import from 20 MB powerpoint file yields gigantic 1.4 GB file!

Hmm... an interesting one. I also imported a 105 page Powerpoint presentation into Keynote 3.0 - it went from 14.6MB in PP to 30.4MB in KN and it was heavy with images. BTW, you don't mention what version of Keynote you're using, which Mac/OS version, nor how many images were in the PP document.

Anyhow, a couple of things that occur to me is the possibility that linked, HiRes image files from PP are being imported [and embedded] directly into KN. I'm not too clear how PP handles images [either it places a LoRes 'imageholder' or the whole kitchen sink]. Another thought - if your PP document had a lot of images - was whether it works with OPI [Open Press Interface]. If so, it quite possibly IS placing a LoRes imageholder which is then replaced by a HiRes file on export.

But before I'd look at any of that I'd suggest removing the Keynote preferences (after quiting Keynote), found here: '~user' > 'Library' > 'Preferences' and is called: 'com.apple.iWork.Keynote.plist'. Follow that with a repair of your disk permissions with Disk Utility and then restart Keynote and reimport the PP document.

I've got my fingers crossed, good luck!

I've found the same problem. Starting with a ±70MB PPT file, I imported it into Keynote 3, Adjusted some images and WHAM: 700MB. I took a look inside the package file and found that most of the images had 10 or more copies of them stored in the file (filename-filtered-1.tiff, filename-filtered-2.tiff, etc.).

Is this part of Keynote's backup system for editing files, and if so, can I delete the redundant ones safely? Is there a record somewhere (in a plist file?) of which images are being used on screen vs. the backups?

Or does anyone know of an "optimize" command? It would seem like a necessary feature for the point where you're done the presentation and want to move it around (say, on a cd, as I tried to do last week as a backup before a lecture). I suppose one could write a script to cull the redundant files (if they had better scripting chops than I do).

Any insight would be helpful.

Thanks
—cp

MacBook Pro 2.0 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

It seems that KN makes copies of images that you edit in the app, which is how it lets you revert so quickly. The downside is huge presentation files. It's best to do your editing before you import images.