[Answered] PDF import not a feature?

[thomas]

One of my users asked me to explain how a pdf document is imported into an Impress presentation.
I was very surprised when I determined, that PDF import is not possible (at least I haven't found out how to manage).

Now my questions:
1. Has someone managed to import a PDF into Impress?
2. Are there any plans for this feature?

Thank you.

[acknak]

Not possible now; it is being worked on. See: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wik ... _Extension

You could work around the limitation using an image (e.g. a screenshot) of the PDF page.

Can you explain how you would use this? I can't imagine that having a PDF document page on a slide would be very helpful. Perhaps you want to show only one figure, or a part of a page?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Use PDF-XChange Viewer to export any part of a PDF file as an image. My Review

[AndrewZ]

How exactly do you want it in there? As an image or as something that can be edited? What if it has multiple pages? Do you want to see one page on each slide?

Currently you may be able to put a PDF image in Impress if you insert it as an OLE document. Another way is to take a screenshot of the PDF and insert the screenshot as an image.

For OpenOffice.org 3.0.0, you will be able insert PDFs into OpenOffice.org in a form that can be edited.

[thomas]

Depending on the purposed usage, there should be different options to import PDF files:

• For presentations it would be nice, being able to insert a resizable image of a single or multiple pages (one/two per slide). OLE is also useful, if you want to open a PDF file during the presentation (this works on Windows, as AndrewZ mentioned. On Mac OS X however, the object type 'Other objects' is not available. I haven't tried on Linux yet, but I guess it's not there, too).
• For drawings, text documents and presentation one should be able to select PDF objects (one/some/all) for insertion. It would not harm, if there were a possibility to edit the imported objects then (text/attributes).

As I read in http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wik ... _Extension (provided by acknak) and the articles linked to in there, this is more or less planned to implement as an extension in version 3.0 (scheduled for sep 08).

Thank's for the useful information.

[AndrewZ]

The PDF import extension is ready for testing. Give it a whirl. It imports into Draw, and then you can copy and paste into Impress (which is the "brother" of Draw).