I would like a way to export my Keynote presentations as a series of PNG images with transparent backgrounds. I tried setting the slide background to "No Fill", and I tried a Color background with 0% opacity. The slide, in Keynote, would show up with a black background, but the exported image had a solid white background. Is this a bug?
Keynote 6 does not export images with transparency, it will only import images with transparency.
Instead as a workaround, export the images as PNG or TIFF then open each one in Preview and use the Instant Alpha tool in the edit toolbar:
View > Show edit toolbar
If you are not willing to do this you will need to purchase a graphics editing application such as Photoshop or Pixelmator
I have all of the tools necessary to pull this off. This is more a matter of automation. Every week I need to take a slideshow and export it with a transparent background so that I can then programmatically lay the images on top of a couple of different background images.
What is the end product, another Keynote presentation, print, video?
One 3072x768 image that is projected onto a panoramic screen on stage. It is really three 1024x768 images, side by side, with a continuous panoramic background, and with the keynote slide text basically mirrored on the left and right thirds. Plus, another version with no background at all that we project onto the back wall of the auditorium.
I realize I'm kind of pushing the envelope here, but I'm simply contending that if I set the background of a slide to a color with 0% opacity, and export it as a PNG, it should have a transparent background.
and with the keynote slide text basically mirrored on the left and right thirds.
As you are using Keynote to show the presentation, there is no need to export image files to then bring back into Keynote again.
Instead, simply replace the existing background with your new image: Inspector > Format > Background and select image fill from the drop down menu.
The inspector is the side panel on the right of the canvas.
I'm simply contending that if I set the background of a slide to a color with 0% opacity, and export it as a PNG, it should have a transparent background.
As I stated in my last post, Keynote does not have the ability to export alpha channel graphics.
I use vector based items (or really hi res images) and export from Keynote to pdf. I then open it in Photoshop, it will ask how big you want it. I set the dimension and res pretty huge, way more than needed in the final use. I then delete the background color (usually white) and then size to what I want. You can get a pretty good anti-aliased edge with transparency. Not vector any more, but if you have the res, you don't need the vector so much.
Cannot seem to export PNGs from Keynote with a transparent background
