LibreOffice 4.0 released

I didn't find them that bad. In fact, I found them to be pretty good. There was a lot on each slide, but then the man clearly has a lot to say. Another thing is that the slides were probably designed to be useful as a standalone resource, so that in front of an audience they are there for reference but people are supposed to listen to the presenter and allow him to direct their attention to the more pertinent points.

I wasn't at any of the presentations where these slides were shown, so I can't say anything about the means of presenting them itself, but as a downloadable resource I found them informative. Certainly a lot more informative than slide decks consisting of 150 single-word slides ("performance", "fast", "cool", "shiny"...) where you really had to be there, and where even nice photographs would be more communicative to those who weren't or who downloaded the slides later to refresh their memory.

I noticed that it is rare to see that combined.

I often see various presentations. At most they are created by a small. What I noticed is that unless it is meant to be announced, there seems to be a difference in presentations. Some presentations look really smooth, but substance wise they are lacking (you cannot tell due the amount of time spend on the presentation). The presentation by Michael Meeks is more like what I value more: focussed on details, but the resulting presentation is not as smooth (things like different font sizes, too many colours, too much text, more difficult to follow structure, etc).

It does not really matter if there are lots of guidelines, templates, etc. Often the nicest looking presentations are lacking content wise.

It would be nicer though to have the combination of good content as well as really nice presentation. But if it is just one person, give me the inconsistent presentation any day over something smooth but lacking (if the presentation is smooth, make sure to be critical and ask loads of questions :P).

I have been trained by professionals in how to make good slides, so at least I know a good one if I see it. I have to admit that within the free software world that training is sourly missing. Too often slides are filled with text as if the presentation itself is supposed to be documentation, speaker notes are often not distributed at all. Probably this is partly due to trying to make the slides meaningful to people who did not attend the presentation. However, I have never had any trouble with LO in that respect. I would rather say to the contrary, all the bling in powerpoint tends to lead to horrible presentations. Moreover there are several slides in Michael's presentation that are prime examples of excellent slides (while others are horrible). Exactly what problem do you have making good presentations with Impress?