LibreOffice Impress Keyboard Shortcuts: Full List
LibreOffice Impress has a complete set of keyboard shortcuts for creating, editing, and delivering presentations. You can navigate slides, format text, insert objects, and control a slideshow entirely from the keyboard, which speeds up your workflow significantly.
Why Keyboard Shortcuts Matter in Impress
Keyboard shortcuts reduce reliance on the mouse, letting you keep your hands on the keyboard while you work. This is especially useful when you are building a long presentation or editing text-heavy slides. Impress follows many of the same conventions as other office suites, so if you already know shortcuts from Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides, you will find many familiar combinations. However, Impress also has its own unique shortcuts, particularly for slide show control and object manipulation.
Essential Shortcuts for Everyday Editing
These are the shortcuts you will use most often when creating and editing slides:
- Ctrl+N – New presentation
- Ctrl+O – Open a presentation
- Ctrl+S – Save the current presentation
- Ctrl+P – Print
- Ctrl+Z – Undo
- Ctrl+Y – Redo
- Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V – Copy, cut, paste
- Ctrl+A – Select all objects on the slide (or all text in a text box)
- Ctrl+F – Find and replace
- F7 – Spellcheck
These work across all LibreOffice modules, so once you learn them, you can use them in Writer and Calc too.
Slide and Object Shortcuts
Managing slides and objects is a core part of Impress. These shortcuts help you move around and manipulate elements:
- Ctrl+M – Insert a new slide
- Ctrl+D – Duplicate the selected slide or object
- Delete – Remove the selected slide or object
- Ctrl+Shift+G – Group selected objects
- Ctrl+Shift+U – Ungroup selected objects
- Arrow keys – Move the selected object by one pixel (hold Shift to move by 10 pixels)
- Ctrl+Arrow keys – Resize the selected object
- Ctrl+Enter – Insert a page break (in text boxes)
When you have multiple objects selected, grouping them lets you move or resize them as a single unit, which is much easier than adjusting each one individually.
Formatting Text Quickly
Text formatting shortcuts are identical to those in Writer, which is convenient if you switch between the two:
- Ctrl+B – Bold
- Ctrl+I – Italic
- Ctrl+U – Underline
- Ctrl+E – Center align
- Ctrl+L – Left align
- Ctrl+R – Right align
- Ctrl+J – Justify
- Ctrl+Shift+P – Superscript
- Ctrl+Shift+B – Subscript
- Ctrl+Shift+> – Increase font size
- Ctrl+Shift+< – Decrease font size
These shortcuts work when you are editing text inside a text box or placeholder. They apply to the selected text, or to the whole paragraph if you just place the cursor without selecting.
Navigating and Selecting in the Slide Pane
When you are working in the slide pane (the area where you edit a single slide), these shortcuts help you move around:
- Page Up / Page Down – Go to previous/next slide
- Home – Go to the first slide
- End – Go to the last slide
- Tab – Select the next object on the slide
- Shift+Tab – Select the previous object
- Ctrl+Shift+F5 – Open the Navigator (to jump to a specific slide or object)
Using Tab to cycle through objects is a fast way to select an object that is hidden behind another one, without having to click through layers.
Slideshow Control Shortcuts
When you start a presentation (F5), you can control it entirely with the keyboard:
- F5 – Start the slideshow from the first slide
- Shift+F5 – Start the slideshow from the current slide
- Spacebar / Right Arrow / Down Arrow / Page Down – Next slide or advance to the next animation
- Backspace / Left Arrow / Up Arrow / Page Up – Previous slide or go back to the previous animation
- Esc – End the slideshow
- B – Black screen (press again to return)
- W – White screen (press again to return)
- Home – Go to the first slide
- End – Go to the last slide
- Ctrl+L – Hide the mouse pointer
- Ctrl+Shift+F5 – Open the Navigator during the slideshow
The black and white screen shortcuts are especially useful when you want the audience to focus on you, not the screen, during a pause.
Customizing Shortcuts in Impress
You are not stuck with the default shortcuts. LibreOffice lets you customize them:
- Go to Tools > Customize (on Windows/Linux) or LibreOffice > Preferences > Customize (on macOS).
- Click the Keyboard tab.
- In the Shortcut keys list, select the combination you want to assign.
- In the Category and Function lists, choose the command you want to bind to that key.
- Click Modify, then OK to save.
You can also export and import your custom keyboard layout, which is handy if you use LibreOffice on multiple computers. The customization applies to all LibreOffice modules, not just Impress, unless you choose a specific module from the drop-down at the top of the Keyboard tab.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do I start a slideshow from the current slide?
Press Shift+F5. This starts the presentation from the slide you are currently viewing in the editor, which is useful when you want to test a specific slide without going through the whole deck.
Q: What is the shortcut to insert a new slide?
Press Ctrl+M. This inserts a new slide after the current one, using the default slide layout. You can change the layout afterwards from the right-hand panel.
Q: Can I change the keyboard shortcuts in Impress?
Yes. Go to Tools > Customize (or LibreOffice > Preferences > Customize on macOS), click the Keyboard tab, and assign new shortcuts to any command. The changes apply immediately and can be saved as part of your user profile.
Q: How do I move an object pixel by pixel?
Select the object and use the Arrow keys. Each press moves the object by 1 pixel. Hold Shift while pressing an arrow key to move it by 10 pixels. This is great for fine-tuning alignment.
Q: Is there a shortcut to duplicate a slide?
Yes. Press Ctrl+D while a slide is selected in the slide pane. This duplicates the slide and places the copy directly after the original. You can also duplicate objects the same way.
Q: What does the F5 key do in Impress?
F5 starts the slideshow from the first slide. If you want to start from the current slide, use Shift+F5. During the slideshow, F5 has no effect; use Esc to exit.
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