Building Master Slides

Master slides are where Keynote stores its definitions for all slide attributes. Changes that you make to master slides will be reflected in the presentation slides that are based on those master slides. For example, when you click the Table button on the toolbar, Apple's themes create a table with three rows and three columns. If you tend to need a table with four rows and four columns , you can change the table default on the master slide, and from then on in the presentation file, tables will appear your way.

If you modify a master slide in a particular theme in a presentation file, your changes will affect just that file, and will not be reflected in other presentations made from the theme. If you want the changes to work in other files, you must save the changes as a custom theme. See Chapter 14 for more information about building custom themes.

Master slides provide the definitions for the following slide attributes:

• Background graphics

• Photo cutouts

• Text box layouts

• Default bullet styles for bulleted text

• Default font settings

• Line and fill styles for objects and tables

• Chart types and styles

• Default slide transition

• Placement of alignment guides

When you create a custom master slide, you can go about the job in two ways. You can modify one of the existing master slides in your presentation file. Or you can make a duplicate of the existing master slide that has the closest attributes to what you want to create, make changes to the copy, and then rename it. If you have previously created the master slide, you can also import it into your current file from another presentation file.

Chock Full o' Master Slides

Keynote 2 allows you to have multiple themes in a single presentation file. This is both good and bad. The good part is that you can easily have many master slides from which to choose for maximum flexibility in creating your presentation. Unfortunately, whenever you change themes, all of the master slides for each theme you try get copied into your presentation file. If you preview multiple themes, you end up with dozens of unneeded and unused master slides in your presentation, and this bloats the file size , slowing down the program.

Work around this problem by copying and pasting a few representative slides from your presentation into a new Keynote file, then use that new file to preview different themes. When you find a theme that you like, simply close the file you're using for experimentation without saving it. Then return to your real presentation and apply only the theme you prefer.

To duplicate a master slide

1.	Choose View > Show Master Slides. The Master Slide Navigator appears ( Figure 13.1 ). Figure 13.1. You'll make most of your changes to master slides in the Master Slide Navigator.
2.	Click to select the master slide that has the most similar attributes to the attributes of the master slide that you want to create.
3.	Choose Slide > New Master Slide. or Press . or Click New in the toolbar. Keynote creates a new master slide under the one you selected, with the name Master # x , where x is a number one larger than the current number of master slides ( Figure 13.2 ). The new master slide will be a duplicate of the originally selected master slide. Figure 13.2. When you create a new master slide, Keynote automatically gives it a name, which you'll probably want to change.

Tips

• You can also duplicate a master slide by selecting it in the Master Slide Navigator, then pressing Return.

• Another way to duplicate a master slide is to select an existing master slide, then choose Edit > Duplicate. The new master slide will have the name of the original master slide, plus "copy."

To rename a master slide

1.	Select a master slide in the Master Slide Navigator.
2.	Double-click the master slide's name. The name is selected.
3.	Type the new name, then press Return, Enter, or click anywhere else in the Keynote window.

To import a master slide from another presentation file

1.	Open the Keynote file that will be the destination of the imported slide.
2.	Open the Keynote file (the source file ) that contains the master slide that you want.
3.	Arrange the two windows so that you can see both of them on your screen.
4.	In both files, make sure that the Master Slide Navigator is visible.
5.	Select the master slide you want from the source file, and drag it into the Master Slide Navigator of the destination document. Keynote creates a new master slide in the destination document that is a copy of the master slide from the source document ( Figure 13.3 ). Figure 13.3. Dragging a slide from the front window into the Master Slide Navigator of the rear window created a new master slide with the same name in the rear window.

Tips

• As you can see, this technique can also be used to copy slides between presentation files, not just master slides.

• The new master slide in the destination file will have the same name as it had in the source file. If that name is already present in the destination file, Keynote (as of version 2.0.2) allows both of the master slides to have the same name. This appears to be a bug, since the behavior has changed from Keynote 1, and it's obviously a bad idea to have more than one master slide with a particular name. To avoid confusion, I suggest you rename the master slide you added.

• If you apply a new theme after importing or customizing a master slide, the theme settings will override your customizations, unless you click the "Retain changes to theme defaults" check box in the Theme Chooser before you click Choose ( Figure 13.4 ).

  Figure 13.4. If you don't want your custom changes to be overwritten, make sure that you click "Retain changes to theme defaults" in the Theme Chooser.