reboot or should it be active on the fly?
Like yourself, I tried everything I could think of including the things you describe but didn’t find a solution so in that <one> case I just shrugged and did my best and left it at that. I don’t have a proper answer, just saying I ran into that one time.
No comment about Plasma, since apparently it does funny things in this area.
On Gnome I see that the two screens are always “touching”, never overlapped or with any gaps, and changes are applied “on the fly” in general, while on Impress I may need to exit and re-enter “presentation mode” ( by ESC and then F5).
Thanks for everyone’s input. At least I know it’s not something I’m failing to do correctly. So sounds like just try to figure out a combination that works and use it.
In my case, the laptop doesn’t matter KDE or Gnome, so I might switch it and give it a try.
The clone I tried become only one of the permutations I had tried. That become the handiest one that resulted in “some thing” (or half of of something) on the opposite screen which became “sort of” like what it need to be. (I wonder why it wasn’t complete on both stitching displays) Could very well be KDE. But with three special computer systems, it ought to be some thing not installation effectively, assuming that others can get it to paintings.
I made one last attempt at every resolution using one laptop and an external monitor. Nothing worked.
Then I installed Gnome and it worked as expected! I used the Gnome Classic as the other Gnome’s I couldn’t handle. Something about a blank screen is just too odd for me. Maybe just different, but I need buttons and switches, a start bar. And use, there was something at the top left, but I couldn’t figure it out to change display settings and run office.
I then tried the other options included on the default login screen, but nothing helped there. I may have to try Xfce what I heard about.
Impress runs in “windowed”, but I found out that isn’t too useful as you can’t really do anything else. What I’d really like is some sort of setup/software that allows you to have multiple windows and you click which one you want to send to the external monitor. But is that even possible? How is it determined what is sent out the external port?
Not clear to me what you see or what you are trying to achieve.
For a test I switched to “Gnome Classic” and Impress works as expected there too, irrespective if in “windowed” or “full screen” mode: with the “presenter console” enabled, when you hit F5 the active presentation (or “active window” if several are open) goes full screen on the external monitor, while the presenter console pops up on the internal monitor.
Maybe you have a wrong setting of the two monitors; what I describe is with “Join display” in the display setting.
If you don’t figure out how to reach that, click on the upper right corner of the screen, then the “tools” button, scroll down the left menu and choose “Devices”, then “Displays” and check that “Join displays” is selected, how the two displays are joined seems irrelevant, but I have the external touching the internal on the right side.
If I missed something, please ask.
I got a chance to try it on the Gnome system. If I select full screen, it works as expected, with the full screen on the external monitor and the presenter console on the laptop. If I select windowed, it grays out the presentation display and it runs in a window on the laptop with just the blank desktop showing on the external monitor. I can run other programs at the same time, but not useful if I can’t show it on the external.
I forgot to look for the “join display” setting. Is that something you have to set differently when running in windowed mode?
so my presentation stays on the external while I’m typing this (or am doing whatever I want on the laptop LCD).
To do that, with “Presentation settings” in “Windowed mode”, you have to drag the Impress window out of the right edge of the LCD until it shows on the external (assuming that the external is “joint” to the right of the LCD as in my case).
When Impress is fully on the external, you may do whatever you want with it, for instance double-click on the title bar to show it “full screen” on the external as in the image above.
Meanwhile, moving your mouse to the left, entering the “LCD” field of view on the left, you may do whatever you want with other applications showing there.
Of course to change slide you have to move the mouse out to the right until you can click on the Impress window.
If I missed something, try to show an example of what you are looking for…
Ah, I did not understand the expected results. I had expected the output to be sent to the external monitor as in non-windowed mode. So the windowed is the target goal and you move that over to your external monitor as an extended desktop. So even double-clicking the title bar, the menu remains as part of the presentation? I noticed some programs, such as Firefox, you can go to full-screen mode without the menu bar. Or some will have the menu bar auto disappear. Anything along that line?
Sorry, I don’t get it.
You want the presentation to go “full screen”? Go to Slide Show > Slide Show Settings > Presentation mode > check “Full Screen”
> When you hit “F5” the current slide goes “Full screen” on the external monitor (default) or whatever you select in the menu.
If the “Presenter Console” is enabled, it is shown on the Laptop (default) or the other way round; if it is not enabled, the normal window remains where it was (on the Laptop or on the external but “covered” by the presentation).
> When you hit “Esc”, you exit “presentation mode”, the normal window shows wherever you dragged it.
You want the presentation to go “windowed”? Go to Slide Show > Slide Show Settings > Presentation mode > check"In a Window"
> When you hit “F5” the current slide fills the current window.
You can resize, drag the window to your liking, double click on the title bar etc. but you remain “in a window” with its title bar (toolbars etc. can still be hidden if desired), for “Full screen” please see above.
> When you hit “Esc”, you exit “presentation” mode and the editing view fills the window again.
The “Shift”+“Ctrl”+“J” you might be used to for “full screen” in Calc or Writer does not work in Impress.
Note that with Gnome you still have other workspaces to use other applications while the presentation is running, try “CTRL”+“ALT”+“Down arrow”.
With default settings the workspaces span only the primary display (say, the Laptop screen) but you can change that if needed.