keynote-how to get music to play through specific multiple slides?

jess-ica,

The way to do this in Keynote is to make seperate Keynote files for each music segment and then link the files using a hyperlink. Music (or any sound file) can play across slides only when placed in the Soundtrack Well of the Document > Audio Inspector. Also, only one sound file is allowed per Keynote slideshow to play this way, thus the need for additional Keynote shows.

Take your existing presentation and in the Navigator, select the few slides that need one song > Cut the slides and then open a new Keynote and in the Navigator, Paste > Save. Repeat for any other musical segments. In the musical segments place your music in the Document > Audio > Soundtrack Well and adjust volume, etc. > Save as needed.

In your original Keynote, on the last slide before the music, place an object and assign a hyperlink to the next "musical" segment: with the object selected > Hyperlink Inspector > Enable Hyperlinks (checked) > Link to: > Keynote Slideshow (pulldown) > Select your "musical" Keynote segment file; repeat for the second segmant, only here the object must be on the last slide of the preceding "musical" slideshow.

Set your linked slideshows to start automatically Document > Slideshow Settings > Automatically Play Upon Open (checked). Also, before you start your presentation you may need to open all files in the background otherwise you may just see the followon slideshow for a brief moment and nothing else happens.

Note: Hyperlinks to slideshows can only link to the first slide of a file, so you can't hyperlink out and return to the middle of a show. It just won't work.

Good Luck

I found a way to make my project work. I can leave the sound off and just do slides. Then Export to Quick Time (have to select "Fixed Timing" option). This saves it as .mov and then I can Import in iMovie. From there I can edit the segments to get the slide transition timing right and add music wherever I want - different songs, across different slides. Yeah!

These are great instructions and match the Keynote help instructions. The hyperlink is in place but I still can't get the second Keynote slide show to play. Both are open. Both are set to play automatically upon opening. Any ideas?? I really need this to work for wedding montage with multiple songs and I'd hate to have to start all over again in Powerpoint or another package...!

Thanks for any other suggestions you have.

Try turning off the auto play on the second and follow files - you need the files open but not started, if that makes sense. Once you get to the first hyperlink it should pull the second (or follow) presentations from the background and start them up. Having two files set to start up on opening could confuse Keynote as to which to display. Try that.

Thanks for the quick reply!

OK I tried that - unchecked 'autoplay on opening' - unfortunately, no change. Also tried Restarting Mac. Also tried not opening the second file and leaving it checked to play on opening. Also tried not opening the second file and unchecked to play on opening. All have same result. The first one just stops and opens up in Navigator view, and the second one is there, too, (if it was open).

Any other ideas?

The only other thing I can think of at the moment is to be sure all Keynote files are on the same machine and accessible - when you link an object to another Keynote file, you are presented with a finder chooser dialog and you need to be sure the files you select are on the same machine - sometimes having another hard drive works, but most of the time it does not. You can not link to external files and even connecting to files on a server is tricky. Other than that, I can't think of anything. It works on my iMac every time.

Be sure to test each link as you add it - if it works during the test, then try the whole thing and see if you still encounter problems. To test your link, simply click play and click on your link object (being sure that the other file has been opened first). It sounds like you've tried most options.

I tried this but the quality of my presentation degraded a lot when I exported as quicktime in imovie. I also tried uploading it directly to youtube from imovie with the same result, the text and pix are fuzzier. I'm not sure why this is. but I really need my music only on some slides and some sound effects on others and it WAS very easy to do in imovie but the quality issue right now prevents me from using the finished product.

Susan

Thanks. They are both in the same folder. I copied and edited to run them both from desktop. Still not working. Thanks anyway. I'm going to have to start over in another software.