Comments on: Quick Keynote ’08 new feature list

By: iWork ‘08: Keynote « Simply Robert

iWork ‘08: Keynote « Simply Robert — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 21:06:29 +0000

[...] Keynote User: Quick Keynote ‘08 New Feature List [...]

By: John Mortensen

John Mortensen — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 03:32:08 +0000

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.

By: wes

wes — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:28:38 +0000

Yes, you can import eps among others. Keynote is very slick.

By: Brian O'Callaghan

Brian O'Callaghan — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:16:54 +0000

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.

By: Tim M.

Tim M. — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:16:25 +0000

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).

By: John

John — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 07:41:17 +0000

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.

By: Allan W.

Allan W. — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:35:02 +0000

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.

By: Adam Bezark

Adam Bezark — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:34:07 +0000

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.

By: Gerry

Gerry — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:41:55 +0000

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.

By: Dean Baird

Dean Baird — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:55:22 +0000

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!

By: Brian Peat

Brian Peat — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 03:18:42 +0000

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).

By: John

John — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 03:12:24 +0000

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?

By: ksc

ksc — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 02:22:14 +0000

man, that was fast!

great job.