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Keynote multi-screen presentation

In about two weeks I have a presentation in a room where I have three separate flatscreens at my disposal. I want to use all three of them, at the same time.


Using the 2 Thunderbolt ports and HDMI port of my MacBook Pro, I have managed to connect all screens successfully. Unfortunately, that's where the hard part starts: the software. In short, I want to show three separate slides at the same time and click through them simultaneously (in other words: next slide means a new slide on each separate screen).


I see three options here:

  • one slide with the with of three screens (therefore creating one big external screen)
  • one unique slide on each screen
  • three MacBooks, each connected to one screen: therefore I want to be able to control each MacBook at the same time.


The first option appears to be impossible, as Keynote will always try to fit the presentation on one screen. The second option has also been unsuccessful so far, as I am not able to start ánd control three slideshows at the same time on one Mac. The third option appears to be the only one possible so far, but I don't know how to control Keynote on three Macs simultaneously.


I hope you can help me out with this interesting challenge. PowerPoint is also a possibility, if that solves my problem.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Jan 13, 2015 12:00 PM

Reply
6 replies

Jan 13, 2015 12:24 PM in response to Plomp

Hi, there is no default option indeed.

You'll need additional hardware

If you want to run 3 presentations on 3 Macs: http://keywebx.com


However, what you could try (this is an idea i just made up, so it may not be excellent) :

set the screens in the System preferences as if they're side by side, and in keynote, create a 1x3 presentation (3072*768 instead of 1024*768): like this and then launch the "one" keynote presentation: with the slides the way you want them: User uploaded file

User uploaded file

Jan 13, 2015 1:08 PM in response to Japib

Thanks Japib, I have tried this solution with two external screens but, unfortunately, this doesn't work for me (yet).


The settings are as follows of my test set-up:

The first external screen (middle) has a resolution of 1600 x 1200 and the second 1600 x 900. Therefore, I made a Keynote presentation of 3200 x 768 as a test and it only shows on one monitor so far.

User uploaded file

Keynote multi-screen presentation

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