How To Efficiently Use Apple’s Keynote

Presentations are not only for students. Presentations are also useful for businesses, meetings, workshops, and tutorials. Most people are familiar with PowerPoint, but there is a Mac counterpart of it, the Apple Keynote. It is the Mac version of PowerPoint but better. You can create professional-looking and breathtaking presentations with Keynote even if you are a beginner.

How to Create a Keynote Presentation

Keynote allows you to create stunning presentations from scratch. To create a new presentation, follow these steps:

1. Open Keynote by typing it on Finder.
2. Once the application has been launched, choose your desired theme. There are many themes you can choose from, but choose the theme which suits your topic best.
3. Once you’ve selected your theme, a new window will open. Now you are ready to make your presentation.

To open an existing presentation, follow these steps:

1. Find your presentation using Finder. Simply type in the file name.
2. Right-click on the file and choose Open with.
3. Select Keynote.

If your file was made using PowerPoint, you will see some warnings about some fonts not being available. This is because of proprietary issues. However, Keynote automatically substitutes the missing fonts with its own.

Creating and Adding New Slides

You will find the list of all the slides on the left part of your Keynote window. If you created a new presentation, then there should only be one side. But if you are editing an existing file, you can view all the previous slides on the left side.

If you want to add a new slide, just click the New (+) button on the upper left part of the window. A new slide will be added to your list. If you want to organize the slides and change the sequence, move your slides by dragging the slide up or down the list.

Designing Your Slides

One of the most important features of Keynote is the Master, which is basically the layout of the slide. To switch or change the slide’s Master, do the following:

1. Click the Masters’ button at the top of the window.
2. Choose your preferred layout from the drop-down menu.
3. The Master that you have chosen will only apply to the current slide.

When choosing the type of Master for your slide, you have to consider first the content that you’re going to put on the slide. Slides usually have Title, Subtitle, Text, and Bullets. You can also embed photos and videos on a slide. You can use a variety of Masters to make your presentation interesting.

Importing Media

If you’re doing a multimedia presentation, inserting an image, movie or song into your slide can be easily done. All you have to do is drag and drop the file directly into Keynote.

You can also insert your media by going to the top menu of the Keynote window, and then click Insert > Choose.

Aside from directly importing the file to Keynote, you can also use files from iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie or Aperture. Click Media at the upper right corner of the window. This will open the media browser where you can choose which files to use for your presentation. Just drag the files to Keynote to add to your presentation.

Using the Inspector

Aside from photos, audio, and videos, you can also add other elements like Text, Shapes, Table, Chart, and Comment. You can find the button for these features besides Masters.

The Inspector enables you to modify everything about your presentation. You can open the Inspector by clicking the icon at the upper right corner of the Keynote window.

The Inspector has a lot of slides and each tab corresponds to specific features of the presentation. Here is the list of the different tabs and what they do:

• Document Inspector – This tab lets you edit preferences that are usually applied to the whole document. For example, you can add here the music that you want to be played throughout the presentation.
• Slide Inspector – This tab enables you to choose a suitable transition for the slide. You have to choose the transition after the slide, not before.
• Build Inspector – This lets you add animations for items on your slide, like pictures, text boxes, etc.
• Text Inspector – This tab allows you to edit the text elements of your presentation. You can edit the color, line height, character spacing and layout of your text. This doesn’t let you edit the font though. You have to go to the font box to edit the fonts.
• Graphic Inspector – This lets you add and edit any graphics in your presentation.
• Metric Inspector – This enables you to rotate, resize and reposition the objects on your presentation.
• Table Inspector – This lets you edit the preferences of your table.
• Chart Inspector – You can edit charts and make them more interesting through this tab.
• Hyperlink Inspector – This tab lets you add hyperlinks to any text or object within your presentation.
• Quicktime Inspector – Edit the preferences for your audio or video using this tab.

More Tips on How to Use Keynote

Now that you’ve learned how to use the Mac Keynote app, you can already create professional presentations for all occasions. Here are some more tips to help you get the most out of Keynote.

• Add a password to your presentation by going to File > Set Password. Enter your password twice and click Set Password.

• If you’re going to use another computer for the presentation, you can export your file using different formats. You can export it as PDF, PowerPoint, Quicktime video, a folder of images or a legacy Keynote file. To export your presentation, click File > Export To, and then select the format you prefer.
• Presentations can get sizable especially if you used a lot of photos and videos. You can either free up some space on your hard drive by running Mac repair app or reduce your file size to avoid clogging up your computer. Or do both. To reduce your file size, go to File > Advanced > Reduce File Size, then click Reduce.
• You can post your presentation on YouTube by clicking Share on the top menu and select Send Copy. Click YouTube, and then click Next. You’ll be asked to sign in to Google. Once you’re signed in, click Allow, and then Send.