Keynote gets some love

I missed this thread before, but just to add that I've been using a Mac for 20 years, making presentations for 17 years, and now I am a senior lecturer at a university here in the UK. I use Keynote for every lecture I deliver - maybe half a dozen each week - and my colleagues are still stuck with PowerPoint. I export each lecture as a PDF handout for printing or posting online for my students. Love Keynote, and am looking forward to what Steve has for us in iWork 07 next week.

"none of the standard things every other tool in the universe does"

Maybe that's why people LOVE Keynote. Because for all it's flaws, it's a new and efficient way to work that doesn't assume extensive prior experience with overburdened PowerPoint/Photoshop/etc apps. You open the app, you want to "crop", so you check the help and bam, leads you right to masking.

Also, if you like, the masking icon can easily be in your toolbar. Most every well written OSX program has a configuable toolbar so that the icons YOU find most beneficial are available.

Keynote is a nice program. But the people issuing paeons to it clearly don't make very big presentations, or they'd have noticed Keynote's HUGE failing compared to powerpoint.

Keynote. Is. Slow.

Very. Very. Slow. When. Doing. Large. Presentations. Especially. With. Lots. Of. Pictures.

Also, Keynote is unbelievably counterintuitive in its GUI. I cannot count the number of times that I, a Mac and NeXTSTEP user for over twenty years, struggled for an astonishingly long time to figure out how to do a trivial task in Keynote. The latest one was just last night: quick, how do you crop an image? Hit the option key, or command key, when selecting the tool? Change to a different cursor perhaps? Nope, none of the standard things every other tool in the universe does. Might it be on the toolbar, or in the inspector? Nope. Instead you must first select the image, and then choose the "Mask" function. Mask. Yeah, that's an industry standard term among presentation software. Don't get me started on Keynote's tendency to arbitrarily make certain scaled-down images fuzzy but not others.

I just have to add my own fantastic experience of Keynote to the others. A year ago, I was asked to do my first presentation for the federal agency I work for. I'd created a few Powerpoints for clients in the past when I was freelancing, but that was pre-Keynote. I combined videos, audio clips, and the usual slides, using a Keynote template. Well, I blew them away as others have said they did. I had to take my Mac Mini to do the presentation as we are also Windoze-centric. And I got even more questions about that great little machine! (In the future, hope to have a MacBookPro to do this!)

Apple rules!

In reply to #5 above: "...and it would be nice to have the option of customizing the media browser to include folders where I do keep my work stuff."

You can do this in Keynote 3 already. Just drag a folder into the media browser (into the list where the iPhoto item is listed). It'lll add your folder right in and list any graphics fills in the pane below.

Keynote isn't just a presentation program. It's also one of the easiest to use vector editors out there. Just start with Draw a Shape and you can draw and trace with it's tools just like you could with more expensive apps. See the graphic at the top of this iWeb page?

http://web.mac.com/makentosh/iWeb/tipsfromtheiceberg/Blog/D2A65ACC-0620-4BDE-A4F4-8BEC99656A84.html

That was done entirely in Keynote, shape by shape, coloring each one individually. Does it have limitations as a vector tool? Yes, BUT it's a great introduction to the world of vector artwork.

I love Keynote, it is the real power to crush the others in a PC only environment.

I love to create the presentations on Keynote and play them on Quicktime... You don't have to use all of the power, but the clean look of the product makes your presentation very impressive.

Two reasons why I prefer using Keynote.
1 Export facilities - I usually export the file as a Quicktime movie, which is useful for carrying around with any subtle effects.
2 Aligning and Layout - things do just look nicer than in PowerPoint.

I create all of the presentations for the Sheriff's Office I work for in Keynote. Everyone is blown away, especially the citizens that we present to. Keynote makes me look good and conveys the information so much better. Now the command staff comes to me wanting to borrow my Powerbook to give presentations. Even the Sheriff himself asked for my help to put together his presentations when he was finishing up his Masters. One commander keeps asking me over and over how he can make his pesentations look like mine, but he refuses to believe that Powerpoint can't do that. 2 years now and he still gets madbecause he thinks I'm hiding some secret setting in Powerpoint. Funny as hell to see himkeeep searching the net for Powerpoint tutorials to for the 'secrets.'

I too am a Keynote fan. Prior to Keynote I used to have to set-up each presentation as a (very) layered Photoshop document and then save each slide as one or two jpeg files to import to Powerpoint just so I could ensure a good level of consistency in the design. Since Keynote I don't have to use Photoshop quite so much.
Of late I seem to have started using Keynote as a method to visually outline things, which has landed me in trouble. In the last fortnight I have outlined two database conepts, five web projects, a video and a couple of email Christmas Cards. Keynote enables me to convey and iterate complex ideas.
The main drawback is that you can visualise someones brief very quickly (15-30 mins) and then discuss it with them, they seem to get the hump when you tell them that what we have just agreed and demonstrated in little more than an hour will take 3 to 6 months to finish.