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After many years spent learning and teaching at university, I've seen my share of dud presentations. There are good reasons why <a href="http://www.timlonghurst.com/blog/tag/speaking/">TED limits its speakers to 18 minutes</a> and why just blindly reading a list of bullet points is a terrible, terrible idea. But not everything needs a zen approach. If you sometimes need to attract attention through classy effects, Keynote is much more likely to suit — and the basics look better too. Let's explore a few ways to make great presentations with Keynote instead of dross with something less.<!--more-->
<h3><strong>Why Keynote is better than PowerPoint</strong></h3>
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<strong>Unlike PowerPoint, the templates are mostly classy.</strong> Yes, Microsoft's templates have improved over the years, but there's still the most awful 1991-style dross in use in many, many corporate PowerPoints. Keynote's templates provide variety in fonts, spacing, imagery, backgrounds, colours and even bullet styles. They're nearly all comprehensively good — just don't look at "Imagine".

<strong>Text handling</strong>, courtesy of Mac OS X, is head and shoulders above the Windows font rendering, or whatever PowerPoint renders on Macs. You can argue about the merits of the different styles of subpixel font rendering all you want, but for a big presentation, you want smooth edges. Keynote's look much, much better.

If you have your photos organised in iPhoto or Aperture, you can <strong>instantly grab anything from any album, smart album or other collection</strong>. You can also drag from the Finder, in a huge number of formats, including PNG or PSD if you want transparency. Most importantly though, the <strong>default is to maintain the correct aspect ratio</strong> of images. PowerPoint can crop, but it's much easier to squish images until they look wrong — which is what usually happens.

Ditto for movies. <strong>Anything QuickTime can handle, Keynote can handle.</strong> PowerPoint on Mac can use QuickTime as well — if not as smoothly — but PowerPoint on PC can't. Therefore, you can't use digital video on cross platform*presentations. Hopeless.

<strong>Almost all the effects in PowerPoint are awful</strong>. Most of the effects in Keynote are good. Even if you use them sparingly, a good effect in Keynote can get a ripple of oohs and aahs, while PowerPoint dithery dissolve is only going to cause dry retching.

<strong>Widescreen is important.</strong> If you're planning on presenting on a plasma, a TV, a cinema screen or on a modern Mac, you'll be well served by the Keynote templates that go all the way up to 1920x1080. Though it's probably possible these days (I don't have the latest PowerPoint) I'm yet to see a widescreen PowerPoint presentation. If it's not obvious, it's not good enough.
<h3><strong>Using Keynote Well</strong></h3>
That's it for bitching about the competition. How do you make a great Keynote presentation?

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<ul>
<li>Using the View drop-down to the right of the Play button, choose the Outline mode to get started.</li>
<li>In this mode, start off by typing the title for each slide, then hit return to create a new slide.</li>
<li>Once your quick summary looks good, go back up to the end of your first title, then press return. A new slide will be created as before.</li>
<li>Press tab, and the current line will become the first bullet point for this slide — you've jumped down a level.</li>
<li>Add the first bullet point for this slide, then press return to add another. Repeat.</li>
<li>When you've finished, press shift-tab to jump back up a level.</li>
</ul>
This technique is a great way to start big, then focus on the details.
<ul>
<li>Once you've got your basic content, flick back into the regular Navigator mode from the View drop-down.</li>
</ul>
If you need to include an image on one or more of your slides, that's easy. You can include a standalone slide for that image alone, or use one of your template's included Master Slides that includes an image with text.
<ul>
<li>From the View drop-down, choose Show Master Slides to make sure the Master Slides are visible.</li>
<li>In the Master Slides area, scroll to find the "Title, Bullets &amp; Photo" template, or something similar.</li>
<li>Drag it over one of your slides to change the appearance while retaining the content.</li>
</ul>
While it's possible to get by just using the existing masters, you can duplicate (Edit &gt; Duplicate) these master slides and modify them to create something unique to you. You could create a variety of ways to show an image, a double-column of text with no title, or simple modify the existing styles.* I usually like to reduce the font size for second-level bullets and below, and your life will be much easier if you do this at the Master Slides level rather than trying to adjust every slide by hand.

