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Export slides to PDF (including animations and notes)

How to use LibreOffice Impress (open source) to export slides to PDF – including workflows to simulate animations and tips for exporting notes as PDF comments.

Standard PDF export in Impress

  1. File > Export as PDF…
  2. Important options in the dialog:
    • General > Images: Set quality as needed (e.g., 90–100% for photos, Lossless for vector graphics).
    • General > Tagged PDF: Enable if you need accessibility/structure.
    • General > Comments and Notes:
      • Export comments: Adds existing comments as PDF annotations.
      • Export notes pages: Creates pages with notes (alternative: use “comments” as annotations, see above).
    • Initial View: Define initial zoom and page layout.
    • Security: Optional password protection/restrictions.
  3. Confirm export and choose the destination file.
Note
Design your slides with the same aspect ratio in which they will be presented (e.g., 16:9) to avoid borders or scaling artifacts.

Notes as PDF comments

Impress provides multiple ways to include speaker notes in the PDF export:

  • “Export notes pages”: generates separate pages with notes (good for handouts).
  • “Export comments”: If you use annotations as comments, they will be preserved as true PDF comments. Many PDF viewers let users easily show/hide them.
Note
In practice, Impress preserves notes/comments in PDFs more robustly than PowerPoint. Still, verify the results in your target PDF viewer.

Representing animations in PDF – the principle

PDF does not support “real” slide animations like fade-ins or motion paths. The established approach is:

  • Duplicate the slide for each animation step (static intermediate states).
  • The final PDF contains a sequence of slides that, when presented, produces the impression of an animation (build steps).

You can do this manually in Impress (duplicate slides and show/hide objects per step) or semi-automatically using helper tools.

Exporting animated slides to PDF

Approach: Translate animations into a sequence of static slides; each slide shows exactly one additional step of the build.

Key takeaways from the post:

  • Workflow per article: Using an add-on or a described workaround to automatically duplicate slides and reveal content step-by-step before exporting to PDF.
  • Benefits: Resulting PDFs work reliably across common PDF viewers; no dependency on the presentation software at playback time.
  • Limitations: Very complex animations, transitions, or time-based effects may not translate 1:1. Some manual clean-up may be required.

Practical tips:

  • Disable slide transitions before export; focus on build steps within a slide.
  • Use clear, discrete steps (appear/disappear, emphasis) that translate well into static states.
  • After conversion, verify the order and visibility of all elements.

Source

Step-by-step

Without a dedicated add-on (manual):

  1. Duplicate the original slide.
  2. On the copy, only keep the elements visible that should be shown up to the next step (hide/delete others).
  3. Duplicate again for each additional step and progressively reveal more elements.
  4. When all steps are represented: File > Export as PDF …

With add-on (semi-automatic):

  • Follow the linked article. The described add-on automates duplicating slides and revealing animated elements step by step. Then export the result to PDF as usual.

Further reading