Keys That Click - Minding your own design business and other observations

Posted in Software, on March 16th, 2010 by Carlos.

You all know it. PowerPoint sucks. The lack of ‘pro’ features in that software make it one of the most difficult pieces of software to work in for graphic designers. And sure, it is actually meant for anyone in XYZ Corporation to pick it up and start creating slideshows, but from time to time, we designers are required to use it too.

You might be ready to write-off all presentation software, but hold on! There’s Apple’s Keynote to the rescue. It provides a much more robust slideshow solution, yet manages to be friendlier and easier than Keynote. Sure it’s not perfect, but it certainly is a vast improvement over it’s Windows counterpart.

The presentations you are able to create in Keynote are visually stunning. Whether you are using one of their several templates, or building one from scratch, Keynote gives you the tools to create presentations that really shine. The effects look like something it would take a Flash developer hours to create, and it’s all easy to implement for you with a few points-and-clicks. The ability to employ some slick effects that actually add value to the presentation is incredible. Most PowerPoint transitions and effects are choppy, or too gimicky – making your presentation come off as if it was created by a hermit that has been locked away for the better part of two decades.

Keynote actually saved my butt and a client when we had to put together a much more appealing slideshow than what you would typically create in PowerPoint. Although Flash was suggested, we turned our sights onto Keynote and didn’t look back. Animating graphs, images, etc. was easy, but most of all, it looked so professional and clean that it blew everyone away.

The big elephant in the room is that – yep – Keynote only runs on Mac’s… which as we know doesn’t exactly have a large hold on the corporate market. Don’t fret though – Keynote has several export options to make it viewable on other OS platforms. These include PDF, PowerPoint, HTML/Images, and QuickTime files. Note that with exporting as PDF or HTML/Images you don’t preserve the animations, so these might be more helpful for simple presentations or for review purposes. Exporting to PowerPoint can also have its hiccups, because you are depending on PowerPoint to be able to support certain effects. Keynote however, will give you a list of warnings before you export so that you know what to expect. One of the coolest export options is that it allows you export your presentation as a QuickTime MOV file (supporting Mac and Windows). Playing the file in QuickTime isn’t like a typical movie… it will stop/start just like a slideshow would and even supports keyboard forward and back commands! You also get to preserve the animation and effects. A word of warning however – at full quality, the file size on a large presentation can get up there, so just be sure to keep an eye on that. Of course, the MOV file is not editable itself, but you can argue that if you created something in Flash, it’s not so simple to make a change if you don’t have a resident Flash guru on hand.

Keynote has plenty of other handy features, including a customizable Presenter Display that you can have showing on your laptop screen in front of you while the full presentation is displayed on the projector you are connected to. You can show your current slide, notes, the upcoming slide, the time elapsed, and more! Check out the screenshot below for what it looks like.

Keynote is available as part of the iWork suite from Apple. It is accompanied by Pages and Numbers, great pieces of software in their own respects, making this $99 (CAD) suite well worth it! A trial version is also available so you can give it a test drive before you make the purchase.

If you’ve been frustrated by PowerPoint in the past, as I’m sure you have been, give Keynote a try. I have a feeling you might actually have fun working on presentations!