Updated 7/27/05

This one is all over the ball park. I had no problems importing some PPT files I had, but other users have had crashing on import, or a big mess when the file opens. I DID have a problem opening some files that a friend sent me, and while I was trying to find out WHY they crashed Keynote on import, I came across a show stopper (at least for him). With no Crop tool in Keynote any cropped images in your PPT file come in squashed instead of cropped. In his case MANY of the images in the file had been cropped, so it was useless for him to continue importing because of the shear work involved in the cleanup. Apple needs to fix this one quickly.

Here's something you should definitely know. Don't expect to be able to import a PPT show and then Export that show again as PPT and have it look like the original. When Keynote was first released, people are complaining a lot about this. I don't know why anyone would try this, but they have. Keynote is a whole different beast, Apple gave it PPT import/export capabilities for cross compatibility, but using it different enough that you should EXPECT that you're not going to get an exact carbon copy when moving in and out of Keynote, especially if you use some of Keynotes effects. Anyone who's a graphic designer knows that import features especially usually take some cleanup time, they aren't miracle workers! For a program that comes in a $79 package I think it does pretty well.

Here are a few tips you should follow when importing PPT files into Keynote:

	Using PowerPoint's Defaults
	If your PPT show used PPT's Default Title and Bullet boxes, you can change the theme on your imported show and your fonts will change. If you started with a blank slide and made your own boxes, then you'll have to change all your fonts manually in Keynote. I see a lot of beginners use PPT this way-save yourself a lot of time in PPT and use the defaults they give you and just move them around. Now you'll save time in Keynote too.

	Resize BEFORE Importing
	If you plan on importing your PPT show and then applying a Theme to it, you should resize your PPT file in PowerPoint before doing this. Powerpoint defaults to 720X540 (measured in inches). You need to adjust this in the Page Setup window. Here's a grid of numbers so you don't have to do the math: Resolution Width Height 640X480 8.88" 6.66" 800X600 11.11" 8.33" 1024X768 14.22" 10.66" 1152X870 16" 12.08" Choose whichever resolution you want to be using in keynote, and make sure if you switch themes, you only pick the theme that corseponds with the size you chose to start with. You MAY get a message after you change the Page Setup asking if you want to FIX this change...choose NO, you don't want PPT adjusting anything. In this example, I used 800X600 as my slide size. Once you import the file into Keynote, you may get a slide size of 799X599. This one pixel won't hurt anything, but it WILL give you a message when you first change to a new Theme, reminding you that it will need to change the size of your slides. As long as you are going to an 800X600 Theme, it won't matter. Now, if you're using Keynote 1 and don't follow these steps, when you decide to apply a Theme to your newly imported show, you'll get lots of mess to clean up. Everything will still be sized for the old settings, and you'll have a lot of adjusting to do. Keynote 2 fixed this by finally adding the ability to scale slides properly when you change resolutions. Still, it's a good idea to do this before importing so you get something near the size you want it, and you can SEE the new size in PPT before resaving it.

	What the Heck is .pps ?
	You can save PowerPoint files as a self running show that launches PowerPoint right into the presentation when that presentation file is launched from the finder. This file type ends with .pps. Keynote doesn't see .pps files as a valid PowerPoint file and won't import it. You COULD open the file in PowerPoint and resave it, but if you simply change the .pps to .ppt Keynote will open the file. Here's Apple's Tech note on it.

Other import problems usually revolve around fonts and bullet lists. Since Keynote only supports ONE bulleted box, if you had two on your slide in PPT, you will get one Body box with automatic bullets, and you'll get one "Free" text box with manually placed bullets, and they usually don't line up. Hopefully this will be another feature for the next update.