Review of Keynote versus PowerPoint:

Brian Pankuch

Editor, Newsletter: Using Computers in Chemical Education

Pankuch@patmedia.net

Note:  This review compares PowerPoint and Keynote on a Mac.

To be frank I like PowerPoint a lot, and would probably stick with it if it kept my presentations more stable.  What happens too often is that I can make a change in a slide, such as linking a movie, test it, save it then wheel my Mac PowerBook G4 to lecture.  My PowerBook is left on the whole time and yet occasionally when I’m presenting the link will be broken, which in some cases requires me to reboot the whole system. This is the only problem that requires a reboot of the whole system. In other cases the program may freeze or quit, but the operating system is still working fine as are all the open programs. The same can happen with animations and other links.  Since converting to Keynote this has ceased to happen.  I have all my changes remaining stable over time and no crashes, which saves valuable class time and provides the enjoyment of having a stable well functioning delivery system. 

The basic conversion of PowerPoint lecture slides to Keynote is automatically done when you open lecture slides in Keynote.  A side by side overview of the slides in PowerPoint Slide Sorter View and Light Table in Keynote shows overall very similar but not identical. PowerPoint has a zoom feature which at its greatest zoom allows me to check many slides at once to see if they are readable- I’ve found from experience that if I have trouble reading the slides in this mode some of my students in lecture will also. The newest Keynote 08 has a choice of small, medium, and large in this view. The medium view is good for checking readability. When viewing the slides in each program like this it is easy to see many small differences, such as font attributes.  One small problem I’ve had is that some of the text boxes in Keynote format themselves so some of the text is hidden. It is simple to expand the box and happens only a few per cent of the time. It is a one time adjustment. There can be a small number of discrepancies with missing fonts, media animation effects, and links to movies.

Links to movie clips need to be checked. As expected since PP doesn’t handle movie links well it can transfer this problem to Keynote.  My habit of reorganizing my material in files doesn’t help matters.  Most animations between slides and on the slides seem to transfer well.  Keynote will warn you that specific fonts, transitions, movies, etc., are a problem on a given slide. Most of these changes are simple and fast to correct if you can control your tendency to tweak the slide.  This is where Keynote really shines since it is easier to shift, resize and generally tweak objects than in PP. Once the slides are working to my satisfaction they are very stable, unlike PP which drops links and animations on a regular basis.

Any object on a slide can be made to function as a hyperlink. You can link to other slides, web pages, files, movies, email, etc.  Both programs allow you a wide range of printouts for handouts.

Take a block of text in Keynote, if I click on it and hold the mouse button down the text moves with the mouse. There are also many lines that appear automatically to show when the top bottom or middle of the object you are moving lineup with other objects on the slide.  I can be working as I am now in a word processor on one screen and move the cursor to a Keynote slide click the mouse and I can move objects.  The same is true of all objects on the slide. In PP I click once to make the cursor active in PP, a second time to select the object on the slide then move the cursor to the outline of the textbox, then move the text to where I want it. The text doesn’t move with the mouse I have to let go of the mouse to see what it looks like and so on.  For an inveterate tinkerer this is annoying and time consuming. Other objects in PP move the same way as in Keynote.  It is much easier to move text and shapes in Keynote.

Formatting text is another matter.

PP has an efficient formatting palette which is easy to use and has most of what I need right there. This palette can be left open as a default. Keynote has a Font window that allows a lot of changes but you have to open it each time you open Keynote, and some of my favorites, subscript, superscript, bold and italic aren’t included.  You can customize the tools at the top of each working window to make subscript and superscript available. Bold and italic can be used as keyboard shortcuts, command B and I. Text shadow and color have a great controls that are easy to use.

Color window gives a choice of five ways of picking colors.

 

 

Font Window Notice that subscript, superscript, bold and italic controls are missing from all the windows and Inspectors.

 

Overall the controls in Keynote are a bit easier to use with dials and sliders for the parameters that allow you to have instant feedback on what your changes look like, but the Font window needs redesign more along the lines of PP, and it should be incorporated with Keynotes inspector windows, which controls text parameters and many other options. The individual controls are great but having 2-3 windows open for formatting rather than the single PP formatting palette, which automatically configures itself as you click on different objects on your slide is not up to Apple’s usual well thought out design.

Text Inspector that has no connection to the font window

 

 

Addendum: 10/28/07 : Apple has recently updated Keynote and has increased a users ability to more easily format text. Notice the second toolbar which is new and is used for formatting text. This solves most of the problems of having text formatting spread over three windows. You can use these separate tools separately or together.

 

The second toolbar, below the top one, is new and is used for formatting text.

 

Animation of text and objects on a slide is comprehensive in both programs.  In this case Keynote has a build inspector for controlling animations on the slide.  It is very easy to use down the smallest detail

Build Inspector that animates different parts of the slide.

 

 

Slide Inspector that allows different transitions between slides and changes in appearance of the slide such as changing the Master for a particular slide.

The last three inspectors and others are available in the same inspector window as panes or you can open separate windows for each. It is unclear why there is not a font pane available.

PP is ok for really simple animation. But requires considerably more effort to customize the different objects opening a separate window with rather cumbersome controls.  Keynote seems to have a better selection of transitions.

Callouts, like the text bubbles in comics, are useful in pointing to specific parts of graphs, figures, pictures, etc., and labeling them.  PP has a wide variety of callout shapes and they work well.  Keynote only has a quote bubble in which you can type text and format it, but the pointer is not separate so it can be difficult to get the pointer pointing to where you want and the text readable and not covering other objects on the slide. Callouts transfer from PP well with the same shape and position, but they lose the function of moving the pointer independently.

 

Callouts can be useful for pointing out specific parts of a slide and can be overdone.

In conclusion I solved my main problem using PP, losing links and crashing the system, by switching to Keynote. Keynote has some advantages and disadvantages relative to PP, which are most important depends on your personal preferences.  They are both useful excellent programs and both have plenty of room for improvement.

 

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