When you step up to the microphone, make sure you have a appealing Keynote presentation backing you up.

 

WHAT YOU NEED
> Apple Keynote ($79 with iWork '06, www.apple.com)
> Presentation text and images

 

Keynote, the flagship application in iWork - Apple's two-title productivity suite - doesn't have the corporate cachet of Microsoft PowerPoint. But if you've ever used PowerPoint (and if you have bald spots to prove it), we recommend giving Keynote a try. It's an elegant, powerful, easy-to-use tool that will allow you to create slide presentations as attention-grabbing as the ones Steve Jobs uses to unveil new Apple breakthroughs. Before you even launch Keynote, it's a good idea to create an outline in Microsoft Word, TextEdit, or even Pages (the other app in iWork).

 

Also, don't miss our Web Exclusive tour of Keynote's Inspector.

 

Step 1: Create a Basic Presentation

 

Start with your title page, and be sure to save the presentation now - and every few minutes hereafter. Add slides by clicking the New button in the toolbar. You can change the layout of your slides either by selecting page templates from the Masters drop-down list or by using the Inspector. For example, you can turn a page that has a title and a two-column bulleted list into one with a title and a single-column bulleted list by clicking the Inspector and then choosing the Slide tab. Under the Appearance tab, click the thumbnail of the kind of slide you want. Don't worry about filling in all the slides now—just create a skeleton to work from.

 

Change the look of a slide instantly with the Inspector.

 

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Step 2: Master Those Master Slides

 

To change the layout of all slides that use the same template, you can edit a master slide. To see all of your master slides in thumbnail view, position the cursor on the icon that looks like an equals sign, then click and drag downward. (You can also see these by clicking Masters in the top menubar.)

 

To change the layout of a certain master slide, select it in the Master Slides thumbnail list. In the Inspector, the name of the Slide tab changes to Master Slide. You can now change the slide's behavior (Transitions tab) and look (Appearance tab), as desired.

 

You can also create a new master slide template based on an existing one. Choose the slide, right-click (or Control-click) it, and choose Duplicate. Another way to create a new master is to select a master you like, right-click (or Control-click) it, and select New Master Slide.

 

Instantly create a new master slide by duplicating an existing one.

 

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Step 3: Express Yourself in Words

 

Text formatting in Keynote is split between the Font palette and the Text Inspector. The Font palette is used to select the font, size, and color of your text, while the Text Inspector contains the options for changing paragraph alignment and spacing.

 

To play around with the options in the Text Inspector, select an existing text box or create a free text box by clicking Text in the toolbar. Open the Inspector and then click Text. Here you'll find the controls for adjusting letter spacing, line spacing, inset margins, and spacing before and after paragraph returns. Any changes you make here affect the entire selected text box, unless you select a specific paragraph or line of text.

 

Using the Columns tab in the Text Inspector, you can also create and modify multiple columns of text. This is useful to break up large blocks of text (which can be hard to read otherwise) or long bulleted lists. Finally, on the Bullets tab, you can change the formatting of bulleted lists, including the number of indent levels and the look of individual bullets.

 

Easily change the look of bullets by using the Text Inspector.

 

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Step 4: Get Graphic

 

Add shapes from the Shapes menu in the toolbar, or insert your own images by dragging them onto a slide or opening the Media Browser to peruse your iPhoto library.

 

You can also mask a photo - that is, to crop it or make it appear as if it's been inserted into a shape. With an image placed on a slide and selected, select Format > Mask, and then move and resize the rectangle that appears over the photo. To add a shape mask, select an unmasked photo, and select a shape by clicking Shapes and choosing a shape other than a line. Drag the shape onto the photo and size it as desired. Then select Format > Mask With Shape.

 

Play around with border treatments, shadows, reflections, and opacity for your photos using the Graphic Inspector.

 

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Step 5: Make Some Noise

 

Keynote is a complete multimedia presentation tool. You can easily add sound to a single slide or to your entire presentation. You can add an audio file by dragging it directly from the Finder onto a Keynote slide, or you can add audio to your entire presentation by dragging the file to the Audio section of the Document Inspector. You can also use the Media Browser to find files stored in your iTunes library.

 

Adding video works similarly. If you've saved your MOV file in your Movies folder, locate it by selecting Movies in the Media Browser. Or drag it in from its location on your hard drive. Use the Poster Frame slider in the QuickTime Inspector to choose which frame of the movie will represent it in still mode and on printouts.

 

Instead of a black opening shot, select a visually appealing frame from your movie to appear on the slide.

 

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Step 6: Chart Your Course

 

Chart data can be entered manually or copied and pasted from a spreadsheet application such as Excel. To get a chart onto a slide, click Chart on the toolbar. This will add a placeholder chart and open the Chart Data Editor and Chart Inspector. To start adding data, simply type it into the Chart Data Editor. To import the data, you have to copy it from Excel into the Chart Data Editor.

 

To change the chart type, click the bar chart icon on the Chart Inspector to peruse your options: The ones on the left are 2D styles, and those on the right are 3D. There are too many types of charts to go into here, so play around in Keynote or consult Help (or the lynda.com training series on which this how-to is based) for details. If you choose a 3D chart, your Chart Inspector options change a bit, allowing you to rotate the chart in space and to change its lighting and depth.

 

Using a 3D chart design adds major cred to your slideshow.

 

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Get to Know the Inspector

 

You won't get too far in Keynote without using the Inspector. The Inspector is where you establish the majority of settings for all your slides, graphics, text boxes, movies, links, and so on. Here's a mini-tour of each tab on the Inspector palette:

 

> Document: Lets you control the global settings of your presentation. You can force it to play upon Keynote's launch, to loop continuously, to restart after an idle period, and more. This is also where you can provide info on the presentation so Spotlight can find the file faster if you ever need to search for it. Selections made here apply to the entire presentation.
> Slide: Lets you control transitions and the appearance of slides. Changes made here affect just the slide currently selected.
> Build: Lets you create animations on your slides. For example, if you wanted to "build" a bar chart before your audience's eyes, you would control how that happens using the Build tab.
> Text: Lets you format text (including setting margins and alignment) throughout the presentation. This is not where you change fonts, however. That's done with the Font palette.
> Graphic: Lets you format a graphic (such as a chart or a table) or the graphic elements of text treatment, including changing shadows, opacity, and the width, color, and style of borders.
> Metrics: Lets you set an object's precise size and position. To maintain an object's correct width-to-height ratio, click the "Constrain proportions" checkbox.
> Table: Lets you change the number of rows and columns, and overall formatting, in a table.
> Chart: Lets you modify and customize charts using either the Axis or Series tabs.
> Hyperlink: Lets you format how hyperlinks display and behave in your presentation.
> QuickTime: Lets you control the behavior of audio and video files, which play via QuickTime.

 

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This how-to is extracted from Keynote 3 Essential Training with Garrick Chow, one of hundreds of training programs available from lynda.com. See www.lynda.com for the full training library.