Keynote on iPad - Can't Loop Presentation

Add me to the list of iPad users who is frustrated that there's apparently no way to run a self-looping presentation on the device. I'm going to be sitting at an exhibit table for two hours today, and the iPad would be a perfect tool for running the Powerpoint presentation in kiosk mode that I usually run on my Macbook Pro--except it looks like you can't. Are you listening, Apple?

I just built this AWESOME keynote presentation - nope can't loop on the ipad - we had these great dilusions of taking two ipads instead of two notebooks to a tradeshow - And, all the great effects that I did, of course don't work in powerpoint - geez - logically though, Ipad wasn't designed to do all these things - it would have been nice if the specs pointed it out

I have a 6 slide presentation that has been running for 35 minutes - each slide is 10 seconds then 5 seconds or 90 seconds for the six slides. I duplicated the slides I stopped at 24 times - it ran for 35 minutes - just stopped - To duplicate the entire set: edit>select all> click on the last slide,then edit>paste - keep on doubling and doubling - I can't find out how many slides keynote will take - The file size is 35mb - it did not increase when I duplicated the slides - I dunno - I am going to keep on testing this out - I built the presentation on my mac - It also matters what the time between slides is

I've been an iPad user for about 20 minutes and found an easy fix--go to Settings > Photos > Repeat.

Photo repeat doesn't loop a keynote presentation.

I had this same issue, but I created a video of the presentation first. (You can do this on the Mac side of course, using either Keynote or a screen capture tool.)

To then play that video on a loop in the iPad, follow these steps:
1) Create a version of the video that will play on the iPad, by importing it into iTunes and using Advanced > Create iPad version.
2) Copy that new version of the video to an iPhoto album that has nothing else in it.
3) Set that iPhoto album to sync with the iPad, and ensure that you have selected that videos should sync (in addition to just photos).
4) Perform a sync, and verify that the video did indeed sync (that the iTunes conversion succeeded; it won't sync it the video isn't iPad-playable).
5) Ensure that, as a previous poster in this thread suggested, iPad Settings for Photos says to loop them (in a slideshow).
6) Open that album that has only one thing in it, and start a slideshow. Voila.

This is the combined result of my reading several forum posts on this, and trying stuff until it worked. Good luck.

Message was edited by: NathanCarter

Had iPad for three days - No loop for pres that is just dumb!

Just got an iPad yesterday and experimented with a looping presentation. There is a neat workaround if you don't have any animation in your presentation. You can export the slides into jpeg files and then import them into iPhoto in a separate album. You can then sync this using iTunes to iPad and run the "photos" as a slideshow. As mentioned by others, you can go to setting and set photos to repeat.

Why not just copy all the slides and paste them again and again until you have the duration you need.

I have the same issue - but with a 541 photo long Keynote preso that I painstakingly made on my MacBook Pro. I can't use the photos app, since there are brand logo elements that I needed to add to each slide (not in the photo). This is supposed to loop all night on a big screen during a banquet, and I was hoping to just plug in the iPad and let it go... I guess I'll have to bring the MBP. Bummer!

This is obviously a trivial fix for Apple to make, and surely it just missed the cut of features for 1.0. It is common to see updates for iOS apps from everyone except for Apple - since they are probably focusing all their energy on the iOS 4.2 version of these apps. We'll see our "loop" option then - I bet.

Come on Apple - we know you're focusing on iOS 4.2, but a lot of us bought this stuff on Day 1, and have been using it without updates...

- Joe

THANK YOU! This worked perfectly. I was able to use this to loop iPad formatted videos as you described in your post, and also PowerPoint presentations. To loop PowerPoints, in Windows I used the "Save As ---> Other Formats --> JPEG". Then, I imported those photos into iPhoto as a separate album, then used the same technique as the movies to loop them.

One issue I noticed is that when using these instructions to get a video to loop, you can't skim through the movie at all manually - it won't loop unless you are "hands off" with the iPad after pressing that "Start Slideshow" button.

Thanks. This works.

Its just frustrating that this basic presentation functionality isn't included in Keynote for iPad.

I am another very flustered new iPad user.... Just bought it a few days ago, specifically to run a kiosk-type presentation at a show, that the sales guy/genius at the apple store told me I could definitely do with the keynote app. I explained to him in detail that this was the only reason for my buying this pretty gadget.
Now, several days later, having spent hours on the presentation, buying several additional apps, building an enclosure for the box, I find out it will not loop 8 slides??
I don't have the option of recording it as a video, because I don't have any macs available, only windows machines. This seems like a total oversight on apple's part ...
And I have to pay 10% restocking fee when I take this box back because it won't do what I was assured it would....

Creating a Quicktime movie of your Keynote presentation seems like overkill for most purposes. The easiest way to work around the omission of looping in iPad Keynote, assuming you also have Keynote on the Mac, is to export all of your slides from Keynote as JPG images. Copy the slides into iPhoto, create an album, then select this album in iTunes for syncing to the iPad. Once on the iPad, they can be played as a photo slideshow. Turn on "repeat" in Settings for Photos, as well as the preferred play time for each slide. Of course you lose any slide animations and the original slide transitions (although you'll have a few to select from in the slideshow start menu), but it does work.

I disagree, saving as a QT file is much preferred if you make interesting, animated presentations.

Losing animation just kills the value of the presentation.