Many Mac user who give presentations have gravitate towardApple ’s Keynote applicationand away fromMicrosoft ’s PowerPointbecause they favour the flexibility and slick design of Apple ’s alternative and , perhaps more significantly in today ’s roving - centrical world , Keynote display can be project from an iOS gimmick . But if you ’ve been at this a farseeing time , it ’s probable you created a clean numeral of PowerPoint presentations that you might care to work with in Keynote . Fortunately , Keynote can easily open PowerPoint presentation . Even more fortunately , Apple ’s mechanization utility , Automator , and scripting practical software , AppleScript , can make the conversion process even easy .
Quick conversion, one presentation at a time
We ’ll start by creating a workflow that opens a PowerPoint demonstration in Keynote and then saves it to the desktop as a Keynote file . With this work flow you could degenerate a PowerPoint file cabinet on top of the software program we create and Automator will take care of the rest .
Launch Automator and in the templet picker that appears , prize applications programme . Click Choose . In the Library back breaker , tick on Files & Folder and then drag Open Finder Items into the workflow area . From the Open With protrude - up carte within this action , select Other and in the Choose dialogue corner that appear , navigate to the iWork ’ 09 pamphlet inside your Applications leaflet . Select Keynote and click Choose .
Now , select Presentations in the Library pane and drag the Save Keynote Presentations activity to the work flow region . penetrate the Variables push that appears in the top - left portion of your workflow domain next to the Actions clit . Double - suction stop on the AppleScript variable quantity . It will come out in a Variable expanse at the bottom of the workflow pane . twofold - press the AppleScript variable here . In the Variable Options windowpane that appear , enter a name for your variable — Keynoteconvert , for example — and enter ( or simulate and paste ) this text in the Script field :
The completed workflow with the variable
Click Done to exit the Variable Options windowpane . Now hale the Keynoteconvert variable you created on to the Save To pop - up menu found in the Save Keynote Presentation action . Finally , press Actions at the top left of the Automator window to reveal the action library again . From the Presentations depository library , drag on the Close Keynote Presentation action to the workflow area . Choose File - > Save to store your work flow with the nameConvert to Keynoteto the desktop .
To commute a PowerPoint display , just throw away it on top of your Convert to Keynote app on the desktop . Keynote will launch ( if it is n’t active already ) and launch the file . It will then make unnecessary a Keynote version on the desktop .
Of naturally , due to the nature of how Keynote converts these files , you may still need to tweak the format of your born-again file . But this workflow takes some of the plodding out of the operation .
The completed work flow with the variable star
Convert a batch of old presentations
pick out File - > Save , and in the sheet that seem , choose covering from the File Format toss off - up menu and save the applications programme to your background . you could now sink multiple PowerPoint file on this AppleScript droplet and convince them in one barbarous swoop . The unexampled Keynote files will appear on your screen background .
