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ambush · Jan 10, 2003, 04:40 PM

Is it really worth it? I saw the Keynote and I was really impressed. But what counts for me is PowerPoint Transitions compatibility. I mean, if I save a BEAUTIFUL keynote document as a PPT doc, will it keep the neat transitions and all the goodies?????? I want to impress teachers..

Guy Incognito · Jan 10, 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
Is it really worth it? I saw the Keynote and I was really impressed. But what counts for me is PowerPoint Transitions compatibility. I mean, if I save a BEAUTIFUL keynote document as a PPT doc, will it keep the neat transitions and all the goodies?????? I want to impress teachers..

The transitions don't export. Keynote's OpenGL/Quartz Extreme transitions aren't supported in PowerPoint. The answer why is obvious.

Such things happen when a program is more advanced than the other.

ambush · Jan 10, 2003, 04:51 PM

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
The transitions don't export. Keynote's OpenGL/Quartz Extreme transitions aren't supported in PowerPoint. The answer why is obvious.

Such things happen when a program is more advanced than the other.

Oh well, considering my school uses like only Windows, I don't see any advantadges over PPT.

Guy Incognito · Jan 10, 2003, 05:08 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
Oh well, considering my school uses like only Windows, I don't see any advantadges over PPT.

Sh1t happens.

greenG4 · Jan 10, 2003, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by ambush:
Oh well, considering my school uses like only Windows, I don't see any advantadges over PPT.

It very well may be more advantageous for you to use powerpoint. But, Keynote is still a superior product. Seperate issues, really.

itai195 · Jan 10, 2003, 05:42 PM

I see a big advantage: price

saltines17 · Jan 10, 2003, 05:56 PM

So forgetting the OS X-only features, how does Keynote compare to PowerPoint?

Again, disregarding features that won't work on Windows, is Keynote essentially PowerPoint for a fraction of the cost?

veritable · Jan 10, 2003, 06:07 PM

will work on windows with transitions

if you export as a .mov and they view in quicktime....

MikeD · Jan 10, 2003, 06:11 PM

Originally posted by saltines17:
So forgetting the OS X-only features, how does Keynote compare to PowerPoint?

Again, disregarding features that won't work on Windows, is Keynote essentially PowerPoint for a fraction of the cost?

Yeah I want to know this too! Here people are saying that keynote is a "supior product" but there aren't any real reviews yet comparing the two.

Does keynote have additional fonts or clip art?

undotwa · Jan 10, 2003, 06:20 PM

Originally posted by MikeD:
Yeah I want to know this too! Here people are saying that keynote is a "supior product" but there aren't any real reviews yet comparing the two.

Does keynote have additional fonts or clip art?

From what I've heard it's got high quality clip art that's infinitly times better than what MS gives you with PPT.

Dunno about fonts.

undotwa · Jan 10, 2003, 06:23 PM

Loook at this page: http://www.apple.com/keynote/themes.html

Wow.

Judge_Fire · Jan 10, 2003, 06:45 PM

What might make Keynote superior for me is it's interpolation and anti-aliasing quality.

Images look good when resized and rotated, text looks smooth even when animated.

My audiences have an eye for these things and Powerpoint still maintains the Microsoft tradition of Looking Like Crap�. I mean, have you seen the desktop pics that come with XP? HUGE compression artifacts all over, especially the otherwise nice sunny hill pic. Why?

As eye candy, I'd love to include OpenGL as screensaverish backdrops, or snowflakey foreground effects in Keynote 2.0.

J

rsh · Jan 10, 2003, 06:45 PM

I ordered it the day of the keynote, (no pun intended) and got it yesterday. (I'm a training director, so we do a LOT of presentations.)

It's first rate. You'd have to have used PowerPoint and bumped up against it's graphical limitations to appreciate how good Keynote is.

Also, it makes use of Cocoa/OS X interface conventions similar to what the Omnigroup apps use. As a big OmniGraffle fan, I like that a lot.

