Created by the folks from growingleaders.com we present to you:

Every Presentation Ever: Communication FAIL

We’ve broken the page into sections, so you can easily find Themes, Wireframing toolkits, support, tutorials, and other odds and ends. We’d suggest visiting each site and viewing all the demo movies and samples they post. The prices vary, but even the most expensive themes are a great deal (especially compared to some PowerPoint template prices!). Some themes (like ours for instance) come with extras and sample files which you can use to spice up your own files.

Also, don’t be afraid of buying a theme that doesn’t quite fit the bill and modifying it to your needs. Our themes are built with flexibility in mind, and most of the other companies do the same. You can also contact the theme maker and ask for help. Usually they will give you tips or even modify a template (within reason) for you. Some of them also offer full custom services (at custom prices of course). This can be anything from adding your logo to a commercial theme, to a full, one of a kind, custom design.

So, support these small businesses (and the Keynote community on the whole) buy visiting the theme makers and resources on our Resources page, and tell them you heard about them from Keynote.com.

Click here to visit our Resources page.

Oh, if you know of a site that we haven’t listed, feel free to use our contact form and send us a link. We’ll try to post it right away.

The video tutorial consists of 27 video chapters on various subjects. This includes using transitions, to using builds, to adding images and movies, to masking images, to creating actions (movement), to securing your presentation, to sharing your presentation. Everything you need to give you best presentation using Keynote! Users can choose different video chapters to watch as they go through the video tutorial. All videos are stored on the iPad so no bandwidth is used while watching the videos.

Find out how to:

• Choose themes using the Theme Chooser
• Skip slides
• Get around the interface
• Use Keynote terms
• Add objects including text, shapes, images, and movies
• Work with transitions
• Mask images
• Layer and group objects
• Add Audio to slides and to the entire presentation
• Create self running slideshows and presentations
• Build objects into slides
• Use the Magic Move Transition to simulate movement
• Use actions to move, resize, rotate, and change the opacity of objects
• Use comments while building your presentation
• Add presenter notes

Device Requirements:

• Compatible with iPad
• Requires iOS 4.2 or later
• 583 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Video Tutorial for Keynote for Mac 1.0 is only $4.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Productivity category.

Noteboom Productions
Video Tutorial for Keynote for Mac 1.0
Purchase and Download
Screenshot

Though the templates and themes included with Mac applications may seem more than adequate at first, experienced users quickly learn two facts. First, these templates are likely to become over-used, uninteresting because they have been seen by millions of end-users. Second, the more a theme or template relates specifically to the subject matter, the more successful it will be in framing that subject matter. Thus, third-party suppliers of these designs have found a large and appreciative customer base for their products. Now, myithemes aims to become the largest single source for themes from independent designers from around the world.

myithemes encourages all designers to participate, and the new website includes the following features for use by contributors:

• Input and modify personal information
• Upload templates and themes for approval
• View all active templates currently offered for sale on the site
• View all templates and themes currently awaiting approval
• View real time commission statistics
• Receive payment (85% of purchase price) directly from PayPal

The website itself incorporates a clean, modern design ensuring a frustration-free shopping experience to end-users:

• View preview page for any template with sample images for the index page, content page, and Flash elements
• View template ID, author, category, template type, format available, and purchase price on preview page
• Download one or more themes or templates automatically using PayPal
• Download unlimited templates with an annual membership subscription using PayPal
• Contact myithemes or template/theme authors directly using the web contact form
• Download templates by category
• Increase the popularity of templates using the “like” function on Facebook

myithemes has an affiliate program, allowing web site owners to offer themes and templates on their site and earn a 15% commission. The myithemes website permits affiliates to:

• Enter and modify personal and business information
• Receive affiliate HTML links
• View all commissions for the current month
• View all pending commissions

“The premium templates and themes on myithemes are completely customizable and ready for immediate download,” stated Managing Director Giuseppe Elia. “This new website is a great opportunity for designers, end-users, and affiliates.”

System Requirements:

• Mac OS X

Pricing and Availability:
myithemes is a free website and service currently providing themes and templates for users of Mac software. Themes are priced from $9.95 (USD) and up, and may be downloaded immediately using PayPal. An annual membership subscription, allowing unlimited downloads for one year, is available for $49.95.

myithemes
myithemes Designers
myithemes Affiliates
myithemes Members

The first video example is a mini cartoon of the Bible story of Jonah. We wish he’d gone into a bit more detail on how this one was made and animated (maybe he’ll post another blog entry with better details?), but if you’re looking for inspiration, this blog will certainly help.

Several of the other examples have some tips on what was done to make what you’re seeing, so overall the article is well worth the read.

You can find it here:
How to Animate with Keynote

Special thanks to Les Posen for pointing this article out to the Keynote yahoo group where I spotted it.

Jumsoft designs for Karelia’s award-winning Sandvox application provide users with a simple way to design their Web sites with a broad range of style options. All themes are created by a team of professional designers and enriched with original details to evoke a variety of moods. Each of the five themes features ten different page layout types, from rich text to a site map.

The templates for iWork Numbers were designed for both home and professional users to assist them in doing work that requires scrupulous planning or calculation. The collection includes nine spreadsheet templates: Dinner Planner, Grocery List, Invoice, Loan Comparison, Media Advertising Analyzer, Personal Budget, To Do, Trip Planner, and Wedding Planner. Each template includes relevant tables or checklists and illustrates the given information with graphs and charts where applicable.

