Saving a bunch of PPT files to KEY format

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Level 1

8 points

Saving a bunch of PPT files to KEY format

I am in medical school and all my professors provide powerpoint files. I find them really helpful when I study. However, I hate using Keynote to view these ppt (or pptx) files because I always have to convert them one by one to keynote format (using the export or save as feature).

Yes I could keep them as ppt all the time BUT I hate getting that "Would you like to save before quitting?" message EVERY time I close a presentation file.

So annoying.

Does anyone have a work-around? I have Office for Mac as well, but I really like the minimal and clean interface of Keynote. Plus it loads a bit faster.

So my problem would be solved with either of the two following ideas:

1) It is annoying being asked to save the file even if I just merely looked at the file. Can the ppt format just become my default format so keynote never asks me to save it as the ".key" format?

2) Is there a way I could just highlight several ppt or pptx files in finder and convert the batch of them to keynote format?

Apple, Mac OS X (10.6.1), Macbook Pro 13"

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 9:55 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 8, 2010 10:31 AM in response to rich|rich

Rich,

Are you aware that it isn't necessary to open the .PPT files to view them? If you highlight the filename in the Finder and hit the spacebar, you can view the documents without invoking Keynote. No time lost starting Keynote, saving or converting. There's a problem with this method that I don't have an answer for, but it may or may not bother you. That problem is that the view of the Quick Look window disappears if you shift the focus to another application.

Jerry

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Answer 2

gbdoc

Level 2

357 points

Mar 8, 2010 10:43 AM in response to rich|rich

If all you want to do is always open PP docs with KN, you can change the default app for PP docs from PP to KN: highlight a PP doc, "Get Info", and "Open with", which will have PP in it, can be changed to KN, and you can tell it to open all docs like this from now on with KN.

I'd recommend against this, however, because there may be something in the original PP presentation, like a critical animation, which might not translate well into KN. Therefore, my preferred method is to convert PP's to KN one by one, after I've viewed them in PP. And the way I do this is to open KN, choose "Open an existing file ..." (bottom left), and navigate to the file I want. If I want to keep it in KN, I save it. If a significant difference exists between the PP and KN versions, I can usually correct that afterwards in the KN file.

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Answer 3

rich|rich Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 8, 2010 10:53 AM in response to Jerrold Green1

This is a really good idea. I really appreciate the response. This might work. Although I just tried it out and it is kind of annoying that I can glide through the slides using the up and down arrow (it just goes from file to file when I press the down arrow).

Plus, I am often switching windows so much because I use Safari to find additional help with the stuff I'm learning, or I'm using pages to write notes that the "Finder Preview" window gets easily lost.

But a huge thanks for taking the time to respond!

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Answer 4

rich|rich Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 8, 2010 10:58 AM in response to gbdoc

I don't have a problem with opening up my files in Keynote. I definitely know about my options in "Get Info" as to what program I want to set as my "default" program to open up certain types of files.

It is more that I get so annoyed by the message in Keynote that tells me to save a .ppt file as a .key file every time I quit Keynote or just close a specific .ppt I am viewing in Keynote.

But a huge thank you for taking the time to look at my problem.

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Answer 5

Mar 8, 2010 1:33 PM in response to rich|rich

rich|rich wrote:
This is a really good idea. I really appreciate the response. This might work. Although I just tried it out and it is kind of annoying that I can glide through the slides using the up and down arrow (it just goes from file to file when I press the down arrow).

Rich,

Use PageUP and PageDN to move between slides in a file, arrows to change files.

Jerry

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