Keynote for Attorneys: Tips to Try This Alternative to PowerPoint for Case Presentation

Place & Format of Images & Videos

Keynote makes it easy to edit media within your presentation. To place an image or .MOV video, just drag and drop the file into your slide. Always select the image you want to edit and have your “Inspector” panel open; the “Inspector” will affect whatever image you have selected.

You can add a line border or picture frame using the “Graphics Inspector” section of the “Inspector” panel. You can also select a drop shadow or reflection to give the presentation some dimension.

Instant Alpha

This is a fun and useful tool. When you drag in a JPEG of, say, a person with a white background, Keynote makes it easy to cleanly delete the background. Just click the “Alpha” icon in the top formatting palette (red dot with a pen). A dialog box will instruct you to drag your cursor over the colors you want deleted—in this case, drag over a section of white.

Then the background disappears, leaving the person image crisp. PNGs with white backgrounds tend to show up transparent in Keynote. This can be convenient if you planned to delete the background anyway, but if you want it there, try saving as a JPEG instead.

Transitions, Magic Move 

The “Slide Inspector” (blue square icon) lets you add cinematic transitions to your slides. A simple fade between two different slides looks really nice. But you can also use transitions to make a simple animation. If you want to move a text box from the left to front and center in the following slide, use the Magic Move transition. To do this, just duplicate your first slide (Control-click and select duplicate). In that second copied slide, move the text box to your desired final placement.

You can also change the opacity of the other images and text for greater effect. When you play the slides, the text box will smoothly transition from its position in Slide 1 to its position in Slide 2.

Custom Move

This technique allows you to animate a graphic within a slide instead of using a transition. With your graphic selected, go into the “Build Inspector” (yellow diamond icon) and select “Action.” Then select “Move” from the effects dropdown.

Click “More Options” and select “Start Automatically After Transition”—that way the animation will play on its own. You’ll see a red line and ghost image appear on the graphic. That’s the graphic’s path, and you can manipulate it by selecting one end of the line and moving it. Preview the animation by clicking inside the Preview window of the “Build Inspector.”

Smart Build

The “Smart Build” creates a slide show of multiple images on a single slide. To create one, go to Insert > Smart Build > Dissolve in the main menu bar. A dotted box will appear with a row of small boxes below. You can drag and drop images into the main box and use the small boxes below to edit the order in which they appear. You can edit other properties of the slide show in the “Build Inspector,” such as the speed of the dissolve and whether or not it starts automatically.