Section 11.3. Exporting to Other Formats

11.3. Exporting to Other Formats

Keynote allows you to export your slideshow in a variety of file formats, making your presentation accessible on computers that don't have Keynote 2 installedor that aren't Macs. You can save your presentation as a PowerPoint file, a QuickTime movie, a PDF file, a Macromedia Flash file, or as a collection of JPEG, PNG, or TIFF image files.

11.3.1. Exporting to PowerPoint

The 800- pound gorilla of presentation software is, of course, Microsoft PowerPoint. Keynote can save slideshows in PowerPoint format that people can view and edit on any computerMac or Windowsthat has PowerPoint. Although PowerPoint uses the same file format on Mac and Windows, these two operating systems handle fonts and graphics in completely different ways, which you surely notice when you view your presentation on a Windows computer.

Equally frustrating are the inconsistencies when you export from Keynote to PowerPoint on the Mac. Many of Keynote's transitions and builds don't display properlyor at all. Some bulleted text may disappear, the appearance of fonts and graphics can change, and movies and sounds may not display as you intended. In other words, nearly all of Keynote's panache is vulnerable to this translation. If you need to play your presentation on a computer that doesn't have Keynote installed and you want to preserve Keynote's visual splendor, export it as a QuickTime movie, described next .

Still, there are times you want toor have tosave your slideshow in PowerPoint format. Unlike a QuickTime export, you can edit a Keynote slideshow you've exported to PowerPoint like any other PowerPoint presentation. Just limit yourself to simple transitions and build effectsin other words, avoid all the cool stuff that Keynote does so well. That way your slideshow can make the transition from Keynote to PowerPoint with little change.

Translating a slideshow into PowerPoint format is a three-step process.

1. Create and save your Keynote slideshow as you normally would, and then choose File Export .

   The export window appears, showing Keynote's array of export options (Figure 11-7).

   

   Figure 11-7. When you choose File Export, Keynote presents its various export options. Choose one of the formats, and then click Next to either choose more options or open the Save dialog box.

   
   

2. Enter a name for the PowerPoint version of your slideshow, choose a destination folder in which to save it, and then click Export .

   You can leave the name of the document the same as the Keynote file's name. Keynote appends the .PPT extension to the name so that youand your Maccan tell the different versions apart.

   Keynote displays a progress bar as it makes the translation. Depending on the length and complexity of your slideshowand the speed of your computerthis process can take a few seconds or many minutes.

11.3.2. Exporting as a QuickTime Movie

When you save a Keynote slideshow as a QuickTime movie, you can preserve all your transitions and builds, since QuickTime actually creates a movie, frame by frame, while Keynote plays your slideshow. When you save a presentation as a QuickTime movie, you can play it on any computer that has QuickTime Player installed. QuickTime is Apple's media authoring and viewing software, so the player software comes on all Macs. You can also download it free and install it on Windows machines. You can download the latest version for Mac or Windows at www.quicktime.com.

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Note: As you might expect, the free QuickTime Player software only plays media files. For $30, you can upgrade to QuickTime Pro in order to create, edit, and save audio and video filesand play movies full-screen instead of in a window. For people who use Keynote, the best part of QuickTime Pro is its ability to save a QuickTime movie so it always plays full-screen, even on computers running the free QuickTime Player.

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QuickTime lets you save your presentation in various sizes and qualities, ranging from large files with full-quality video down to small files suitable for a Web page.

Keynote can export two types of QuickTime slideshow movies.

• Interactive slideshow . When you or your viewers play this kind of QuickTime movie, you advance through each slide and build by pressing the Space bar, much like a Keynote "normal" presentation (Section 10.1). QuickTime can't perform timed builds or transitions. In other words, this kind of slideshow is completely manual: you must advance each slide and build.

• Self-Playing Movie . When you view this kind of QuickTime slideshow, you have absolutely no manual controlevery slide and build advances automatically. This kind of movie is like Keynote's self-playing presentation (Section 10.1), except the build duration and slide durations are the same for the entire slideshowyou can't vary the timing on individual slides.

When you export your slideshow as a QuickTime movie, you're creating a new file in QuickTime format. Make sure you've saved your document in Keynote format before you begin. Then:

1. Choose File Export, select QuickTime, and then Next (Figure 11-7) .

   The QuickTime options window appears (Figure 11-8).

2. Use the Playback Control pop-up menu to determine which kind of QuickTime movie to create: an Interactive Slideshow or a Self-Playing Movie .

3. If you choose Self-Playing Movie, set the Slide Duration (the amount of time each slide remains onscreen) and the Build Duration (the amount of time between slide builds) in the two boxes .

4. Use the Repeat pop-up menu if you want the movie to play over and over (Loop), or play to the end and then play in reverse back to the beginning, repeating over and over (Back and Forth). If you want the movie to play through just once to the end and stop, choose None .

5. Select a size and quality for the movie from the Formats pop-up menu. Keynote displays the details for the current setting beneath the two checkboxes .

