I have to create a presentation for one of my classes, and I need presentation software. I'm torn between Keynote and Powerpoint for Mac OS X. I am running OS X on a 333MHz iMac, and Keynote requires at least 500MHz. My system meets all the requirements for Microsoft Office v.X, but I would like to use Apple's product if possible. Does anyone know if Keynote would run well enough on a 333MHz machine? Also, if anyone has experience with both apps, which would you recommend? Thanks.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Keynote or Powerpoint?
- Thread starter PerMalum3
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If you don't have extensive PowerPoint experience, I would say lean towards Keynote. I used PowerPoint exclusively and extensively for about seven years until I switched to Keynote about a year ago and have only started PowerPoint a couple of times since then. Keynote was a little challenging to learn at first, but it didn't take too long to figure it out. It has a lot of great features, and looks WAY better then PowerPoint does. However, my iBook met the minimum requirements for Keynote and it worked fine. I don't know whether or not you'd have a problem with it on a 333MHz machine. My guess is that you might experience limitations with animation and transition effects, but that you should probably be able to just make slides. Also, if you have .mac, there are a bunch of free Keynote themes available, and they're gorgeous! I can't wait to use them!
I work with Keynote on a weekly basis using an ibook 600. About half the transitions are not smooth, but they all work, even if a bit jerkey. I display mainly text - no music or graphics. I have lately thought about picking up an ibook G4 933 so I can have a machine a bit faster at home, for the creation of the slides. Again the 600 can be a bit slow.
Honestly, I would not want to use a 333Mhz machine with the program. I love the way macs last, but - from my experience, Keynote would just be too much to handle. Doable if you had patience, but I think it would be labourous and a pain.
My opinion is worth exactly 5 cents. Someone else may have this working fine. I just wouldn't go there myself.
While I am on the topic. I also hate using a 12in screen to create Keynote presentations. Perhaps it is all about my 43 yr old eyes, but I want a larger screen to build on, and a smaller ibook to use for the actual presentations.
Powerpoint. Used it, and will never use it again. I find Keynote more intuitive, friendly for the novice and stable as a rock.
Hope this helps.
Honestly, I would not want to use a 333Mhz machine with the program. I love the way macs last, but - from my experience, Keynote would just be too much to handle. Doable if you had patience, but I think it would be labourous and a pain.
My opinion is worth exactly 5 cents. Someone else may have this working fine. I just wouldn't go there myself.
While I am on the topic. I also hate using a 12in screen to create Keynote presentations. Perhaps it is all about my 43 yr old eyes, but I want a larger screen to build on, and a smaller ibook to use for the actual presentations.
Powerpoint. Used it, and will never use it again. I find Keynote more intuitive, friendly for the novice and stable as a rock.
Hope this helps.
What field are you in? I have extensive experience in PowerPoint and with switching over to Apple, I decided to pick up a copy of Keynote.
At first, I found Keynote easy to use by not "enough" for what I needed out of a presentation. I needed borning, scientific slides. However, a lot of transitions that are in Office XP are not included in Office X (I hope this is corrected in the new Office coming out).
Ultimately, I had to purchase a theme that was more professional for Keynote so that I could use it for my prelims. The presentation turned out to be excellent..but there were a few things I missed such as not being able to use subscripts and superscripts, my guidelines, and not being able to crop. Also, I found that my file was so large that during my presentation there was some serious lag experienced on certain slides. All in all, the presentation was graphically amazing compared to Powerpoint.
If I was not in a scientific field, I would say to go for Keynote. It is easy to use for a novice and has some fun themes which look like a lot of work.
However, here there are some reasons not to get Keynote. The exporting to Powerpoint was very poor, and if you need to give slides ever to another person (as I have to in my research group), you will have to find ways around this. There are a lot more features in PowerPoint...this might be why it is confusing for a novice. I just find that PowerPoint is much more powerful for a professional user, BUT Keynote can be equally powerful if you have the time (I guess the same can be said for Powerpoint slides).
The funny part, to me, is that alone each lacks, together, Keynote and Powerpoint would make the perfect presentation program. Each fills in where the other lacks and vice versa. Powerpoint is difficult, Keynote easy, Powerpoint technical but boring, Keynote less technical but graphically stunning....For me, I had to have Powerpoint for work and I got Keynote to satify my desire for graphically awesome presentations. But I am a presentation geek.
At first, I found Keynote easy to use by not "enough" for what I needed out of a presentation. I needed borning, scientific slides. However, a lot of transitions that are in Office XP are not included in Office X (I hope this is corrected in the new Office coming out).
Ultimately, I had to purchase a theme that was more professional for Keynote so that I could use it for my prelims. The presentation turned out to be excellent..but there were a few things I missed such as not being able to use subscripts and superscripts, my guidelines, and not being able to crop. Also, I found that my file was so large that during my presentation there was some serious lag experienced on certain slides. All in all, the presentation was graphically amazing compared to Powerpoint.
If I was not in a scientific field, I would say to go for Keynote. It is easy to use for a novice and has some fun themes which look like a lot of work.
However, here there are some reasons not to get Keynote. The exporting to Powerpoint was very poor, and if you need to give slides ever to another person (as I have to in my research group), you will have to find ways around this. There are a lot more features in PowerPoint...this might be why it is confusing for a novice. I just find that PowerPoint is much more powerful for a professional user, BUT Keynote can be equally powerful if you have the time (I guess the same can be said for Powerpoint slides).
