07
Quick Keynote ‘08 new feature list
Posted by | Posted in iWork Updates | Posted on 08-07-2007
We just got our copy a little while ago and are going through it. Here’s a quick list to keep you happy (or unhappy)
New:
-Audio builds (start, stop)
-Record show timings
-Special item to item builds (work well for photos) called Smart Builds
-Actions (motion paths with bezier curves, transparency over time, rotate or scale over time, plus some other effects)
-Instant Alpha for doing things like removing the white background from a logo (our tests showed this works well)
-Start movie on click so your poster frames mean something
-Trim in and outs on movies
-User defined text on masters (placeholder text)
-User defined image on masters (image placeholders like Pages-yeah!)
-New Picture Frame object/image borders (well now, this opens a whole new thing for theme makers)
-3 viewing sizes for the LIght Table view
-Narration Recording
-New transitions (color panes, confetti, swap, blur)
-New text effects (blast, bouncy, comet, confetti, convergence, diffuse out, drift, flame, sparkle, squish, probably a few more)
-new image mask resize slider (to resize the image inside the mask)
-export to itunes and ipod (haven’t tested this yet)
-import new Office xml format (heck, even PPT 2004 can’t do that yet)
-new Format bar. FINALLY you can choose fonts and colors from right below the tool bar and not have to open the fonts panel and visit the inspector! Fonts, colors, formatting, columns, fill, stroke, shadow, reflection and transparency are all there. It seems to change with the object you have selected too, so it’s like a mini inspector (tables at least get their own functions in the bar)
-The manual is online ONLY???!!!! Oh, they are on the DVD, but if you choose the manual from the help menu, you get the support website. Weird.
-New document warnings window you can leave up. We’re guessing it tells you when there are problems with images or your file.
-New Show/Hide guides option, new Edge guides on off toggle button in the menu bar (if you add it yourself)
-New interface icons pretty much across the board
-New Capitalization option under Format>Font
-New Mask with Shape sub menu that lets you apply a default shape to your image, instead of making a shape first
-New Insert Function sub menu in the Insert menu for use with Tables…and…
-A heck of a lot more functions for calculations in tables
-There’s a new table cell only text format button that left justifies text and right justifies numbers (had to check the manual for that one!)
Stuff still missing (as far as we know)
-Audio across multiple slides but not the whole show
-Audio fade in our out
-Slide selector that stays up in the presenter view like in PPT 2004
-Still no multi-color gradient function
-Still no way to punch holes in Keynote shapes
-It appears there’s still no true “action button function”, where you can make a button trigger something else (but we’re hoping we’re wrong
-There’s still doesn’t appear to be a hyperlink “visited” link color option, so those wanting to make games where the visits slides seem to go off the board, that still won’t happen.
Our first thoughts:
Image place holders seem to have replaced photo cutouts in all of Apples themes. This also makes building a theme a HECK of a lot easier (one we figure out how to make photo frames). We’ll still need cutouts for odd shapes I think, but it sure is nice to see something you think is a cutout, and it MOVES…and it can be resized. Very nice.
In our tests, I found a bug already! I have a zillion themes, and when I choose the theme menu from the tool bar, I get a four column menu of themes…and the top 3 are ALWAYS cut off, no matter where Keynote is on the screen. Not only that, but I realized, they’re cut off well below the actual top of the theme list. There are literally dozens of themes not showing and you can’t scroll the list. Oops.
Okay, that’s all for now. We’ll try to get a more in depth review up soon.
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man, that was fast!
great job.
I assume you still can’t import a .pdf, .svg, .eps, Illustrator or Freehand file and edit the fill and line? We are still with jumping through a few hoops to get a “Keynote” shape?
I haven’t had a chance to test that, but my guess is yes, we still have to use svg2key.
One BIG thing though, because of the new frames and image placeholders, most photo cutouts aren’t needed (mostly the rectangular kind).
Thanks for the info (and digging around to get it). We Keynoters out here in the aether appreciate it! Your detailed analysis adds much to the high points Apple trumpets.
Keep up the good work!
Inoticed this with Pages before I left for work. If you place a shape on the page you can drag a photo directly into it and it will become masked with that shape. Sadly it doesn’t scale the photo very much, so you still have to fiddle with it.
The photo frames are pretty cool, though. I haven’t played around to see if they are just simple bitmaps or if they are more complicated, like the ones which were shown with the next version of snipping web pages into dashboard.
I’m hoping a person can set up their own shapes somehow. I hate to say it but I was kind of hoping to see a more robust drawing program with iwork. I’ll have to see if Numbers does some of that.
I just tried the “record timings” function. It raises a lot of questions, like:
– Is there any way to edit the timings after recording them? (I don’t think so)
– Is there any way to replace the recorded narration with a professionally mixed track?
– Is it possible to mix voice and music while recording narration? (Probably, via a USB mixing board)
– What happens if you manually advance during playback of a recorded presentation? (Nothing. Keynote ignores any input except Esc)
– What happens if you Escape, then re-start the presentation? (You go back to the beginning.)
So it seems like this will be handy for sending simple, narrated presentations to friends/colleagues/students; but it won’t be terribly helpful for “professional” presentations such as corporate events, where it’d be nice to create a show precisely timed to music. The current function doesn’t have enough editing/mixing options to really tune into a polished “canned” show.
Adam – great points there. What would totally rock is if we could bring in a soundtrack with markers (from Soundtrack Pro, Soundbooth, or FCP) which would act as triggers.
There seems to be a bit of a wall of separation between “consumer” and pro apps, as far as integration – I wish those teams talked more.
I’m not sure if they will get into a “soundtrack” in Keynote, I suppose they could but I think it would have to put it all in there, show all the builds and transitions and time. Might be a mess. What would be pretty simple is to add sound to builds. Audio clip starts playing at this point on slide X, stops on slide X+5. Go to the builds on slide X+5 and there it is, you can put a build out on it. No reason you could not support objects accross slides like this too.
All your timings for slides transitions and builds are there so you don’t need a soundrack as one usually thinks of one.
I agree, John. Having recently switched to Mac and being knocked on my bottom by Keynote’s elegance, I was shocked to see you couldn’t span audio across several slides. I’m hopeful your “No reason you could not …” leads finally to an update allowing us to do this easily (as powerpoint does).
Perhaps I am doing something wrong. I am using the 30 day trial of Keynote 08. If I start to create a presentation in one theme, then change my mind and select another theme, most of the photos are lost as the new theme reverts to its own default set of placeholder photos.
Yes, you can import eps among others. Keynote is very slick.
I still do not understand why there is not a way to drop a quicktime movie on a frame and have it transition to the next frame when the movie ends. I like keynote but geez I have been waiting for that for years.