   Full Quality, Large . When you choose this setting, QuickTime creates the best quality movie, at 24 frames per second (fps), with the same pixel dimensions as your slides. As always, high quality means large file sizeand this setting creates the largest files.

   CD-ROM Movie, Medium . Choose this option to create a movie with a smaller file sizesuitable for including on a CD-ROM, for example. These movies have half as many frames12 fpswhich makes your transitions and movies appear somewhat jerky. This setting produces movies that are half the size of the full quality movies, creating a 400 x 300 pixel movie from your 800 x 600 pixel slides.

   

   Figure 11-8. Select options from the QuickTime export window to determine the movie's type and quality. When QuickTime creates a self-playing movie, you can set the slide and build duration, and whether or not the movie loops . These settings override any you may have set in Keynote's various inspectors.

   
   

   Web Movie, Small . Opt for this setting if you can sacrifice presentation size and quality in order to make a movie small enough to include on a Web page or send via email. To achieve this small file size, QuickTime cuts the movie size in half once again, resulting in a 12 fps, 200 x 150 pixel movie from your 800 x 600 pixel slides.

   Custom . Choose this setting if you prefer to "roll your own" QuickTime settings in order to produce some other blend of size and frame rate, use a different video compressor, or alter the movie's audio quality, as explained in Figure 11-9.

6. If your slideshow includes any sound, turn on the checkbox marked "Include audio" to include it in the QuickTime movie .

7. If your slideshow contains transparent objects, turn on "Include transparency."

   You usually want this option turned on if your slides contain any transparency. However, some transitions won't display properly with it onso if you turn it on, review the transitions in your QuickTime movie after the export.

8. When you've set all the QuickTime options, click Next to open the Save dialog box. Then name the movie, select a destination folder, and click Export .

   The Export to QuickTime window appears, displaying each slide as QuickTime turns your slideshow into a movie. If you're exporting at full quality, you have the pleasure of watching QuickTime process each frame as it turns your slide transitions and builds into 24 fps motion pictures. This might be a good time to go out for some fresh air, mow the lawn, or see what's on TiVo.

   

   Figure 11-9. If Keynote's three off-the-rack QuickTime formats don't provide the fit you desire , choose Custom to create the ultimate bespoke export. The Custom QuickTime Settings dialog box (top) lets you set a custom movie size, and its two Settings buttons lead to the Compression Settings (bottom) and Sound Settings (middle) dialog boxes, with which you can tweak QuickTime's video and audio behavior. You can choose from a bewildering array of quality settings and audio and video compression schemes, or codecscompression/ decompression algorithms. QuickTime could use a Missing Manual of its own to help sort out all these settingsbut until then you can learn about them from Apple's QuickTime 7 User Guide, which you'll find cleverly concealed at www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/.

   
   

9. When Keynote finishes exporting, double-click the new QuickTime file to open it in QuickTime player .

   If you've saved your slideshow as a self-playing movie, it starts playing immediately. If you saved it as an interactive slideshow, the first slide appears. Use the Space bar to advance through the presentation.

10. If you're running Tiger (OS X 10.4) and you've paid your $30 to upgrade QuickTime player to QuickTime Pro (choose QuickTime Player Registration to purchase the upgrade) you can set your QuickTime movie to automatically open at full-screen size. In QuickTime, choose Window Show Movie Properties, click the Presentation tab, and then turn on the checkbox marked "Enter fullscreen mode when opened." Then close the movie and click Save to save your new presentation options .

    Now any time you open this moviewith QuickTime Player or Pro, on Mac or Windowsit appears full-screen, the next best thing to presenting your slideshow through Keynote.

11.3.3. Exporting to Flash

You can also export your slideshow as a Macromedia Flash movie. You can include Flash movies in a Web page where they play right inside the browser window. Before you export, use the Document Inspector to set your presentation style as either Normal or Self-Playing (see Section 10.1 for details about these two different modes).

Choose File Export, select Flash, and then click Next. Then give the new file a name, choose a destination folder, and click Export.

The Flash movies Keynote creates require Flash Player 7 or later. There's a free download available for most Web browsers (www.flash.com)text doesn't display properly with earlier versions.

If you exported a self-playing presentation, Flash plays it through automatically. If you exported a normal presentation, Flash displays the first slide; click within the window to advance the slideshow.

11.3.4. Exporting to PDF

If you want to share your slideshow with people who don't have Keynote, and you'd like to use a format that's more universal than PowerPoint, Keynote lets you export your slides as an Adobe Acrobat PDF document. Adobe makes free versions of its Adobe Reader program for virtually any computer operating systemmaking it the best bet for a universally readable file. OS X's Preview program can also open PDF files.

