Giving Your Presentation with a Laptop

You will likely be giving your Keynote presentation from a laptop. Using a laptop, you can easily rehearse your presentation at home or elsewhere as well as make last-minute changes. Apple currently sells MacBook Pro, PowerBook, and iBook laptops. Depending on your particular model, the steps for connecting an external monitor will vary. Here are the general steps for hooking up a laptop to a projector and giving a presentation.

1.	Close your laptop lid so the machine goes to sleep.
2.	Determine whether the projector uses a VGA connector or a DVI connector. VGA connector. DVI connector. A DVI connector is a more modern connector and is standard on most Mac laptops. You may need to use an adapter (likely included with your laptop). Note Different models of Mac laptops have different connector options. Most laptops ship with an Apple DVI-to-VGA display adapter. If your laptop has a mini DVI port, you will need an Apple Mini-DVItoDVI adapter. These adapters are included with Apple laptops and should be carried in your laptop bag. If you lose them, you can buy replacements from the Apple Store.
3.	If needed, connect the DVI-to-VGA or Mini-DVItoDVI adapter to your laptop.
4.	Connect the cable from the projector to your laptop (if needed, use the adapter).
5.	Open the lid to your laptop and give the computer a minute to detect the display. If the laptop does not communicate with the projector (in other words, if your computer's desktop does not appear on the projector), you may need to configure your laptop to detect the display manually.
6.	To force the laptop to detect the display, click the Apple menu and choose System Preferences. Then click Displays.
7.	Click the Detect Displays button.
8.	Select the monitor resolution that matches your slideshow resolution. You can check your slide size in the Document Inspector. If the exact resolution is not available, choose the closest size.
9.	Switch back to Keynote.
10.	Choose Keynote > Preferences.
11.	Click Slideshow and select the "Present on secondary display" option.
12.	Click Presenter Display and select "Use alternate display to view presenter information."
13.	Close the Preferences window.
14.	Click Play and test your slideshow.

Tip

A remote control lets you move away from the computer when presenting. There are several third-party remote controls that work with Keynote. Newer model Macs are shipping with the Apple Remote that can also be used to advance slides in a presentation.