Some Great Keynote Shortcuts

I recently ran into a problem setting up to give a Keynote presentation. When I hooked up to the projector, the audience screen was on my laptop, and the presenter’s screen was being projected, and I could not get them to switch. After several minutes of hunting through settings menus, I finally got thinks straightened out.

I seemed to remember hearing a solution to this problem a while ago in a podcast. When I got back to the office, I did some Google research, and sure enough, the answer came from Andy Inhatko in the form of a MacBreak Weekly tip of the week. Andy listed some useful Keynote shortcuts, one of which solved my problem. While giving a presentation, hit “X”, and the audience and presenter’s screens switch. As easy as that! Thanks Andy.

Andy mentioned a couple of other useful shortcuts that I already knew about, but are worth sharing here. Tapping “W” gives you a blank white screen, and “B” gives you a blank black screen. Nice if you want to pause your presentation to answer a question. Touch any key to return to your presentation. Sometimes, you need to quickly hop out of Keynote to run some other program (your web browser for example). Just type an H, and the last run application will appear. Type a C while your presentation is running, and your cursor will appear on-screen (use is sort of like a laser pointer). Type C again, and it’s gone. Be careful using this one, if you click the mouse button, or hit any other key, your presentation will end!

There is a complete list of Keynote keyboard shortcuts HERE.

Not using Keynote? Powerpoint has a similar set of Keyboard shortcuts, found HERE.

If you are a Mac user, and you aren’t using Keynote, you really should check it out. The software is only $19.99 in the App store.