When you export a slideshow, each slide becomes a page in the PDF document (Figure 11-10). Since they're just still images, your viewers don't see any transitions, builds, or movies; or hear any sounds. But they can see all your text and images, making PDFs a great way to solicit comments from your coworkers before the presentation, or distribute the slides to your workshop attendees afterwards. Keynote provides two different methods for creating PDFs: the Export command and the Print command. Although in many cases the results look the same on screen, if you want to print the PDF, you should use the Print command; if it's destined to be viewed online, you should use the Export command for best results.

To create a PDF document from your slideshow with the Export command, choose File Export, select PDF, and then click Next. Give your file a name, choose a destination folder in the Save dialog box, and then click Export.

To create a PDF document from your slideshow with the Print command, choose File Print and click Save as PDF. In the Save dialog box, give your file a name, choose a destination folder, and then click Save.

Figure 11-10. When you open a slideshow in Adobe Reader after exporting from Keynote as a PDF, you can see or print all your slides in high qualitybut you don't get sounds, movies, or transitions.

11.3.5. Exporting Slides as Image Files

Keynote can turn your slideshow into a collection of individual image filesone for each slide or build. You'll find this ability handy when someone asks you to email a copy of just one or two of your slides, or if you want to include your slides in a Pages documentto make a fancier handout, for example.

Keynote can create image files in three different formats.

• JPEG is the most popular compressed image format. JPEG compression can yield files that are a small fraction of the original file size, although at some sacrifice of image quality.

• PNG , pronounced "ping," is designed for use on Web pages. Like JPEG, PNG also compresses the image file, but produces a higher-quality image.

• TIFF image files aren't compressedand therefore have the highest possible image quality, but also the largest file size.

1. To export images, choose File Export, select Images, and then click Next .

   The Image Export dialog box appears (Figure 11-11).

2. To create an image from each slide in the slideshow, click All .

   If you want to create images from just some of the slides, click the From button and enter a range of slide numbers in the two boxes. To create an image of just one slide, enter that slide number in both boxes.

   

   Figure 11-11. Set the slide range and format for an image export, and choose whether or not to make individual images from each build. Make a sample export of one slide in each format and compare their quality, so you can judge the three qualities.

   
   

3. Turn on the checkbox marked "Create an image for each stage of builds" if you need individual image files for each of your slide builds .

4. Use the Format pop-up menu to select the type of image file: JPEG, PNG, or TIFF; and then click Next .

   The Save dialog box appears. Enter a name for your images in the Save As box, and then select a destination folder.

   As Keynote saves each of your slide images, it appends a number to the name you enter hereresulting in, for example: Beagle Obedience001, Beagle Obedience002, and so on.

   If you want to keep your slideshow images together in their own folder, click New Folder, give the new folder a name, and then click Create.

5. Click Export, and a progress bar appears to give you an indication that Key-note's toiling away converting your images .

6. Drag the exported images into iPhoto if you want Pages to be able to get to them through the Media Browser .

11.3.6. Importing PowerPoint or AppleWorks Presentations

If you've created a slideshow in PowerPoint or AppleWorks, it's a simple matter to bring it into Keynote. Just drag the PowerPoint or AppleWorks file icon to the Keynote Dock icon, or choose File Open, navigate to the file, and then press Return (or click Open).

Keynote translates the file and opens it as an untitled document. Choose File Save, name the Keynote version of the presentation, select a destination folder, and then click Save.

As you've come to expect in the file import/export business, the translation may not be 100 percent accurate. Importing from PowerPoint or AppleWorks into Keynote generally produces good resultsbut your mileage may vary. Here are a few things to look out for:

• You may need to resize some fonts, or replace them with a different font.

• PowerPoint allows two bulleted text boxes per slide, while Keynote allows only one. If your PowerPoint slide had two, you end up with one bulleted text box and one free text box containing text with misaligned bullets.

• Some styles of Excel charts included in PowerPoint presentations don't display properly.

• PowerPoint uses 720 x 540 pixels for its standard slide size, as opposed to Keynote's 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768. This discrepancy isn't a problem when you import into Keynote unless you wish to apply a Keynote themein which case you end up with quite a mess due to the size mismatch. You can prevent this problem by resizing your PowerPoint slideshow before you import it.

  To do so, start by duplicating your PowerPoint presentation to preserve an unscathed backup copy. Open the file in PowerPoint and choose File Page Set up. Enter the new slide size in the Width and Height boxes. PowerPoint measures in inches instead of pixels, so convert Keynotes pixels to inches according to the following table:

  Table 11-2.

  Resolution (pixels)	Width (inches)	Height (inches)
  640 x 480	8.88	6.66
  800 x 600	11.11	8.33
  1024 x 768	14.22	10.66
  1152 x 870	16	12.08

  
  

  After you change the slide size and click OK, PowerPoint may helpfully warn you that your new page size is too big for your printer, offering a Fix button to take care of the problem. Click OK instead, and then save the file and open it in Keynote.

  After Keynote imports the slides, their sizes may be off by one pixel due to the conversion from inches to pixels. Open the Document Inspector, click Document, and change the Slide Size pop-up menu from Custom to the standard sizefor example, from 799 x 599 to 80 x 600.