I can't open my keynote files

Question

Level 1

8 points

I can't open my keynote files

I'm not a new user; I've built dozens of presentations in keynote and haven't run into this, ever. The presentations open fine on other computers, but the one I built them on seems to have lost its mind.

When I try to open the file, I get a one line message that looks like this:

+Can’t open file “/Users/MyName/Desktop/FolderName/FileName.key”.+

It seems that my application itself is somehow corrupted . . . anyone ever experienced this?

mac g5, Mac OS X (10.4.11), keynote is from iWorks 08

Posted on Jul 4, 2008 3:07 PM

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Answer 1

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,585 points

Jul 4, 2008 4:14 PM in response to noemadoran

Welcome to the discussions, noemadoran.

Try under a different user to see if it works. If it doesn't then I'd try re-installing Keynote.

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Answer 2

noemadoran Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 4, 2008 4:22 PM in response to Kyn Drake

Thanks, that's about what I thought I'd have to do. In case anyone is interested, it seems like the application got overwhelmed while I was in the process of saving a big collection of presentations to pdf format.

It got really slow on one set of slides and then just crashed.

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Answer 3

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,585 points

Jul 4, 2008 6:21 PM in response to noemadoran

Was your hard drive near full? This happened to me recently (not with Keynote) when my hard drive was almost at capacity and three apps couldn't access the memory they needed. Since then, I've tried to keep at least 5 gigs free on my HD at all times.

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Answer 4

maicoman

Level 1

4 points

Jul 4, 2008 7:24 PM in response to noemadoran

I am having the same problem. I cannot get any of my created keynote presentations to launch. I cannot find out what is wrong. I only upgraded to Ilife08 and now it will not work. I need some help....

Thanks

Chuck

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Answer 5

noemadoran Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 4, 2008 7:34 PM in response to maicoman

Okay, so after I wrote the first post I ran into it again--this time on a macbook with the same set of presentations.

My situation is . . . I create stuff for a few dozen users to present. I just did a small upgrade and loaded it onto all the presenters' macbooks. On my own macbook everything was working fine at first, then randomly one presentation wouldn't open. I tried opening keynote and starting a new presentation, which worked.

I went back to my collection (still on the macbook) and opened one of the presentations successfully.

My fear is that one of my presenters will open his laptop and have nada, even though I checked every one of them and they all opened when I first loaded them.

Gah, the dreaded intermittent problem. Please help.

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Answer 6

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,585 points

Jul 5, 2008 6:09 AM in response to noemadoran

How are you transferring the .key files from one computer to another.

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Answer 7

noemadoran Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 5, 2008 9:54 AM in response to Kyn Drake

CD Rom

I tried opening them again this morning on my macbook and they were just fine. It's a puzzle.

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Answer 8

Kyn Drake

Level 7

21,585 points

Jul 5, 2008 9:57 AM in response to noemadoran

Are you just placing the files on the disc or are you Archiving them first. I think the default mode for burning CD's in OSX is to be Mac and Windows compatible which could mean that the files might not work after being burned to the disc. Or won't run right directly from the disc but will open when copied to the internal HD.

The best way to work around this is to always Archive your files before copying them to the transfer media, whether it's a flash drive, CD or even via email.

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Answer 9

Sep 8, 2008 5:52 PM in response to Kyn Drake

Hi, Kyn,

What do you mean "archive" a file? Never heard that before. I burned a bunch of keynote files I created in '06 and now can't open any of them in '08. No longer have '06 as this is a new machine. What gives?

Thanks.

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