Beam your presentation

1 Create your presentation

Build your presentation in Keynote for iPad. Naturally you’ll want to test it before it goes before an audience, so you can use the play controls at the top-right corner of the screen to run it locally on the iPad. Any object or text can be tapped on to edit, move or add transitions. You may also want to export a Keynote project from your Mac or open it directly from iCloud on the iPad using Handoff.

2 Activate AirPlay

On your Apple TV, go into Settings and choose the AirPlay option. Make sure AirPlay is enabled and create a password. In the home this might not be necessary, but in a public venue it’s a good idea, to stop anyone hijacking your AirPlay feed from their own device, even by accident. On the iPad, swipe up from the base of the screen to open Control Centre, tap AirPlay and you should see the Apple TV.

3 Mirror the signal

If you have set a specific name for the Apple TV it should appear, but it may just be called Apple TV. Stay in the Apple TV menu and scroll it down a little. You will see an option called Mirroring and you need to activate this by tapping it. This tells iOS to send the whole output of the iPad to the Apple TV. In this case, Keynote is designed so that it will know to display your presentation in the correct format.

4 Play the presentation

You should now find that your iPad screen is displayed via the Apple TV on the big screen to which it’s connected. It’s only when you play the presentation using its Play button, however, that it will become fullscreen on the Apple TV, so it’s worth only switching the main screen on when you’re ready to present. Tap Play and the presentation begins. You even get a handy time display at the top.

5 Modify your view

Helpfully, what Keynote displays on iPad and the Apple TV can be different. The Apple TV will always show the presentation, whereas the iPad can show you different views such as the next slide, notes and even alternate orientations. So you can use the iPad to keep track of where you’re up to without showing that to your audience. This is really useful and means you can do away with reams of paper notes.

6 Annotate slides

You can make annotations in real time. Tap on the pen icon in the top-right corner for a selection of coloured pens to draw on slides with. The pen symbols are not shown on-screen but the results of drawing with your finger are. It’s a useful way of emphasising points mid-presentation without going back into edit mode. Annotations can be quickly removed with the Undo icon next to the Done button.