<a href="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/inspector-text.png"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-10796" src="http://www.mactalk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/inspector-text-168x300.png" alt="" width="168" height="300" /></a>The Inspector is the key to almost everything in Keynote, and while this isn't intended to be a full Keynote class, just know that while the controls in the Text Inspector are useful, they don't change font or size. For these controls, look to the Format bar, just below the toolbar at the top. The Inspector is great for adjusting spacing between paragraphs, but beware: when spacing after a paragraph meets spacing before the next paragraph, they don't add together. Only the largest value applies, and while this seems odd if you're used to InDesign, it's actually the way spacing works in CSS on the web.
<ul>
<li>After you've tweaked everything, remember to use File &gt; Save Theme to avoid repeating effort later.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Effects are not always evil</h3>
If you hang about with film and TV experts, you'll probably hear how transitions aren't a great idea. But they're not quite right. Correct, feature films use very few transitions, and there's nothing to call out amateur work like a melange of every fade and wipe in the book. However, if your content isn't as elegant as you'd like, or you have to bridge some awkward concepts, a classy transition can provide an useful distraction. (The first corporate video you cut should teach you this lesson.)

It's just the same with transitions in Keynote. Mostly, you'll want nothing at all, or something very simple, but if you're introducing something new, maybe distracting the audience a little isn't such a bad thing. So, if you want to use fancy transitions now and again, go ahead. Just remember that, like candy or fonts, too many will make you sick.

Great images will help almost any presentation, so make use of the best you have. Look online for good backgrounds or good content images if they're appropriate for your message. If you're not a Photoshop whiz, you'll appreciate Instant Alpha, which can do a very good job of removing the background from many kinds of images. It's great to break out of the box every now and again — and you can drop images in the built-in shapes if Instant Alpha isn't going to work for you. Try to resist the temptation to leave the template images in place. Yes, they're nice, but people will know what you've done.

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<h3><strong>A whole heap of don'ts</strong></h3>
<strong>Don't write too much</strong>. If you have to shrink text to fit it on the slides, you have too much text. Get rid of it. That's one reason why Keynote defaults to not changing the font size automatically. (PowerPoint defaults to shrinking the text to fit in a text box, which is why text often jumps around from slide to slide.)

<strong>Don't read it out!</strong> Typically, bullets should not be read out, but instead should be a high level overview of the concepts you're going to talk about during the presentation. You should probably be able to expand on each bullet for a couple of sentences at least, and answer questions if they arise.

When I was a university student, many moons ago, one or two lecturers in my first year just read their slides out verbatim. Predictably, attendance dropped hugely once their lecture notes were made available — why would we want to listen to something we'd already read in a quarter of the time? (Sadly, the university's response the following year was to make attendance compulsory.)

<strong>Don't, unless, you're sure, use builds</strong>. Keynote offers comprehensive control to allow different components of a page to arrive at different times, but I rarely recommend these effects. Why? Every time there's some kind of animation on screen, your audience will look at it. While their eyes are on that, they aren't looking at you, nor are they paying attention to what you're saying. Animation distracts, and unnecessary animation can be lead to disaster in terms of actually delivering content. However, sometimes it can be appropriate, especially if the content is simple. Use with care.

<strong>Don't design each slide.</strong> Use templates to let your message shine. Yes, if you're a designer, addressing a design audience, it might pay to design everything with care. Most of the time, your content is more important.
<h3><strong>Closing Tips</strong></h3>
While a program can't design your great presentation, Keynote certainly makes it easier for you to design a great presentation. Hell, I've trained staff at more than one company that has bought Macs purely to run Keynote. Yet, the greatest visual design in the world can't help if the information design isn't up to par. (Shout out in the comments if you'd like me to write an article on information design.)

For some inspiration, pick up <a href="http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2009/05/making-presentations-in-the-ted-style.html">some tips from Presentation Zen</a> or <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2010/sb2010061_747229.htm">Business Week</a>, watch some <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity .html">Lawrence Lessig</a> or <a href="http://identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/">Dick Hardt</a>.

