Keynote ‘08 – Much Better than PowerPoint for Presentations

Reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Introduction

“Amaze your audience with cinema-quality presentations that are easier than ever to create. Use the new features in Keynote ’08 — the latest version of Apple’s powerful presentation software — to tell your story effectively and dramatically.”

Getting Started

I bought the family pack of iWork ‘08 for $107 USD, including tax and shipping.

I’ve played with Keynote off and on for a few years and never really got into it much except on occasion. Now with the Ever-Green Renewable Energy Resource Center project ramping up, I get to go evangelize it and Keynote does a wonderful job letting me do that with its new transitions and movements that just put PowerPoint to shame in comparison.

I almost feel like I’m directing an orchestra as pieces come together.

I don’t know if it is because I didn’t buy iLife ’08 yet to use Garageband for background music, but there does seem to be a bit of a time lag between music, voice and slides. It appears mostly when exporting to QuickTime and something I hadn’t noticed before was the record button, so I’m guessing that is new. Okay, no guessing - it is new - http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/

Using the Software

What I did in my quick learning curve, was run a piece of music in the background and let the slides go by as I played with various transitions and themes. The trick was in getting the timing right so the music ended the same time as the slides did. I almost had it once or twice. Then I discovered that the record not only was adding the music from iTunes I had selected, but it was also picking up my voice as I sneezed a few times in somewhat appropriate places. It was funny!

That is how I found out that it defaulted to the iMac’s mic and was picking up the keyclicks and keyboard sounds as well. I soon discovered that I could get it to switch to the external headset so the background noises like lawnmowers, planes and street noise were not included and the music was then also muffled.

The neatest part is that we can now export from Keynote to YouTube directly, after we set up a YouTube account. If I thought there was a lag in QuickTime between syncing audio with slides, doing so with Keynote to YouTube tended to be even trickier. The timing is more art than science as far as I can tell.

I was invited to speak to the Sunrise Rotary Club in Pasco, WA and I had to do some quick prep such as finding a mini-VGA adapter that would work with my iMac that interfaced properly with their Dell LCD projector.

I ordered the mini-VGA video adapter M9109G/A, figuring it would arrive in time. I expected that it would be the correct adapter to interface with any projector. I was wrong. However, I was able to ask our local Mid-Columbia Macintosh User Group http://www.macusergroup.com/ for an adapter and a former macCompanion staff member who runs his own ISP now http://www.3-rivers.com/ had an extra mini-VGA to VGA 15-pin adapter for me to borrow – which is exactly what I needed. It is the Apple VGA Display Adapter M8639G/A and costs the same as the other adapter.

Thankfully being a member of our local Macintosh User Group paid off for me and I was able to make a miracle happen. (About an hour after I got home from the presentation, FedEx arrived with the Apple Video Adapter.)

Guess what? The mini-VGA video adapter from Apple has ports for an RCA jack (composite video) and S-video out. I would have needed an S-video cable to work with the Dell project to use this adapter if it had arrived in time.

The iMac performed perfectly. The Dell LCD projector presented a very dull and dark picture and the lettering was all pixilated.

Note: Apple Chancery fonts do not look great unless they are HUGE on-screen.

The version of the Keynote part of the presentation I had at that time did not have my voice, but just the music, so I did the narration before presenting the 4-minute Keynote and it went rather well actually, especially for those who were able to watch the computer screen on my iMac G5 instead of the projection screen.

Here is the updated version that has my voice narration more or less timed to the slides and the muted music in the background on YouTube –

http://www.youtube.com/v/0fH0YlPs954

One thing I learned about the mini-VGA to S-video is that it does not work with the early-version eMacs (the 700 MHz systems do not support TV display, nor do the original “lampshade” iMacs) – and a separate S-video cable will need to be purchased because apparently most projectors do not have one handy. Most have the VGA 15-pin port and cables instead.

Anyway, the cost of iWork ’08 and the VGA adapter will have paid for itself if any in that audience were to come forward and be an investor in this $5 million activity. (Believe it or not, we have a couple of certified investors in Great Britain who have already expressed interest in helping us with this Renewable Energy project – and they saw the first Keynote YouTube presentation where I was sneezing!)

Areas for further exploration would be the A-to-B animations for moving objects along a path or scaling an image, popping in and out of backgrounds (Alpha) and “smart” building of photo inserts for creating sophisticated animation and exploring timing between what the audience sees and the presentation platform.

Conclusion

Pages and Numbers are just nice-to-haves as far as I’m concerned. Keynote is the reason to get iWork ’08. It makes you look and feel professional when giving presentations.

Recommendation

Keynote has always been a better product than its competition. Now with Keynote ’08, I have no problem recommending it to anyone who would rather spend more time on presenting, rather than on preparing. And by the way, now with the Record option, the presentation can speak for itself!