iWork '05: The Missing Manual

Chapter 10. Laying Out Your Slides

Creating a Keynote slideshow is in many ways similar to creating page layouts in Pages. In fact, when it comes to adding pictures, charts, and other elements to your slide, you use the same tools and techniques in Keynote that you did in Pages. This chapter shows you how to add to your slides everything from text boxes and pictures, to tables, charts, and fancy transitions.

Setting Up the Keynote Document

Before you can start creating slides, you first have to create a Keynote document: the container that becomes your virtual slide tray for the presentation. To do so, launch Keynote (or, if it's already running, choose File → New) to open the template chooser. Select a theme and a slide size, and then click Choose (see Section 9.1).

Before you start plugging in your content, you need to think about how you're going to deliver this presentation. Will you be in control of the presentation, advancing the slides manually? Will it play automatically, all by itself? Will the viewer control the show, by clicking buttons onscreen? Keynote can create three varieties of slideshows to satisfy each of these scenarios.

• Normal. This choice is the one for a presentation you control yourself, by click ing the mouse, using the keyboard, or using a remote control. Keynote creates this type of show unless you choose otherwise.

• Self-playing. Choose this option if your presentation is destined to play all by itself—commonly called kiosk mode—without human intervention. ...