The funny part, to me, is that alone each lacks, together, Keynote and Powerpoint would make the perfect presentation program. Each fills in where the other lacks and vice versa. Powerpoint is difficult, Keynote easy, Powerpoint technical but boring, Keynote less technical but graphically stunning....For me, I had to have Powerpoint for work and I got Keynote to satify my desire for graphically awesome presentations. But I am a presentation geek.
I just bought Keynote, it shipped today. I was impressed by the ability to export into Quicktime and burn to cd so I don't have to worry about the machine I present on. I just bought a refurbished mini-PB 867. I have a iMac 400mhz. I am sure it might run Keynote but it would be a real pain. The G4 and the better graphics card make it so much nicer. I can see why graphics pro were so peaved with the slow G4 years. It can be a real drag waiting to render. I say get Keynote and get a newer mac if you can. You will save time and pain's in your neck. Unless you can cool with it a trip to the coffee maker. I guess it is all in the attitude. I guess the difference between using the 333 G3 and a G4, would be like waiting for a trusty mule, or being dragged along by a stallion. Or in the case of the G5 being dragged by an entire team of racing horses. Eww, excitement.
I've been using Keynote for about a year on an iBook 700 and speed is one of my biggest complaints. Often, when you create the presentation, there's even a delay from when you press a key until the character shows up on screen. Minimal, but noticeable enough to be annoying. The actual presenting has always been smooth, but then again, for good taste and to avoid distraction from the content, I don't use fancy transitions, animations or funny sounds.
There have also been a couple of things where I found Keynote too limited. When you design charts, for example, you have relatively little control over axes and labels (Y-axis on the right?, Turn a pie chart without turning labels?...) Also, there's no formula editor - a real bummer for scientific presentations.
There's a lot of say that Keynote looks better. I'd qualify that a bit. Keynote looks better with little effort. If you take some time to prepare a good Powerpoint template, you won't see much difference. (except for Keynote's fancier transitions, which I rarely use).
But it's true that Keynote makes it easier to design good-looking pages with tools like the automatic guides that Powerpoint lacks. Then again, that all takes computing power and I wouldn't wanna try that on a 333MHz machine.
Sven
There have also been a couple of things where I found Keynote too limited. When you design charts, for example, you have relatively little control over axes and labels (Y-axis on the right?, Turn a pie chart without turning labels?...) Also, there's no formula editor - a real bummer for scientific presentations.
There's a lot of say that Keynote looks better. I'd qualify that a bit. Keynote looks better with little effort. If you take some time to prepare a good Powerpoint template, you won't see much difference. (except for Keynote's fancier transitions, which I rarely use).
But it's true that Keynote makes it easier to design good-looking pages with tools like the automatic guides that Powerpoint lacks. Then again, that all takes computing power and I wouldn't wanna try that on a 333MHz machine.
Sven
If you're in a mathematical field, I think the best thing for equations is using Equation Service and latex with Keynote. Keynote handles the pdf output from Equation Service beautifully. Of course its really convenient if you write all your papers in LaTeX.
crackpip
crackpip
The problem with a 333MHz G3 is that you won't be able to run Quartz Extreme, which is one of Keynote's biggest assets. As such, the transitions and effects will be very jerky.
Another thing to consider is cost. For me, I had to get Office anyway, so PowerPoint was included (and PowerPoint alone is about 4/5 the price of Office). While I'd love to have and use Keynote, I can't justify the unncessary cost of spending £60 education ($120) when I already have PowerPoint in my machine. Sure, if I was a business it would be worth it, but I only need to give 3-4 presentations a year for my uni course. On the other hand, if you don't want or need Office, then Keynote is the much cheaper option.
Another thing to consider is cost. For me, I had to get Office anyway, so PowerPoint was included (and PowerPoint alone is about 4/5 the price of Office). While I'd love to have and use Keynote, I can't justify the unncessary cost of spending £60 education ($120) when I already have PowerPoint in my machine. Sure, if I was a business it would be worth it, but I only need to give 3-4 presentations a year for my uni course. On the other hand, if you don't want or need Office, then Keynote is the much cheaper option.
Ok, I've got to give a presentation next week and I'll be using PowerPoint. But I'd love to use Keynote. It's not just the fancy cube transitions that you can do (which I know will woo my audience if used subtely) but realistic drop shadows on everything.
Drop shadows in Mac MS Office v.10 are rubbish (worse than the Windows version) - why can't Microsoft make use of the gorgeous Quartz drop shadow? For my big presentation in June on my year's dissertation project, I might have to get Keynote to use with it...
Drop shadows in Mac MS Office v.10 are rubbish (worse than the Windows version) - why can't Microsoft make use of the gorgeous Quartz drop shadow? For my big presentation in June on my year's dissertation project, I might have to get Keynote to use with it...
Keynote - no question.
PPT presentations are tired. PPT has a crappy interface that makes it hard to create something cool.
Keynote makes it easy to create awesome presentations.
I tried it out when demoing software to some prospects, and at a tradeshow, and I will never go back. People actually asked how I made the slideshow (it was a looping QT movie played on my TiBook).
My TiBook is a Rev A 400 with 384mb. Performance was fine.
PPT presentations are tired. PPT has a crappy interface that makes it hard to create something cool.
Keynote makes it easy to create awesome presentations.
I tried it out when demoing software to some prospects, and at a tradeshow, and I will never go back. People actually asked how I made the slideshow (it was a looping QT movie played on my TiBook).
My TiBook is a Rev A 400 with 384mb. Performance was fine.
Keynote works on machines slower than the required 500 Mhz. 333 Mhz, however, might just cut it. If you had an up-to-date system I too would swing towards Keynote, but in this case I would like to think that Office v.X might work better for you. By the way, what is the native resoultion of your machine?