iWork® '09 For Dummies®

Chapter 17. Getting to Know Keynote

In This Chapter

• Getting started with a presentation

• Using slide masters

• Creating handouts, notes, and outlines

Keynote was the first component of iWork. It was originally written for Steve Jobs to use when he gave presentations at conferences and trade shows, including Apple's World Wide Developers Conference and the Macworld conferences. After these "trials by fire," Keynote and Pages became the first two components of iWork.

Word processing programs and page layout programs such as Microsoft Word and Pages focus on preparing paper-based documents. They often are viewed on a computer display, but generally they are tied to paper. When it comes to spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel and Numbers, there's a different pattern. Spreadsheets are sometimes printed; other times they are designed for interactivity and what-if analyses in which a person uses the spreadsheet's ability to rapidly calculate and recalculate data.

Presentation software is a different type of product. It's really not paper-based like word processing or page layout software, and it's not designed for the kind of interactivity provided by a spreadsheet. Presentation software uses the capabilities of a graphics-based personal computer to let people create effective presentations.

This chapter gets you started with Keynote and its reinvention of presentations for the Mac. It's a reinvention that takes advantage of the built-in features of Mac OS X as well as what people have learned over ...