When switching to 16:9, Keynote stretches all fullscreen images

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Level 1

19 points

When switching to 16:9, Keynote stretches all fullscreen images

My presentations are hundreds of slides, no text, 1024 x 768.

Occasionally, a client wants me to present on a 16:9 screen. I go to the document pane and change it to 1920 x 1080 and voila... EXCEPT

Except that any image that was full size (covering the whole screen) is stretched. Not only that, but the metrics pane is set for constrain proportions. So now for each and every slide, I have to go in, uncheck constrain, move the picture so I can see the handles, use my eye to judge what it ought to be, unstretch it, and move it back where it belongs.

How do I instruct Keynote to leave these pictures alone, the same way it leaves any picture that isn't all the way to the edges alone?

Failing that, how can I change the images in bulk?

Thanks!

macbookpro, Mac OS X (10.6.2), v 5.03 of Keynote 09

Posted on Mar 23, 2010 3:09 PM

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Answer 1

Tulse

Level 5

5,812 points

Mar 24, 2010 6:28 AM in response to sethgodin

If you go into the Preferences, in Slideshow, and check the option to scale slides up to fit display, it should do what you want without even having to change the resolution of the presentation.

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Answer 2

sethgodin Author

Level 1

19 points

Mar 24, 2010 12:44 PM in response to Tulse

Thanks, Tulse, but that doesn't work when you want to change the aspect ratio of the presentation.

That requires more of the photo to show horizontally, but not vertically (or else it requires black boxes, which it will do automatically.

So I want to be able to adjust certain images by scaling and then moving around, so they fill the entire wide screen, which is the entire point of changing it.

What I'm asking is if there is a way to prevent Keynote for actively damaging the full screen shots by forcing them to stretch in a weird way.

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Answer 3

Tulse

Level 5

5,812 points

Mar 24, 2010 1:24 PM in response to sethgodin

Perhaps you can explain in more detail what you want, since I'm still unclear. If you change the aspect ratio of your presentation, and your photos currently fill the slide, then it will either be necessary to distort the images, or to have the display show black borders on the left and right sides. It sounds like you don't want either result -- do you mean that you want the images to fill the screen and be cropped at the top and bottom instead?

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Answer 4

sethgodin Author

Level 1

19 points

Mar 25, 2010 4:01 AM in response to Tulse

I appreciate your patience.

Imagine a photo that shows 10 people side by side (Albert Einstein is in the middle). In the original presentation, I placed the photo to fill the squarer aspect ratio, and thus only 7 people are shown, 2 cropped out to the left and one to the right. But Einstein is still there, so it's a great shot.

Now, I get the chance to use the wider aspect ratio, because the presentation will be done for 1000 people on a really expensive 16:9 hd projector. Great.

I change the aspect ratio of the presentation and Keynote does exactly the wrong thing. It stretches the photo, making it wider but not taller, so that einstein and the other brilliant scientists are stretched wide, making them weird.

So I have to go that slide, click on it, go to the inspector, unlock the aspect ratio (which Keynote ignored), slide it a little so I can see the handles, grab the side handle and make it narrower to get the faces back to thin again (by eye) and then slide it back so all 10 guys are showing.

There are no circumstances under which the user would EVER want Keynote to take a picture and make it wider and not taller. And yet it does.

The fascinating thing for me is that if I start with the picture inset just a little from the edges of slide, Keynote leaves it alone.

So, unless you can help me, I have to take my original, make every picture a little smaller, then change the aspect ratio and then go back and make every picture fill the screen.

Hope that was clear. I thank you and Albert thanks you.

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Answer 5

Tulse

Level 5

5,812 points

Mar 25, 2010 5:17 AM in response to sethgodin

Given your description, I'm not sure that there is a simple workaround.

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Answer 6

Mar 30, 2010 3:55 AM in response to sethgodin

I think if you open Inspector and go to Metrics then click Original Size you will then be able to adjust the image/picture to what you want. With a 16:9 you may have to enlarge it over the edges of the document and then mask it to fit on the screen completely.

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Answer 7

sethgodin Author

Level 1

19 points

Mar 31, 2010 3:37 PM in response to Barry Goldenberg

I figured it out, for anyone who wants to know:

start with your original

export at jpgs.

open a new one at the resolution you like.

drag the jpgs in from the finder.

each one will go in, in the right order, without stretching, as its own slide.

Now you can go to each and shift drag to fit

voila.

thanks all.

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