Science posters with Keynote

Question

Science posters with Keynote

Does anyone know how to adjust the size of science posters created with Keynote? I am trying to create a poster larger than the default setting of 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels. When I try to enter different values, I am not able to. Any suggestions would be welcome.
Mark

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on Apr 4, 2011 1:00 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 4, 2011 1:47 PM in response to Mark Yarborough

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the discussions.

Have you considered printing your slides to PDF and then choosing a paper size in Preview for hard copy? There you can scale any way you like.

Jerry

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Answer 2

Apr 5, 2011 8:42 AM in response to Jerrold Green1

Thanks Jerry. I will give this a try, although it seems like there still should be a way to reset the dimensions within Keynote itself, unless the default size settings for their Poster templates is set for the maximum size.

Mark

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Answer 3

Apr 5, 2011 9:17 AM in response to Mark Yarborough

It appears the largest you can make a presentation in Keynote is 4000 x 4000.

Are you planning on printing the poster or using as a presentation? If you are just making something to print, you might want to try Pages. You would have more control of the final print size and be able to make it as large as you would like. If you use the Page Layout option, it would be very similar to Keynote.

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Answer 4

russee

Level 1

5 points

Apr 6, 2011 10:06 AM in response to Mark Yarborough

Hey Mark, it's been a year or two since I've made a science poster, but I'm 99% sure you can't do this in Keynote, though, you can do it in Pages. From pages, in the inspector, click on document inspector tab, then page setup, then in paper size, choose manage custom sizes, click the plus button and define how big you want the poster in inches. Pages has essentially the same functions as keynote (text boxes, making and adjusting shapes). Though, if you want a background, you'll have to make a box the size of your poster and put it as the back layer. This can be annoying when trying to select multiple objects, as you'll frequently select the background as well/instead, so I usually put it in last (i.e. create it in a different file, then when the poster is essentially done, add it and move to back). That make sense?

best,

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Answer 5

Apr 8, 2011 5:17 PM in response to russee

Thanks, everyone, for your replies. I ended up just going with a smaller poster, pretty much what the default settings were for the Keynote poster template that I used, which has worked out fine. I had to save it as a pdf so that I could print it at Kinko's FedEX but nothing got lost in translation.
Just to bring the folks interested in this thread up to date, Apple provides downloadable templates and an instructional video on their science discovery website about using Keynote for science posters. That is how I got the idea in the first place. It was pretty easy to do using one of the templates, in that there are place holders for headings, text boxes, etc. I did not try using Pages and it sounds like that may give you more flexibility with size, etc but it also sounds like you'd be starting literally with just a blank canvas. I may try that next go round but if people can use a poster with maximum dimensions of approx. 55 inches wide and 41" high, then using Keynote is pretty much a breeze if you use one of the downloadable templates.

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Answer 6

Apr 18, 2011 7:14 AM in response to Mark Yarborough

Keynote is for making RGB based presentations - it was not designed for posters. As one person said - use Pages. It is excellent for making posters in the Page Layout mode. I don't know why people keep using the wrong tools, for example Powerpoint or Keynote, to make printable posters when they were not meant for it.

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Answer 7

Brian Peat

Level 6

18,216 points

Apr 18, 2011 3:18 PM in response to Mark Yarborough

I haven't looked at what you are starting with in Keynote, but unless they're embedding backgrounds into the slides that are needed, you should be able to literally copy and paste the whole thing onto a pages document. They use the exact same object engine.

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Answer 8

Apr 19, 2011 8:09 PM in response to Arthur Busbey

Much innovative software development is inspired by people trying to do something with existing software that it's "not supposed to do". Really that meme gets repeated far too often on these forums. If someone can achieve an acceptable outcome with software X who in their right mind can say X is not supposed/designed to do that.

That said Keynote (or InDesign, Illustrator or hundreds of other apps) is of course the 'better' choice except for user experience/bias.

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Answer 9

Brian Peat

Level 6

18,216 points

Apr 21, 2011 5:04 PM in response to wideEyedPupil

Except that I have seen several times on these forums posts by people complaining that they couldn't make vertical slides in Keynote. Your argument runs out when users insist on using a tool made for one thing to make something it was never designed for. It very well may work for making posters, but honestly, Pages uses THE SAME ENGINE and almost all THE SAME TOOLS, but it can do large page sizes and is made for print.

Imagine someone insisting on writing a book in Keynote and then arguing with Apple as to why they couldn't get table of contents and indexing. It seems silly to complain about limitations of a presentation program when the same company makes a companion page layout app that feels almost identical to Keynote.

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