The Reality Check: Let’s be honest—the default templates in LibreOffice Impress look like they belong in a corporate meeting from 2005. If you are a student trying to make a presentation that looks like a modern Instagram carousel or a Pinterest mood board, you need to look outside the default gallery.
Where to Find “Aesthetic” .ODP Files You don’t need to struggle with the built-in sidebar. The secret is that LibreOffice can open PowerPoint files perfectly.
- SlidesCarnival: Filter by “Creative” or “Elegant.” Their templates are often minimalist and use pastel color palettes popular in study-gram communities. Download the PowerPoint (PPTX) version—it opens seamlessly in Impress.
- SlidesGo: Look for their “Aesthetic” tag. Focus on “Scrapbook” or “Y2K” styles if you want that trendy, chaotic look.
Top 3 Aesthetic Styles to Look For:
- The “Dark Academia”: Look for templates with serif fonts (like Times New Roman), deep brown/beige backgrounds, and paper texture images.
- Why it works: great for literature or history projects.
- The “Minimalist Pastel”: search for “Organic Shapes.” These templates use blobs of sage green and blush pink with plenty of whitespace.
- Why it works: Keeps the focus on your bullet points without visual clutter.
- The “Cyber-Y2K”: Neon greens, black backgrounds, and pixelated fonts.
- Why it works: Perfect for CS or tech presentations.
How to “Aesthetic-ify” a Default Template Yourself If you can’t download a file, do this:
- Change the Font: Press F11 to open Styles. Right-click “Title” and change the font to Montserrat or Open Sans (Google Fonts).
- Ditch the Bullets: Bullet points kill the aesthetic. Use the Shape Tool to draw rounded rectangles and place your text inside them for a “card” look.
- The Color Hack: Go to Coolors.co, generate a palette, and copy the Hex codes into LibreOffice’s color picker for a custom, cohesive theme.