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Keynote - Anyone use it yet?
- Thread starter ejb190
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D0ct0rteeth
macrumors 65816
Ive played with it a little bit. From what I see I like it. I'll give a more in depth review later.
Its definitly better than powerpoint but I wouldnt have bought it unless I was able to use my educator discount
-Doc
Its definitly better than powerpoint but I wouldnt have bought it unless I was able to use my educator discount
-Doc
Very easy to use. We took a couple of Powerpoint Presentations and within a few minutes had jazzed them up no end. Whats more the learning curve is minimal so once you installed it within a few minutes you will be very productive. There is also a good tutorial which shows you the features. Ive got a Quicksilver 867 running 10.2.3 and Ive never experienced any of the bugs others have identified. Either I'm not pushing it to it's limits or I'm lucky!!!! If your going to need to develop slides then it is a great option.
when keynote hits version 2 or 3 i expect it is going to be some incredible software. as it is right now, it's very much a work in progress. i don't think apple should have released it just yet because too much is missing.
aesthetically...it is the best presentation program going. nothing handles or displays type and images as well. but a part from the way stuff looks on screen, there's nothing compelling about this program.
quicktime support is a clear example. it shocks me that powerpoint has better support for quicktime...you can actually playback full screen video at acceptable frame rates. keynote imports quicktime files, but plays them back VERY poorly...especially since this is one of apple's own technologies. This is nothing short of lame.
there are tons of other features missing too, including no slide sorter view, an awkward canvas window, and lack of timing controls for slides / object animations.
in short, keynote is half-baked. hopefully cupertino is cooking up some improvements...and quick. This COULD be an incredible program.
aesthetically...it is the best presentation program going. nothing handles or displays type and images as well. but a part from the way stuff looks on screen, there's nothing compelling about this program.
quicktime support is a clear example. it shocks me that powerpoint has better support for quicktime...you can actually playback full screen video at acceptable frame rates. keynote imports quicktime files, but plays them back VERY poorly...especially since this is one of apple's own technologies. This is nothing short of lame.
there are tons of other features missing too, including no slide sorter view, an awkward canvas window, and lack of timing controls for slides / object animations.
in short, keynote is half-baked. hopefully cupertino is cooking up some improvements...and quick. This COULD be an incredible program.
I've been using Keynote since three days after it came out for presentations, and it works like a charm. Ten times better than PowerPoint.
Also, I have experienced no problems with it. It's never crashed on me, etc.
Also, I have experienced no problems with it. It's never crashed on me, etc.
AmbitiousLemon
Moderator emeritus
im less curious about whether you have played around in it and more interested in how your actual presentation went when all was said and done. were you able to use your own computer to present? did you use powerpoint on another computer to present? if you did use powerpoint then how did it effect the cool features you used? how did people respond? did people notice it wasn't the typical powerpoint presentation? did peopel ask what you used?
ive played around with it but haven't used it in any real world situations or seen anyone else use it yet (as far as i could tell...)
come on tell us about how you wowed the crowd.
ive played around with it but haven't used it in any real world situations or seen anyone else use it yet (as far as i could tell...)
come on tell us about how you wowed the crowd.
Okay...
I have a PowerBook G4 800MHz. I used my own computer in every instance to make my presentations with Keynote (not exporting to PowerPoint).
One time I experienced a problem with the projector - it couldn't reproduce some of the millions of colors Keynote used - but mostly the presentations went without a hitch. I screened all the presentations before I gave them, and fixed the color problems in advance.
The presentations went over VERY well. I work for a major publishing company at a high level, and this was a lecture of major importance. It was, in every way, extremely successful.
I have a PowerBook G4 800MHz. I used my own computer in every instance to make my presentations with Keynote (not exporting to PowerPoint).
One time I experienced a problem with the projector - it couldn't reproduce some of the millions of colors Keynote used - but mostly the presentations went without a hitch. I screened all the presentations before I gave them, and fixed the color problems in advance.
The presentations went over VERY well. I work for a major publishing company at a high level, and this was a lecture of major importance. It was, in every way, extremely successful.
😕 I can't account for your results...maybe powerpoint quicktime playback sucks on your ibook. I have a dual 500 running 10.2.3 with 1.5 GB ram and a Radeon 8500 with 65 MB of VRAM.
All I can tell you is that if I place a captured DV clip in powerpoint scale it to fit the full slide, it plays back frame for frame at 30 frames / sec. If I place the same clip in Keynote it plays back at MAYBE 8 frames per second...and that without the video being scaled up to fit the full slide area.
