I have completed my analysis of the Keynote 5.2 theme saving issue and I don’t believe that it is operating system dependent (all users of Keynote 5.2 should be experiencing the same issue regardless of version of OS X used).
I have discovered that Keynote 5.2 has a major bug in the portion of the program responsible for creating kth theme files. The short explanation is that Keynote 5.2 is not creating the special property list file “themeMetaData” (note that this file does not have an extension since it is inside the kth and Keynote knows how to use it). This is the critical bug because without the “themeMetaData” file the Theme Chooser does not identify the kth as an actual theme file and, therefore, does not display it. Keynote 5.2 is also not creating the preview files that the Theme Chooser uses to display the themes. This is a non-critical bug since the Theme Chooser displays a generic placeholder image when the preview file(s) are not found. However, it is critical from the standpoint that we often choose themes based on their appearance not by the filename label under the image in the Theme Chooser.
The workaround for correcting the missing “themeMetaData” file is straightforward. I have determined that only four key and data pairs are required to make a “themeMetaData” file that will satisfy the Keynote 5.2 Theme Chooser. The easiest method for executing the solution is as follows:
Find a pre-Keynote 5.2 custom or third-party theme kth file (look in ~/Library/Application Support/iWork/Keynote/Themes or “HD”/Library/Application Support/iWork/Keynote/Themes - in either case you may find additional folders that actually contain the kth files - if you find that you don’t have any old custom or third-party themes, then find and download one from the many free Keynote theme sites).
Expose the guts of the kth file with “Show Package Contents”.
Select and Copy the “themeMetaData” file.
Paste it in another folder (use your Desktop or make a “temp” folder in Documents).
Rename the file by just adding a text extension to it (add “.txt” without the quotes) and click the Add button on the “Are you sure …” dialog that pops up.
Open the themeMetaData.txt with TextEdit and adjust the dictionary (<dict>) list so it looks like the example shown below.
<dict>
<key>application-version</key>
<string>Keynote 5.2</string>
<key>description</key>
<string></string>
<key>height</key>
<string>600.000000</string>
<key>width</key>
<string>800.000000</string>
</dict>
Do not make any changes to any other part of the file. If there are additional key and data pairs in the dictionary list, then delete them. If the data tags in the second line are <integer> and </integer>, then replace the word “integer” with the word “string” and type in “Keynote 5.2” between the tags as shown above (this is not absolutely necessary, but I recommend using this data item for documenting that this was a theme created with Keynote 5.2 and, therefore, manually patched). If there are characters between the description sting tags, then I recommend that it be deleted. The height and width data is for the slide size of the presentation upon which the theme design is based (such as 800 x 600). Other standard values that I found while rummaging around though the stock Keynote themes are (h & w): 768.000000 & 1024.000000, 720.000000 & 1280.000000, 1050.000000 & 1680.000000, and 1080.0000 & 1920.000000.
Save the themeMetaData.txt file (under 10.7 and 10.8 TextEdit will perform the save when you close the file).
Rename the file by removing the text extension to it (delete the “.txt” characters from the end of the filename) and click the Remove button on the “Are you sure …” dialog that pops up. This returns the file to a property list file without an extension compatible with Keynote 5.2.
After saving your new custom theme design using “Save Theme …”, quit Keynote, navigate to the folder where your new theme was stored (usually ~/Library/Application Support/iWork/Keynote/Themes), expose the guts of the kth file with “Show Package Contents”, in another Finder window find your edited version of themeMetaData, copy the file, go back to the exposed guts of your kth file and paste. Close the kth Finder window or back up to the previous folder. When you launch Keynote, you should see your theme’s filename label listed under a placeholder image where your preview will eventually show up (that’s the next task). However, you can select and choose your theme and it will open up a ready to use blank presentation using your theme.
The solution for the missing preview image can be handled in essentially three ways. First, live with the placeholder image shown in the Theme Chooser (easiest). Second, add a “preview.tiff” to the kth file which will give you a static preview image in the Theme Chooser (not too hard). Third, add a set of preview images so you get that dynamic view of various slides as you mouse across the preview image (challenging, but doable).
To add a “preview.tiff” file to the kth file you first need to find an image that represents your design. The most straight forward approach is to create a presentation with your theme, copy the thumbnail on the left side of the Navigator View, open Preview, and use “File | New from Clipboard.” Use “Tools | Adjust Size …” to resize the image to 120 pixels by 90 pixels at 72 pixels per inch with the default color model and Color Synch Profile (while it is not critical, you can see what it is with the Inspector). Save the file with the filename “preview” (literally, type the word “preview” without the quotes) and formatted as a TIFF (compression = none, Alpha checked) to your desktop or a temp folder (some place convenient). Now find the “preview.tiff” file that you just saved and copy it. Quit Keynote and once again navigate to the kth file of your new custom theme. Again, expose its guts. Paste your “preview.tiff” file in the kth. Close the Finder window or back up to the previous folder. Launch Keynote and your new custom theme now sports an image above its filename label.
Achieving the rollover slide view effect in the Theme Chooser essentially requires using the technique described above for the static preview image with several slide images. Start by creating a presentation with your new custom theme adding different types of slides and adding text or images so the design elements are visible. One at a time copy the Navigator View thumbnail and create a new image from the clipboard using Preview. Resize the image to 360 pixels by 270 pixels at 72 pixels per inch and the default color model and Color Synch Profile. Save the file with the filename “Preview”## (starting with ## = 00 and incrementing by one for each additional image) and formatted as a JPEG (I push the Quality slider up to Best). When you are done you will have a set of images named Preview00.jpg, Preview01.jpg, Preview02.jpg, etc. Quit Keynote. In another Finder window, navigate to your new custom kth file and expose its guts. Locate the Contents folder and open it. If you find a Resources folder inside, then open it, otherwise create a new folder inside the Contents folder, name it Resources, and open it. If you find a Previews folder inside the Resources folder, then open it, otherwise create a new folder inside the Resources folder, name it Previews, and open it. Copy all of your preview image files (Preview00.jpg, etc.) from your temporary location to the Previews folder. Either close the kth Finder window or back all the way out to the Themes folder. Launch Keynote and your new custom theme now sports the cool mouse over slide views same as the stock Keynote themes.
Frankly, this is all a real pain since Keynote 5.2 should be doing all of this for us like it use to before the latest round of “improvements.” I don’t know when the theme saving module in Keynote stopped working, but it may have been as early as 5.1. All I do know is that I had no problems making themes with 5.0.5 and hyperlinking extensive sets of presentations without the need to preload them. After the upgrade to 5.1, 5.1.1, and now 5.2 the theme saving module is seriously broken and the only way to use hyperlinking to launch one presentation from another is to preload all of the presentations into Keynote before starting the first presentation.
I hope this helps everyone. Let me know if you have questions.
