Powerpoint vs Impress

hello friends,

I would like to know about the similarities and differences between Powerpoint and Impress. Does anybody have any useful information about the same...... please provide the necessary details......

thanks

PowerPoint 2003 is the Office application that's changed the most since its 97/2000 incarnations
Impress is the OpenOffice.org application that differs most from Office in its design.

Impress and PowerPoint handles transition animations differently, and certain Impress capabilities, such as three-dimensional text in presentations, did not carry across to PowerPoint.

Impress is designed for an easy transition from Microsoft Office. Most of the same tools are available as in PowerPoint, and in the same places. This similarity means that, for most people, learning Impress is quicker than learning, for example, KPresenter. You may notice a slight change in name, and one or two features may be in different places, but you can count on locating basic functions without major problems.

Despite basic similarities, there are some inevitable differences in key areas such as:

• Starting a slide show
• Navigating the editing windows
• Working with graphics, charts, and diagrams
• Adding special effects
• Preparing the slide show

The ideal presentation program would include aspects of both PowerPoint and Impress. As things are, neither has an objective advantage, especially for beginning or intermediate users. Neither has a significant advantage in tools to help beginners or users in a hurry, nor in navigation. Nor are the useful tools for assembling a slide show significantly different.

For advanced users, the differences are more profound. On the one hand, if you're a teacher, an engineer, or anyone else for whom slide shows replace handout or overhead projectors, you'll find Impress's graphical capabilities a major advance over PowerPoint's.

On the other hand, users today are far more comfortable using sound than they were five years ago, and, if you're musically inclined, or want to include movies, then Impress will seem a step backward from PowerPoint. The convenience you find in PowerPoint now won't be in Impress until version 2.0. That release isn't due for another six months, but it already exists in a functional alpha build that corrects most of the problems.