changing Presenter Notes font size, color, etc

I would be very interested to get an answer to this, too. I know this questions was posted years, ago, but I still can't figure out how to do it in keynote 9 (2011 update).

The best work around I have been able to find is to open the ppt in powerpoint, change the font color of the notes field on the master notes page (view menu-->master-->notes master) to an "apple" or "web-safe color", specifically FFFFFF for black, but this only applies to the "main" font used in the presentation. If the author of the slide show already changed some words to red, for example, they aren't effected by changing the master, and show up as yellow (hard to see) when opened in keynote.

This work-around is not only tedious--since I am a medical student, and ALL of our lectures are given in ppt form, which may be up to 20 lectures per week and sometime 150 slides each--but it often doesn't work, if the prof used an old version of ppt or created it in keynote and then exported it to ppt. In these and other cases, when I change the notes master, it doesn't actually do anything to the individual note page view of each slide...

SO, if someone can figure out how to change the FONT COLOR of PRESENTATION NOTES in ALL SLIDES of a presentation in KEYNOTE, PLEASE SHARE!!

Thanks!

I have a very similar problem, which maybe you can solve. I use Keynote constantly in class. For years, every time I've added a text to a slide the text box has opened up in a default font I don't use and have to change. I can't figure out how to get Keynote to adapt to my preferred font and font-size.

Is there a way to get Keynote's text box to open up on every slide with the correct font and size already selected (i.e., with the default word "Text" already correctly formatted)?

I've tried changing the size and font in the "master slide", but it doesn't seem to make any difference -- even there, when I click on Text Box the new box comes right back up the same as always, with the wrong default.

???


Thanks.

I would love an answer to this also. I am a convert from PPT, and it is tedious to keep changing the notes slide by slide.

Hi Guys,

Happily, the answer is yes.

Create a Text Box as before, and reformat it to the font, size, color, etc. that you want. With the Text Box still selected go to Format > Advanced > Define Text for All Masters. This will solve your problem. Similar defaults can be set for other objects as well. In fact, if you're a fan of using Shapes to contain text, you'll need to go through the same procedure starting with a Shape and adding text inside of it.

These defaults will stick only to the current file you are working on. Next time you open a fresh document from that same Theme, the Apple defaults will reappear. The way I work around this is to start with a fresh Theme, change all the object defaults (as described above), toss out any unwanted Master Slides from that theme, maybe create some new Masters, and then save that blank document as a Custom Theme (File > Save Theme - use default location). Then for future presentations, I choose my custom theme from the Theme Chooser and all my preferences are already set.

Craig's solution works for textboxes, but still doesn't let you change the Presenter Note defaults - I tried.

Anyone have a solution for the Presenter Notes?

Hi Donn,

Yeah, I got carried away with the other question - I do not know of a way to change the default font for Presenter Notes, despite looking intently. The Notes formatting does not follow with the Masters, so creating a custom Theme is not a solution. The best workarounds I can offer are:

1. Duplicating slides from which you have changed the Notes formatting to your liking. This is okay if you're not a heavy user of different Masters

2. With a set of Notes that are already created, the ever-helpful Copy Style & Paste Style functions do (thankfully) work for the Notes text, so at least that can save a few steps, but each Note will have to be manually selected in order to apply the Paste Style.

3. Type your Notes as a regular Text object on any regular slide, assuming that you've adjusted the text fomenting to your liking, as described in my post above. Then Cut that text object and paste it in the Presenter Notes field. Keynote will keep the formatting of your copied text in the Notes box. This is all good unless your text is white, in which case it will be difficult to see!

4. A similar hack can work with the Comments, and might be more practical and natural from a workflow perspective. Create a new Comment and reformat the text to ANYTHING other than the default Marker Felt (okay, the usual embargo of Comic Sans always applies, too) and type the note content. Click on the Comment note - you won't have any handles appear to confirm your selection, but don't worry - choose Copy and then go to your next slide, click on the Canvas and choose Paste. This will copy the previous Comment along with the formatting. Click in the Notes field and choose Paste, and the formatted text from that Comment will appear.

If anyone has found a better hack, I'd love to know about it, too...

Go to view, select outline and select all the text (command + A) and then go to font settings (Command + T), then select the font you would like. Done!

Welcome to the forum!

But tachi, when I do what you suggest, the font is changed for all the text on all the slides, +but not+ in the presenter notes text. Either I don't understand your directions, or, perhaps, you misunderstood the assignment. Please help me out. 😟

(I sent this feature request to Apple, and got no response.)

Edit: I'm pretty sure this could be done automatically with AppleScript or Automator, but I'm no expert in either, so I've never tried it.

Message was edited by: gbdoc

While I am also no expert in either here is all I could find for Automator.



This will extract all presenter notes to a text edit document. You can then format them as you wish, but then you have to go back in and manually copy them to each slide.

So after looking into it a little more I have found an answer for part of the question. This will let you change font and font size, but not font color.

Before I get into it, I must start with my disclaimer. I am not a computer programmer and while guessing how to do this I broke a couple test Keynotes. If you attempt this on a valuable presentation, I highly recommend making a copy or backup of your original before trying this.

Alright, now that that is out of the way, here we go. Right click +(control click)+ your presentation and select +Show Package Content+, you will see a file titled index.apxl.gz. Double click this to unzip giving you a new file index.apxl. Trash the index.apxl.gz and double click the index.apxl which will open in text edit. Then search for slideNote. Below you will see what to change to change the presenter notes size and font.



At least in my few tests, this changed the font and font size on all presenter notes through the presentation.

Kelly, this is very Coull! 🙂 🙂 I've never had the nerve to fool with the innards of KN like this, but now I'm steeling myself for a try. Many thanx!

Excellent! Thanks, Kelly... Could not find this when I dissected the file - can't wait to try it at home!

I still have not found how to change the font color. I did not see it listed and tried a couple time to add it and ended up with a +Could not open file+ when I tried to open the Keynote. It seems like there should be a way, but I haven't found it yet.