My experience with playback of quicktime in powerpoint is that it looks no different than if I were playing it back in quicktime with full screen mode. This is definitely not the case with Keynote.
Wish it weren't true, but it is. Believe me, I hate M$ as much as anyone.
pdf import
Has anyone imported pdf slides into keynote ? I have a lot of slides I created on linux and use acrobat in full screen mode to display. I am hoping that I can import them into keynote with minimal fuss.
Anyone wants to try and give a report if no one has done it so far ? I will gladly provide a sample. 🙂
Has anyone imported pdf slides into keynote ? I have a lot of slides I created on linux and use acrobat in full screen mode to display. I am hoping that I can import them into keynote with minimal fuss.
Anyone wants to try and give a report if no one has done it so far ? I will gladly provide a sample. 🙂
Recent Keynote Experience
I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I love Keynote and have had some recent experience with it. Here's what I've encountered.
I got Keynote the first day it became available and have been working to convert several of my presentations over to it. Those have gone without a hitch. Just the other day I had my first experience creating a real presentation with Keynote. In short, I'd have to agree with others here that it's still not quite there.
My presentation consisted of mostly charts and graphs. While I was very impressed with how the charts looked on screen, I was sorely disappointed when it came to printing - Keynote seems to assume that you will always use a color printer. Take a line chart for example. Keynote will automatically create and color-code the lines as you add them into the table. However, the line strokes are all the same style: solid. Yes, it's possible to change the style, but you only have four options to choose from. Additionally, both the lines and the legend attached to the chart DOES NOT reflect the stroke style. So if one line is solid, a second line is dotted, and a third line is dashed - the lines (and the legend) will print out as all-black solid lines. Useless for differentiation.
Yes, I know that you can add value markers (and they show up properly in the legend), but for some purposes - like dense charts - those just aren't good enough.
As another person mentioned, I'd also like to have greater control over the timing of builds. Right now, I can choose whether I have to click for the first build or not. If you don't click, you have to wait for the first one - and can't set the time (if speed works for this as well, I haven't noticed.) For ALL OTHER builds you have to click before each one. Not flexible enough for me.
Two other serious issues. The first is speed. I'm running on an iBook 600 w/640 MB RAM. Not the speediest of systems, granted, but not a slowpoke, either. I recently switched from a 1.4 GHz Athlon w/1.5 GB RAM and I find this Mac to be as responsive as my old PC, if not more so. I've never before encountered a performance issue in an app on this iBook - until Keynote came along. Adding info to a chart, typing in a title or subtitle, changing colors... It all performs so slowly.
The last serious issue - I couldn't actually run my presentation from Keynote. I discovered during my dry run that Keynote wouldn't let me output to the projector as I don't have enough VRAM. After all of the work I was put in, I was forced to merely click on each slide on the navigation bar (I could display my desktop and apps on the projector without a problem - I just couldn't play the slideshow.)
Oh, as for those handouts - because of the printing issues, I did all of the slides in PowerPoint in order to get the printouts that I wanted. I tried exporting the presentation in PowerPoint format. It worked, except all charts exported as graphic files. Useless for sharing the presentation with my colleagues on PCs if they're expecting to be able to edit them.
Good product, but still beta quality. I'll be looking forward to the next several releases.
I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I love Keynote and have had some recent experience with it. Here's what I've encountered.
I got Keynote the first day it became available and have been working to convert several of my presentations over to it. Those have gone without a hitch. Just the other day I had my first experience creating a real presentation with Keynote. In short, I'd have to agree with others here that it's still not quite there.
My presentation consisted of mostly charts and graphs. While I was very impressed with how the charts looked on screen, I was sorely disappointed when it came to printing - Keynote seems to assume that you will always use a color printer. Take a line chart for example. Keynote will automatically create and color-code the lines as you add them into the table. However, the line strokes are all the same style: solid. Yes, it's possible to change the style, but you only have four options to choose from. Additionally, both the lines and the legend attached to the chart DOES NOT reflect the stroke style. So if one line is solid, a second line is dotted, and a third line is dashed - the lines (and the legend) will print out as all-black solid lines. Useless for differentiation.
Yes, I know that you can add value markers (and they show up properly in the legend), but for some purposes - like dense charts - those just aren't good enough.
