Per Machine Keynote Themes?

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Per Machine Keynote Themes?

Is there a way to get the Mac App Store version of Keynote to show templates that have been saved outside of the App itself?

In iWork '09 we could save Themes to the /Library/Application Support/Keynote/Themes/ folder and they would show up in Keynote's Theme Chooser. This meant we could deploy pre-approved Themes to a machine and change them with ease.

With The App Store version of Keynote, it appears the Themes in Theme Chooser are stored in a per user sandboxed container which makes it difficult for the pre-approved Themes to be deployed.

Is there a per machine location where we can put these Themes so Keynote 6 will display them as there was in Keynote 5?

Thanks,

Bobby

Posted on Dec 11, 2014 2:37 AM

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Answer 1

pedro d

Community Specialist

Dec 12, 2014 12:16 PM in response to BobbyJUK

Hello there, Bobby.

It sounds like you want to add a custom theme to your current version of Keynote for Mac. The following link to the online Keynote User Guide, provides instruction on how to do just that:

Add custom themes - Keynote Help

Install a theme on your Mac

If you saved a custom theme or if someone sent you a theme, you need to install it so that you can use it in Keynote. Installing a theme adds it to the Theme Chooser. Skip this task if you choose Add to Theme Chooser when you saved the custom theme.

Double-click the theme file (it has the file extension “.kth”), then click Add to Theme Chooser.
You can set Keynote to always open a new presentation from the same theme instead of from the theme chooser. Choose Keynote > Preferences (from the Keynote menu at the top of your screen). In the General pane, select “Use theme,” then click Change Theme to select a theme.

Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.

Cheers,

Pedro.

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Answer 2

Dec 13, 2014 6:17 AM in response to BobbyJUK

Is there a way to get the Mac App Store version of Keynote to show templates that have been saved outside of the App itself?

Create the new theme and Save the theme to a convenient location on the Mac (File > Save Theme)

You can then distribute the theme to all of your recipients

The recipient would double click the theme file which opens Keynote with a dialogue box, select Add to Chooser

When creating a presentation with the new theme: File > Change Theme select My Themes then select the required theme.

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Answer 3

Sep 3, 2015 1:24 AM in response to BobbyJUK

The solutions above describing the manual way to do this.

But what if I have a 100+ Macs and need to enteprise deploy the .kth file? Where can I locate it so it gets loaded from any current keynote version?

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Answer 4

Sep 3, 2015 5:41 AM in response to Patrick Fist

But what if I have a 100+ Macs and need to enteprise deploy the .kth file?

Keynote themes must be installed individually on each Mac by double-clicking the theme file and selecting Add to Theme Chooser.

The theme file can be located anywhere, a USB memory module, a server or a file transfer service such as Dropbox.

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