Confession time: I’m a Keynote abuser. By that, I mean I use Apple’s presentation app for so many things that are not presentations. At least not in the bullet point-laden, text-heavy, Arial-on-a-bright-blue-background business presentation sense. I use Keynote to craft social media graphics, bring animated holiday cards to life, and even create lower thirds and animations for use in my videos and tutorials. One of Keynote’s best—yet often overlooked features—is its ability to export your creative masterpiece to a video file. I’m not sure why it’s not more well-known, as the option is right there in the Export menu.
To end up with a video from your presentation, start by building your document as you normally would. This includes builds, animations, transitions, and timings. If you leave everything set to occur with “on click,” you can set a uniform pace when it comes time to export. I generally set the timings individually, unless I’m doing a simple self-running slideshow.
If you’re going to export with transparency (see export options below), you’ll need to make sure your slide background is set to No Fill or the background color is set to 0% opacity. Set these options using the Format Inspector and/or the Color Picker. I often set a bright background color so I can see effects that are in black, then make the opacity 0% just before exporting.
Export as a video
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Choose File > Export To > Movie.
Choose a Playback option
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Choose Slideshow Recording if you’ve created a slideshow recording where you’ve clicked through your slides while narrating them.
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Choose Self-Playing to export the presentation with set timings.
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Choose which slides you want to export
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To use uniform values for slides and builds you’ve set to be manually clicked, set those in the “go to next” fields. If you’ve set custom automatic timings, these values will be ignored and the timings will be honored.
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Set the resolution
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Choose a standard resolution of 720p or 1080p, or choose Custom and set the resolution.
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Choose a compression type (only available when choosing Custom).
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H.264 is the default and best for compatibility and decent file size.
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If you need transparency—for layering into other video projects, for example—choose Apple ProRes 4444. Make sure that Export with Transparent Backgrounds is checked. Because of the transparent alpha file, know that these files will be much larger than the other options.
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Finish the Export
- Choose Next, name the file and a location, then hit Export.
Depending on the options you’ve chosen, you’ll either have an m4v or an mov file. Either way, you now have your presentation in a format that can be viewed and shared easily. Whether you’re exporting to a video format to maintain the look and effects—no matter who is showing the presentation—or you need to use the exported video in another video project, exporting your Keynote presentation is quick and easy.
This article was last modified on April 9, 2021
This article was first published on April 9, 2021
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