Finally, the 500 intricately textured photos and still-life images will be especially useful to Keynote users in need of special backgrounds and illustrations. However, the use of Jumsoft’s images is not limited to Keynote. They also make great illustrations for print and electronic documents in iWork Pages, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, or anywhere photos are required.

The Goodies line was launched in November, 2008, and Jumsoft’s regular customers and other users have downloaded from it nearly half a million times since that date to enhance their Mac experience. It includes various products for Mail, Keynote, Numbers, and Karelia’s Sandvox, providing users with an ever-expanding variety of designs to meet their business and personal needs.

Jumsoft
Jumsoft Goodies
Download Keynote Photos
Download Numbers Templates
Download Sandvox Designs

The file (at the point when we downloaded and opened it) contains 7 slides, with items such as the unlock screen, the home screen, the onscreen keyboard, various interface elements and even a page of instructions. The amount of interface elements is pretty large for a freebie, so you might want to send Aleks an email thanking him for his hard work.

You can download the file here, as well as read a bit about why he created it.

Here’s what we’ve got:

• Macworld’s first look at iWork for the iPad
• TUAW Real-lilfe iPad: Presenting with an iPad, Keynote and VGA connector
• Apple’s iPad in Business page
• Apple’s iPad discussion page (includes links to Keynote for iPad)
• Apple’s iPad Guided Tours page (check out the Keynote video)
• Apple’s Keynote for iPad sales page
• Apple’s Keynote for iPad FAQ (includes lists of available fonts, effects, etc)

Feel free to add links or questions in the comments of this article for others to gain from.

The quality of the MacBreak Video podcasts are always great, and this looks to be a good resource for all the Keynote users out there. We watched this first episode, and while they did have a few of their facts wrong (no, the thumbnail resize option hasn’t been there since day one; yes, multiple inspectors have been there since day one) they do touch on some of the cool new features of Keynote 09. This episode focuses mostly on Magic Move and Text transitions and comes in at just over 9 minutes long.

We’re hoping Keynote gets a good mention in future episodes since, well, it’s our favorite iWork app.

You can find the MacBreak Work episodes at www.pixelcorps.tv/macbreak_work or on itunes under MacBreak Work.

Metal is a high tech brushed metal theme that includes several animated “transitions” that you can place on your slides as openers or closers (they aren’t true Keynote transitions because, sadly, Keynote doesn’t support third party transitions). Corporate is a blue theme built for business oriented presentations. R&W (Red & Wine) is a based on a rich, red gradient background with forced Black and White photos (didn’t know you could do that with an image placeholder did you!). Rounded is a Brightly colored theme build on a series of rounded boxes that break up the slide into sections (very similar to Keystation from KeynotePro), and since the shapes are native Keynote objects, you can easily recolor this theme to your liking. Paper rounds out their collection with a papyrus paper background and a crisp clean old world look.

Keynote Zone themes are available for download at www.keynotezone.com and are priced starting from $16 for Standard versions and starting from $20 for HD versions.

Today’s site highlight is Simply Presentation, and you can find it at:

http://simplypresentation.wordpress.com/

We actually don’t know anything about this site (though we figure we will soon enough) but it looks like a nice resource for Keynote users, and the right side bar full of links is worth the visit alone. We’ve added this site to our resources page also (gotta share the love!)

Currently embedded movies aren’t supported (though there’s a neat trick that allows you to embed YouTube vids instead), and judging by comments in the SlideShare Blog, they’re currently having issues with comments coming over correctly. Still, this seems to be a great tool to get your presentation out to the masses.

In the past Keynote users have had to convert their beautiful slides to PPT or even PDF to get them onto the SlideShare site. On top of that, even if SlideShare had supported Keynote before this, the .key file is a strange beast and would break when uploaded or emailed.

With Keynote 09, Apple realized that they had an issue with files based on the “package” format, which is what Keynote uses. A Package is basically a folder that appears as a real file. Many of you have learned the hard way that you can’t simply post or email a package file-it ends up breaking and turning into a run of the mill folder.

Apple added a function to Keynote 09 that transparently zips the package without the user even seeing it happen. Because of this new feature end users don’t have to go through the extra step of zipping their Keynote files when they post them to sites such as SlideShare, or even email them to others (there is also an option to turn off this zip format-see this article)

The biggest drawback we see to using SlideShare is that you lose all your effects, so if you really want to publish your presentation in all its shining glory, we suggest you use the QuickTime export instead and post that to something like YouTube (make sure you use their new high quality option) Vimeo or BlipTV. You could always post it to both, just to get the word out.

And if you’re hoping (as we are) that SlideShare adds full video capabilities down the road, visit their blog and add your comments. After all, there’s a reason we use Keynote over PowerPoint!

You now have the ability to send documents from the regular version of iWork up to the online version and share them with others. It doesn’t appear that you can edit documents, but you can share, comment and download files from the site.

Click here to register and watch the iWork for Business seminar.

In case you don’t know, svg2key is a command line tool that extracts shapes from scaleable vector graphics (SVG) files and outputs a Keynote 1 presentation file with the shape information inside. It’s able to do this partly because the code that defines an .svg shape was very close to the code that defines a Keynote shape and partly (thankfully!) because David wanted to do it! Because of his efforts, designers can use their graphics program of choice, export to .svg, then have their intricate artwork ready to be fully editable within Keynote.

Thanks, again, David!