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Import PowerPoint shapes into Keynote Apps
I just started using Keynote, and I found really frustrating the lack of even very basic built-in shapes, like rounded rectangles, arcs, braces or polygons that you all find in PowerPoint.

I tried to find some info on the net. You can of course copy and paste from different programs (apparently, people like OmniGraffle a lot!). But you don't get a real "object" for which you can change the fill and stroke colors and width that would behave like the Keynote built-in shapes. Even the 'Symbols and Borders' item in one of the Keynote Image Library files are actually just images: you cannot change the fill and the stroke.

I found something really so simple I still don't understand why nobody mentions it here or elsewhere. When you open a PowerPoint file, any PowerPoint shape will be imported as a real Keynote shape that you can manipulate just like the other buil-in shapes. So, by preparing a PowerPoint slide full of useful shapes, with different settings (like various roudness of rounded reactangle, or various sections of arcs), you can have a library of real custom shapes. Even free drawing shapes or scribbles made in PowerPoint work! The main problem is that you cannot add arrows, even to open shapes like arcs. You can set fill to 'none' and change the color and width of line, but that's it. Only Keynote's built-in line can have arrows.

It also means that Keynote is actually completely ready to handle any shapes, and it is just a matter of adding them to the default ones, and implementing a free shape tool. What are they waiting for?
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Import PowerPoint shapes into Keynote
Authored by: Tulse on Jun 15, '04 01:54:26PM

I don't get all the functionality described using Keynote 1.1.1 and PowerPoint X (Service Release 1) on OS X 10.3.4. I can indeed create and copy shapes from PowerPoint to Keynote, but I can't change the fill colour or any features of the stroke (colour or weight). Further, I can change size, but even if I use the side handles, the proportions are preserved (the shape only gets bigger or smaller, not skinnier or wider). Opacity <I>is</I> manipulable, and I can add shadows.

Even with these restrictions, this is a handy new capability. If only Apple would let you create shapes natively in Keynote...



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Import PowerPoint shapes into Keynote
Authored by: Tulse on Jun 15, '04 01:57:53PM
If only postings were editable...after reading more closely, I actually imported a PowerPoint file with shapes, where indeed, it worked as advertised. My bad.

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Import PowerPoint shapes into Keynote
Authored by: cparnot on Jun 15, '04 03:39:35PM

Addendum:
with rounded rectangles, you should keep the x:y ratio constant in order to avoid "ovaloidization" of the circular angles. The same applies for some of the powerpoint shapes where the size of a part of the shape is in any way independent of the total size.
It is still much better than not being able to change the color of a shape.

---
charles



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