iWork '09: The Missing Manual

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 Theme Chooser. Select a theme and a slide size, and then click Choose (see Themes = Templates).

From there, it’s a good idea to do some initial housekeeping to establish exactly how you’d like Keynote to present your slideshow, setting the ground rules for how you and your audience will interact with it. The Document Inspector is the place where you take care of these preliminaries. Click the Inspector button in the toolbar to call forth the Inspector window, and click the Document button, the first icon in the Inspector toolbar, as shown in Figure 13-1.

Choosing a Presentation Style

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 four varieties of slideshows to satisfy each of these scenarios. Choose one of these presentation styles from the Presentation pop-up menu in the Document Inspector’s Document tab (Figure 13-1):

• Normal. This choice is the one for a presentation you control yourself, by clicking the mouse, using the keyboard, or using a remote ...