Keynote [OLDER VERSION]

by Apple

Product Features

• Design razor-sharp text, beautiful charts & tables, and professional-quality layouts, all with just a few clicks
• Create high-quality visual effects like transitions between slides, element effects and more
• Intuitive slide navigator and simple thumbnail viewer for more precise controls and better slide organization
• Professional themes and images combined with must-haves like anti-aliased text, dynamic alignment guides and snap-rulers
• Experiment with different typefaces to create the perfect text for your presentation

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000088NEW
• Item model number: m8820z/a
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 14, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,866 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #15 in Software > Business & Office > Presentation > Marketing
  • #19 in Software > Business & Office > Presentation > Flowcharts
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

Keynote, Apple’s answer to Microsoft’s PowerPoint presentation software, has the limited feature set of a first offering but makes a good-looking show out of the gate.

Users accustomed to PowerPoint’s robust array of clip art, pre-populated themes, and pre-set transitions will be disappointed with Keynote’s small offering of pre-fabricated elements. However, they won’t be able to find fault with the visual quality of the elements that Keynote does include; any of the tasteful Keynote themes, detachable chart elements, or cinematic slide transitions would easily stand out against their PowerPoint counterparts.

Keynote’s interface is fairly similar to PowerPoint, although there are some differences. As with PowerPoint you can setup and see the progress of your slide show in a vertical panel on the left. Most of the formatting controls are in a control box called the "inspector"--whether building a chart, making a graphic twirl, or mandating the transition between two slides, you are mostly using the inspectors’ controls rather than dropdown menus or key commands to get things done. In addition to being able to animate imported graphics, audio and movie files can be played within a slide, though these multimedia effects will not run across multiple slides.

What will have to wait for the next version are comprehensive chart creation and exporting capabilities. Currently Keynote provides nine beautiful chart styles to choose from, but getting data into these pre-populated formats can be tedious. Users may find it easier to construct their more complicated charts outside the program, and import them as pre-made images into the slideshow. And, though you can export Keynote presentations to QuickTime and to PowerPoint, there is no Keynote-to-HTML conversion as yet. --Elizabeth Aoki

Product Description

Create compelling presentations that get noticed with this amazing graphics tool!

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good version 1.0. But still version 1.0, January 27, 2003

By 

Esther Schindler (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keynote [OLDER VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I like Keynote. It makes it blissfully easy to do the majority of the things that presenters do -- in particular, create pie charts, bar charts, and other pretty-but-readable stuff. If you want to create good looking charts or presentations in a hurry, Keynote will almost certainly serve your needs.

Plus, it's easy to pick up. My learning curve _might_ have been five minutes. (Though, to be fair, I've reviewed hundreds of software applications for computer magazines, and I'm a fast learner. So give yourself ten minutes, instead, before you pick up the adequate but not-overwhelming printed manual.)

Keynote is a good example of technology helping rather than getting in the way. Except you'll probably spend more than a couple of minutes playing with the really impressive set of slide transitions. I never need such things, but I had fun with them anyway.

But don't expect perfection. Keynote is a great version 1.0, but it's definitely 1.0. So far, I've found two glaring omissions: it doesn't export presentations to HTML (PDF, Quicktime and PowerPoint yes... HTML no). And there's no way to create a follow-me arrow, as in Visio. Creating a process chart, with this-leads-to-that, or an organization chart, can be an exercise in frustration.

I'm sure that later versions will address these limitations, however. Overall, I'm very pleased with the software.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great 1.0 version!, February 27, 2003

By 

Frank E. Almeida "http://azucaryespecies.blog... (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keynote [OLDER VERSION] (CD-ROM)

I am in sales and needless to say I use Powerpoint often. The learning curve is short and you could churn out professional looking presentations in no time. However, it is a version 1.0 and it needs some growing up to do.

You can't export to HTML but you can export to Quicktime, PDF, and Powerpoint. When you do export to Powerpoint you can not have all the bells and whistles that you may have loaded your presentation with. Keynote has different transitions and fonts than Powerpoint so those get lost when you export. My first trial presentation I loaded it with all the effects possible (transitions, shadows, animations, etc.) and exported to all the possible formats. It was very easy to do but none of the other formats looked as good as the original Keynote presentation. The Powerpoint presentation did come close but the graphics compared to Keynote just did not stand up. I did have to make some adjustments in Keynote to make the Powerpoint version better (took out the shadows). When you make a movie you decide just how big you want it to be for the purpose of sending it via e-mail or posting it on the Internet. It was also incredibly easy making a PDF file.

Where it does come strong is in graphics. The slides look beautiful and so does the text and the pie charts and graphs. The transitions are a lot of fun and mostly because they are new and haven't really been seen before. The program is very intuitive and easy to use. I look forward to the additional features that will surely come down the road.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It knows what you need., September 26, 2003

By 

Michael A. Brown "maniacmedia" (Salt Lake City, UT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keynote [OLDER VERSION] (CD-ROM)

For years, PowerPoint has been the bain of my existence. My boss is obsessed with it. Every week it's another presentation in PowerPoint. Finally, an alternative. As usual, Apple takes the "point" out of a Microsoft product. It seems fair, all things considered.

The user interface for this program is fast and easy to learn. It even gives you several options of themes to use for those deadline crunches that we all run into from time to time. It includes the famous drag-and-drop functionality that we've come to expect.

Most importantly, you can save it out to PowerPoint for those less enlighted souls who still think that a Windows machine will help them keep up with the times.