As another person mentioned, I'd also like to have greater control over the timing of builds. Right now, I can choose whether I have to click for the first build or not. If you don't click, you have to wait for the first one - and can't set the time (if speed works for this as well, I haven't noticed.) For ALL OTHER builds you have to click before each one. Not flexible enough for me.
Two other serious issues. The first is speed. I'm running on an iBook 600 w/640 MB RAM. Not the speediest of systems, granted, but not a slowpoke, either. I recently switched from a 1.4 GHz Athlon w/1.5 GB RAM and I find this Mac to be as responsive as my old PC, if not more so. I've never before encountered a performance issue in an app on this iBook - until Keynote came along. Adding info to a chart, typing in a title or subtitle, changing colors... It all performs so slowly.
The last serious issue - I couldn't actually run my presentation from Keynote. I discovered during my dry run that Keynote wouldn't let me output to the projector as I don't have enough VRAM. After all of the work I was put in, I was forced to merely click on each slide on the navigation bar (I could display my desktop and apps on the projector without a problem - I just couldn't play the slideshow.)
Oh, as for those handouts - because of the printing issues, I did all of the slides in PowerPoint in order to get the printouts that I wanted. I tried exporting the presentation in PowerPoint format. It worked, except all charts exported as graphic files. Useless for sharing the presentation with my colleagues on PCs if they're expecting to be able to edit them.
Good product, but still beta quality. I'll be looking forward to the next several releases.
janey
macrumors 603
i got keynote at the keynote. So of course i installed it so i can play with it. OMFG!!!!! Keynote is so amazing.
History project due in less than 12 hours...in the past thirty minutes I put together a professional-looking presentation that my fellow team members love...and they're PC users fed up with PowerPoint.
Dude, even if i didn't have keynote I woulda ordered it the DAY it came out so I can use an Apple product with a great name that was tested by Steve Jobs himself. And what kind of name is PowerPoint?!
History project due in less than 12 hours...in the past thirty minutes I put together a professional-looking presentation that my fellow team members love...and they're PC users fed up with PowerPoint.
Dude, even if i didn't have keynote I woulda ordered it the DAY it came out so I can use an Apple product with a great name that was tested by Steve Jobs himself. And what kind of name is PowerPoint?!
Thanks for the input everyone! I was looking at buying a new iMac to suppliment my Wallstreet 266 (which I am not upgrading to OS X), but with the introduction of Keynote and the 12" Powerbooks I wasn't so sure. I do a lot of educational presentations and PowerPoint is an important part of my tool box. I have learned to use it, but don't enjoy using it (espically the XP version).
How about some comments on transition options, layouts, and editing features?
How about some comments on transition options, layouts, and editing features?
I just made my first presentation with Keynote yesterday. It was a major presentation to what was primarily an executive IT crowd.
I built it from ground up so I don't have experience with PPT conversions. But, I found that I could build the presentation in about 50-60% of the time it takes to do a PPT. I agree there are a few features in PPT that are not in Keynote. However, based on the way I work with presentation software, I did not feel I was missing anything.
I built and ran the presentation on a TiBook 800 and experienced none of the problems that a lot of others seem to be having.
The coolest thing had to be the response of the audience. They could not see the laptop because of where it was located. They were pretty much all Windows types and they could tell that it was't PPT. I had a lot of comments about how awesome the look was but I guess no one had the nerve to ask anything about it. Then at lunch, one of the guys at the table made a comment about how much work it must have been to create a Director movie. So I just laughed, pulled out the TiBook and showed them how easy it was. Of the 7 others around the table I was it, 4 were POd that Keynote is Mac only, and the other 3 said they were going to get Mac laptops if for no other reason that making presentations.
I built it from ground up so I don't have experience with PPT conversions. But, I found that I could build the presentation in about 50-60% of the time it takes to do a PPT. I agree there are a few features in PPT that are not in Keynote. However, based on the way I work with presentation software, I did not feel I was missing anything.
I built and ran the presentation on a TiBook 800 and experienced none of the problems that a lot of others seem to be having.
The coolest thing had to be the response of the audience. They could not see the laptop because of where it was located. They were pretty much all Windows types and they could tell that it was't PPT. I had a lot of comments about how awesome the look was but I guess no one had the nerve to ask anything about it. Then at lunch, one of the guys at the table made a comment about how much work it must have been to create a Director movie. So I just laughed, pulled out the TiBook and showed them how easy it was. Of the 7 others around the table I was it, 4 were POd that Keynote is Mac only, and the other 3 said they were going to get Mac laptops if for no other reason that making presentations.
