By: Eddy Toronto on January 27, 2010

Thanks for this

very helpful (especially the update)

By: Mich Micenmacher on March 21, 2010

Thank you veeeeeeery much!!!!

By: matt mckenzie on May 05, 2010

Thanks… exactly what I was looking for.

By: Federico on August 13, 2010

Hey Steven,

Thanks a lot for the .zip trick!

Ciao,

Fede

By: Raphael on November 17, 2010

Hi Steven, thanks for the tip.
I however realised now that Keynote has now taken over full control over the package contents in the sense that it does not tolerate any other files within the package than directly related to the presentation. I.e. if you add a file into the package (folder), it will be removed by Keynote once it does save changes I did to the presentation.
Why add own files to the package at all? One interesting use case for this was version control in a presentation that evolves by the time. Scott Schacon, a git expert & evangelist (see http://progit.org), uses Keynote for his presentations. As his presentations became huge because of his cartoon-like way of explaining complex issues, he once mentioned that he would even put his presentations under version control using git, thanks to the fact that they are saved as packages. (Very briefly: git version control can be used in any folder of data, and it stores all of its own data within that folder.)
I found this a very compelling and storage-saving alternative, better than having multiple Keynote files for each version of my presentation.
But now with Keynote ‘09 this doesn’t seem to work anymore - at least I failed doing so…
Cheers, RAPHAEL

By: kovar on November 17, 2010

@ Raphael

Interesting, I’ve never tried adding files that weren’t part of the presentation. I’ve only used it to proof file sizes, or to swap out images or videos that I’ve changed – keeping the same filenames.

To do this, the image should probably be the same dimensions… I’ve used it mostly when I had a group of images that I needed to change or update (branding changes, etc), and I can then just update them all as a batch without re-importing and placing them. Or sometimes, I just want to snag a file out of a KN package.

Also interesting on the Github version control. Had never really even thought of that.

Cheers,

Steven

By: Pablito Vaughn on March 08, 2011

Steven,
I did what you are saying, but the files names are appended with an “-1” at the end of every image name. So, I appended my files names but it is not updating the images automatically. What am I doing wrong?

By: Garnet Campbell on April 09, 2011

that tip really saved me this morning when a project file Mysteriously emptied itself of all images.

By: steve on September 04, 2011

I am trying to export a keynote show and have checked the package contents box. But when it is exported to QT the movie either starts for 2 sec then quits, or doesn’t start at all. The movie is QT, made in Photo Booth.

I tried the “change extension” thing and with .zip it will no longer open.

This is pathetic that so many of us are fighting with this and it remains unfixed…

THANKS FOR THE HELP

By: LA on September 26, 2011

This might help!

To have a .key file that is not a package (can send via ftp)
you must create the file after you un-check the save new documents as packages.
if you have an existing file that is saving as a package (can’t send via ftp) you must create a new file as above then change the frame size i.e 1280x720 then paste your slides from the existing .key to the new file you created.

basically it only effects new files made after you un-check the save new documents as packages in preferences. it won’t convert it.

Hope this helps.