Small presentation (about 5 slides).  Handout view shows empty boxes with no content, regardless of the number of slides/page.

Workaround is to print them from the printing menu.

Please attach a sample file.

Created attachment 83851 [details]
test case to show bug

I had the same failure using the default odp template.

Created attachment 84230 [details]
attached in error

Created attachment 84231 [details]
FilePrintDocHandout.png shows Handout slides with contents

I can replicate the behaviour reported at the start of this issue:

Environment & Versions:
Powerpoint MicrosoftOffice2010, and OpenOffice 4.1.1 running side by side on Windows XP SP3
Using Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz
 
Reproduction steps:
1. Open attachment provided in comment above – slide is shown with content displayed
2. Click handout tab 
3. Slide is shown without content displayed, with empty “thumbnail” boxes
 
(I can confirm that slides can be printed successfully from this state and that this behaviour is also seen with a default template using Impress)
My observations on this behaviour are as follows: 
1. The Handout tab is sitting alongside Normal, Outline, Notes, and Slide Sorter and is the only one of these 5 views which does not show the contents in the slides. So this is inconsistent across these views. It is reasonable for a user to assume that Handout in this setting will show the contents of the slide, see Handout.png
2. The view -> Master contains Slides Master and Notes Master both of which do not show the contents of the slides. 
3. I quote the Handout help page on Impress:
“Switches to the handout master page, where you can scale several slides to fit on one printed page. To modify the number of slides you can print on a page, open the Layouts task pane and double-click a layout.”
Since it is described as a master page, that would imply that it is a page indicating the overall layout of the handouts where the user can customise the whole slide deck handout arrangements.
4. When opening a presentation in Powerpoint and viewing the equivalent functionality, Handout is in the Master Views section as the “Handout Master View”, and the contents of the slide is not shown.

It is in fact possible to view slide contents in Handouts for using the following steps: File -> Print. The Document dropdown, choose Handouts, see FilePrintDocHandout.png
 
I think that this reported behaviour is a bug, albeit minor. The current appearance of Handout would be more consistent if the Handout view was moved in with other Master types, so found through the view tab -> Master
So I think that a possible fix of moving the Handout to the Master types group, rather that adding contents as the user is requesting, would be a good solution here for this minor issue.

This issue has been reported before. It is a duplicate of https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=100616

Created attachment 84232 [details]
Handout.png shows Handout view

I miss the preview thumbnails too, but currently it is the intended behavior. The Handout tab shows only the layout template. More details in bug 100616.

*** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of issue 100616 ***