A great feature: if you use a second display, you have option to display your notes for each slide on one of the displays.(Think "cheat sheet.") A great tool for presenters that, amazingly, Powerpoint will NOT do... at least on a Mac.

Seems quite stable and snappy on a gigabook.

Some gripes:

No Applescript support.
The clip art image library is kind of skimpy. (The images that are included are beautiful.) I'd like to see more images and more themes.
It could use a more robust outliner... or could support importing OmniOutliner files.

Judge_Fire · Jan 10, 2003, 06:46 PM

Originally posted by rsh:
A great feature: if you use a second display, you have option to display your notes for each slide on one of the displays.(Think "cheat sheet.") A great tool for presenters that, amazingly, Powerpoint will NOT do... at least on a Mac.

Woohooo!

J

argod · Jan 10, 2003, 07:34 PM

According to this link
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenT...p;m=5240924545

and This website
Keynote does export transitions to PPT.

http://www.phaedo.cx/keynotepres

rsh · Jan 10, 2003, 08:56 PM

Export transitions? no. Translate transitions is more like it. The transitions still come out like typical PowerPoint. The high quality 3D transitions don't export. The graphics/text quality doesn't export.
You end up with typical Powerpoint quality. Not bad... but not Keynote quality.

Synotic · Jan 10, 2003, 10:47 PM

Truth be told, Powerpoint is a lot better in OS X than in Windows/OS 9. We normally run our presentation off of iBooks with OS X (though 10.1

). Anyways... exporting/importing leaves a lot to be desired. Some hard facts:

It does NOT maintain the 3D effects in PowerPoint format.
It DOES maintain them in QuickTime. Which I don't really like because it's too large.
Bullet line spacing is not maintained when exporting, you have to redo it.
For presentations in which you want everything to automatically animate one after another, well Keynote just can't do that. So if you export a Powerpoint that does, and then export... It won't be maintained and you have to redo all the "automatically after last event"
Vector art is exported from Keynote as bitmaps! I don't know why, both support them, yet it just exports badly.
It is true that the image library is kind of lacking. Currently it's more business focused. I didn't get that feeling in the keynote (mwsf) but I am hoping that they will include some more student oriented things.
Auto-timings are non-existant.
Neither is narration, though I've never seen that used...
As for sound, I haven't seen it but it might be there. At least in the form of dragging a MP3/AAC/AIFF etc.. and having a controller on the presentation. Auto play or otherwise...

Now, that being said, I will always use Keynote

It's nicer to use than Powerpoint. Also the templates are not as good as I thought

The best ones I think is the Notebook, Leather Book, and Fun Theme. The Crayon Theme is also kind of cool but the font is serif.. does maintain the big thing for me is the textures when at full size (which I would guess you guys who don't have it haven't seen)

Gradient: Why is it all dithered?? Can they have a nice clean gradient? Won't these be enhanced when significantly bigger?

Chalkboard one... ok this one is also good, stick it up there

Font is good, background nice and clean.

The Pushpin theme's texture is way too harsh. The pushpin itself is awesome. (There are tons of bullets that are really awesome though it's really hard to choose them...). It looks like the dust and scratches filter way too many times

Letterpress has vertical blurry pinstripes... not my style... maybe it's realistic but I don't know what it's supposed to represent.

Parchment also isn't that bad, quality wise. Given the proper presentation, it would work great.

Sandstone's good.

Linen book Ugh.. un my opinion. But I guess if someone likes that texture or is doing a report or like fabric or something... The bevels on where it's sown on the left are really bad, not reined.

That's it for now. Remember that I really do like Keynote and I am just running through it with a fine tooth comb.

What I hope for is a Keynote Plus pack (maybe a different name

) . Get some 500 or so generic objects, some stuff for students (like political things, maybe some more flags, health etc...) images. Maybe some vector clip art... but that could be third party. Then how about 10 more templates. As for version 1.5/2, just get some of the exporting bugs/kinks worked out, add in things like narration, auto-timing, automatic animation (though the first object can be automatic).

Maybe 20-35 bucks?

Eug · Jan 11, 2003, 02:43 AM

My review is in this thread.