Using Keynote and OmniDazzle together gives you a wide variety of different highlighting effects that you can use in your presentation. The options run the gamut from the straighforward “Flashlight” to the useful “Cutout” and “Zoom” to the cool “Sonar” and “Waves”. But, since several of the options can be activated with clicks, you have to be very careful when using them or you may inadvertently advance your presentation before you’re ready. Here are some things that we’ve found useful when using OmniDazzle that keeps you from advancing accidentally, but still allows the full range of what OmniDazzle offers.

The way Keynote is set up by default (and probably the way your presentation is set up), a click on a slide is interpreted as an “On-click” event, which then advances the slide, performs a build, etc. So, if you’re on a slide and you want to use one of the “click” functions of OmniDazzle (instead of needing to press a key sequence), the default options won’t let this work seamlessly.

As a result, you’ll have to re-think your presentation a bit. First, go into the Inspector under the Document tab and find the “Presentation” option. You should find that this is set for “Normal”. You’ll want to change that to “Hyperlinks only”. Now, when you click on a slide, Keynote is ignoring that click unless you’re clicking on a hyperlink. For example, this will make the flashlight work in the easy intuitive way you’re expecting, click for on, click for off.

Of course, the problem now is that your presentation won’t advance because you set it for Hyperlinks only and have no hyperlinks! The easiest way to fix this part is to place an object with no fill and no stroke on the master slides that you’re using for that presentation and set it’s hyperlink to “next slide”. (This is assuming you don’t want to throw off the look of your entire presentation with a “next” link on every slide, that’s why you assign it “none” so it won’t show up.) Place it in a corner of your slide and when you want to advance go there and click. Another thing to remember is that since clicking is also activating OmniDazzle, if you’re using the flashlight and click to go to the next slide, it will display WITH the flashlight effect on instead of off. So, just remember to make sure you’re leaving the slide with flashlight on so that after the click, the next slide will display with it initially off.

If presentations only included slide transitions, you’d be set. BUT, you’ve got another issue. If you have any builds on a slide… well, they were all probably set to on-click so you can control your presentation at your own pace. However, after setting the other option to Hyperlinks only… Keynote doesn’t HAVE a hyperlink for “advance the build”. SO, that will also require some re-engineering of your presentation such that each build is actually a transition. The problem HERE becomes that if you’re using the click to activate OmniDazzle and you have nothing on a particular slide to highlight, then each time you advance, it’s going to turn on then you’ll click again to turn it off (and remember NOT to click on your hot spot or you’ll go to the NEXT slide!!

So, if the click functionality of OmniDazzle is what you’re going for, you’ve got a bit of work to do to prepare your presentation to work well with it and you’ll have to present a bit differently. Remember that if reworking the “click” activation doesn’t work for a particular presentation, the “key” and “shake” options can be used in place of the click for some effects. Just like with other workarounds, though, if it makes a difference in your presentation being well received, it’ll be worth it!