The first time you open Keynote (by clicking its icon in the Dock or by double-clicking its icon in the Finder), the Theme Chooser displays the Apple-designed themes available for you to use in your slideshow.
Each theme comprises a family of master slides with coordinated design elements that create a look and feel based on preselected fonts, backgrounds, textures, table styles, chart colors, and more. You begin creating a Keynote document by selecting a theme to work in. This means that each time you add, for example, a new text box, shape, or chart, to a slide within that theme, its colors and styles are coordinated with the rest of your slideshow.
Master slides provide different layouts of text and images that match the look and feel of their themes. When you want to create a slide with particular elements—such as a title and subtitle, a bulleted list, or an image—you select the master slide that most resembles the layout you want. Master slides contain placeholders for text and images, which you replace with your own content as you construct your slideshow.
Media placeholders contain photographs that you can replace with your own photos, PDFs, or movies. Drag your own image or movie to the placeholder to have it automatically sized, positioned, and framed to fit the slide. You can drag media to any position on the slide (not only to media placeholders), but it won’t inherit the attributes (size, frame, and so on) of the placeholder image. To learn more, see Replacing Theme Images with Your Own Media.
Placeholder text appears in title and body text boxes on each new slide with the instructions “Double-click to edit.” Its appearance demonstrates what your own text will look like after you’ve typed it into the text box. In body text boxes, the bullet that appears will be the same that will appear next to your own text. To learn more, see Formatting Text Size and Appearance.
As you create a slideshow, you can add other elements, such as tables, text boxes, shapes, and other objects, to any slide.
Most themes come with the following master slides:
Master slide
|
Recommended use
|
---|---|
Title & Subtitle |
Title slide or section titles within your presentation |
Title & Bullets |
Content |
Title & Bullets - 2 Column |
Content you want to appear side by side |
Bullets |
General content pages that require bulleted text; the text area fills the entire slide |
Blank |
Graphics-rich layouts |
Title - Top or Center |
Title page or section titles within your presentation |
Photo - Horizontal |
Horizontal photo with title below |
Photo - Vertical |
Vertical photo with title and subtitle on the left |
Title, Bullets & Photo |
Title page or section title with text and photo |
Title & Bullets - Left or Right |
Content slides on which you can place bulleted text on the left or right and a graphic on the other side of the slide |
To learn about adding a new slide or changing a slide’s master, see Adding Slides or Applying a New Master to a Slide.
If you select a theme to begin with, you can change the theme later; see Changing a Slide’s Theme. You can also create a slideshow with multiple themes, for example if you want to visually distinguish sections of your slideshow like “chapters;” see Changing a Slide’s Theme. Or customize and create your own masters and themes (for details, see .