The bottom line: if Keynote is good enough to win Al "An Inconvenient Truth" Gore a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar, it's good enough for me. And you.

I have to say that while Keynote definately produces better quality presentations, the Inspector is a horrible little cluttered toolbox to me - which is why I (argh) resort to PowerPoint 2004/new 2011 most of the time.

Thanks for these tips. I only wish I could use Keynote at work.

Earlier this year my employer sent a bunch of us on a business writing course; part of which involved presentations. The instructor used Powerpoint for the whole thing with the usual dorky animations, clip art and boring templates. At one point we had to discuss what makes for a bad presentation. There were the usual, 'too much text', 'small fonts' and the like, then it was my turn and I said "Powerpoint"

Just last week there was a big conference for the company's Asia Pacific region and afterward the quality of the presentation was one of the most talked about things - it was done by a design company using Keynote

Great essay with a lot of good advice - thanks. I'm a big fan of Edward Tufte who has a lot to say about the evils of Powerpoint, and has some good advice on keynote on his blog. The man's a genius.

Hey, great article. I used to use Keynote a bit in my last job, and put together a short document on some presentation-building best practices from a Keynote perspective (with a nod towards PowerPoint). It's a few years old now, and geared towards a graphic design audience, but might prove interesting for would-be Keynote aficionados. If nothing else, it has a picture of David Hasselhoff.

Here's a link to the PDF on issuu.com (requires Flash):
Making Presentations for Fun and Profit

You can download it from there, too.

Ian

Feel free to provide a download link that doesn't require me to create an account on a website i'll never use again

Hm, didn't realise they made you sign up for an account. How annoying. Please stand by…

Aaaaaaaaaaand here's an alternative link – no sign up required.

sorry to say but the "review" of keynote is pretty bias and it seem the Author hasn't actually used Powerpoint 2011. Statements such as

"Almost all the effects in PowerPoint are awful. Most of the effects in Keynote are good."

and

"PowerPoint on Mac can use QuickTime as well — if not as smoothly"

only illustrate that.

Originally Posted by stehsegler

sorry to say but the "review" of keynote is pretty bias and it seem the Author hasn't actually used Powerpoint 2011. Statements such as

"Almost all the effects in PowerPoint are awful. Most of the effects in Keynote are good."

and

"PowerPoint on Mac can use QuickTime as well — if not as smoothly"

only illustrate that.

Doesn't say anywhere that this is a review....it's bound to be biased - it's called "Great Presentations with Keynote"

Lisa: OK, I finished editing the gardening sequence. . .
Homer: OK, from here we star wipe to a glamour shot of Flanders paying his bills, then we star wipe to Flanders brushing his teeth. . .
Lisa: Dad, there are other wipes besides star wipes. . .
Homer: Why eat hamburger when you can have steak?
Lisa: I'm taking my name off this thing.

I agree with the above post about stevenote. The majority of the time it's ONE message per screen/slide.


Another alternative to keynote or powerpoint is prezi.com.

the oblique reference to TEDtalks omits the main reason why Al Gore was so successful. Al arrived with a bunch of notes and POWERPOINT slides...then Nancy Duarte took over.
Duarte.com has at least as much influence as Garr Reynolds(presentationzen.com) slide:ology is a better read than presentationZen

witness the vast improvement in Bill Gates presentation when he used Keynote!! compare with some of his PPT releases of MS product(=truly awful)
Nancy Duarte was recruited by microsoft to do the tutorials for powerpoint 2011 and design some templates
Both have new releases on HowTos with Keynote available this month from Amazon
it now appears
PPT2011 now has the edge on keynote in a few areas!!!

so looking forward to iWork11...
it is urgently needed to regain the ascendancy over PPT

for a local guru...try Les Posen at presentationmagic
Les Posen&#039;s Presentation Magic | It&#039;s time for a paradigm shift in how presentations are performed. One presenter&#039;s blog on how to present as if all your audience members had a brain.

Les has presented a master class at MacWorld the last two years and has had long chats with the keynote design team...

( also el presidente of iMug - internet mac users group australia)