Become a first-class presenter with Keynote
Cook? Schiller? Federighi? Amateurs! You’ll be showing them how to use Keynote soon!
Almost nothing makes us happier that we’re not forced to use PCs than Keynote. It’s far more pleasant to use than PowerPoint. Here are our favourite features that’ll power up your presentations!
1 Use two or more screens
With your MacBook connected to a projector or TV, you can mirror what’s on it to the external screen, or, using System Preferences > Displays and Keynote’s preferences, show your presentation on the external and other stuff on the Mac’s screen – a timer, notes, the next slide, and so on. If you can connect even more screens, once you’re in presentation mode, you can choose what’s on each independently by clicking the stacked rectangles icon on the presenter display – you may need to move the pointer to reveal it.
2 Tailor your view
While there, set up the Presenter View (or do this first by choosing Play > Customize Presenter Display). It’s wise to show a countdown timer, and you can scale and rearrange elements.
3 The dress rehearsal
The difference between a good and a great presentation is practice, and choosing Play > Rehearse Slideshow lets you do so until your skills rival Tim Cook’s. Even if you have only a single screen available when you do this, the presenter display will show, so you’ll get comfortable with exactly what you’ll be seeing on your screen when you talk to an audience.
4 Keynote Live
If your audience can’t all be in the same room, give your presentation live over the internet. Click Keynote Live in the toolbar – you’ll be prompted to move the presentation to iCloud if it’s not already there – and you’ll be given a web address you can distribute. You can set a password people must enter before they can join your presentation, but remember to send this separately!
Think about using this to broadcast things other than business talks, such as showing off pictures to a far-flung relative, reading a bedtime story, or walking someone through a recipe.
5 Control from iOS
Rather than using a clicker to control presentations, use your iPad or iPhone. As well as letting you advance slides, Keynote for iOS/iPadOS can show presenter notes, the next and current slides, and provides you with a virtual laser pointer and marker pens. Open Keynote on your Mac and iOS devices, which need Wi-Fi turned on but don’t have to be on the same network; tap the remote icon on, then follow the on-screen prompts.
6 Control with Watch
With the Keynote app installed on your Apple Watch, you can control your presentation from your wrist. A firm press on the screen reveals controls to go back or advance a slide. Check Watch > Settings > General > Wake Screen to make sure your Watch won’t just return to the watch face when you lower your arm again. Otherwise, bear in mind that double-clicking the side button returns to the most recent app.
7 iOS to iOS control
You can use the same basic idea to control another iOS device. So you could, say, connect your iPhone to a projector to run your presentation, and hold an iPad in your hands as you talk, with your notes clearly visible.
8 Override line snapping
The Connection Line tool is great, but you don’t always want each end to snap to an object. Holding ç as you drag an end overrides the snapping.
Export your themes
Once you’ve got a presentation and/or Master Slides set up how you like, choose File > Save Theme to save it as a template you can share with others, even on iOS. For iOS, share the .kth file to your device, such as by using AirDrop, and open it in Keynote. Your other Mac or iOS device will need the fonts used in the presentation to be installed. That’s easy on a Mac, but on iOS, assuming your font licence allows it, you’ll need a third-party app such as AnyFont (£1.99, bit.ly/anyfn).
10 Embed online
Click the toolbar’s Collaborate icon, then Share Options. Ensure ‘Who can access’ is set to ‘Anyone with the link’ and permissions are set to view only, then click Copy Link and copy the web address. If you paste this into a post on WordPress, Medium, or anywhere that uses the embed.ly platform, your presentation will appear in it for readers to click through.