keynote not working with ibook author

thank you. i got so used to the extra support apple provides to ib authors that i just assumed i would get the same with keynote.

i am experiencing a lot of problems with preview to the iPad when i have audio embedded in my keynote document, which is quite often. my audios are from companies that sell stock music and are either .mp3, .wav or .aiff. my modus operandi was always to drag and drop the file from the original source onto the keynote document. starting at some point after the publication of my first ebook circa 2013, as i started on my second, i eventually noticed that somewhere during the process of either dragging and dropping the keynote file into a widget snd then previewing (i usually did these two things bak to back a lot), the suffix of the audio file in the keynote was changed to .mov. i have thousands of keynote v5.3 documents to prove this and i can recreate it on a computer that still has this older version of keynote and iba 2.2.

after being just about finished with my new book, i decided it would be wiser to switch to the latest softwares before publication, so i set out to do so on a brand new laptop and just ported my keynote files over the new laptop. when using the new software that is where my troubles began, about a month ago. i'be been stuck in a rut for month trying to get some workable combo. i either solved my problems with workarounds or got advice from apple what to do. most all of the problems deal with multimedia, snd the one i now least understand is with audio.

i eventually decided to delete all the multimedia pieces from my keynote files and bring them in fresh under the new software. i eventually dealt withe the issue of gifs within a keynote as well as the few movies i had. but the audio was challenging.

1. first i dropped and dragged the virgin audios into the keynote document and they remained as .mp3 and .wav.

2. i was clued into the new preference choice of optimize movies for iOS within the new keynote and turned it on. it caused my audio files to change to ,m4a or .m4v (i don't remember, perhaps both) i think on drag and drop or later on dragging the keynote to a widget. i don't remember which. i was talking to a level 2 support person at iba on the loop multimedia within keynote not working in a widget and he became interested in me describing some of my other issues. i mentioned to him that once i turned on the keynote preference my audio suffixes were being changed. he was quite surprised and said that should not happen to his knowledge, it was just for movies.

3. in any case, my problems with preview to ipad continued and i pretty much know they are related to audio files because they disappear once i preview minus the audio files. (whether they persists with movies i am not positive, but will find out soon).

4. so i decided next to try to add audio with the media button on top of the keynote page. i added my audio to iTunes just by double clicking. then i imported the audio file into the keynote file and the fun began. it imported as .mp3 or .wav. then it started to import as .m4v. i figured to iTunes was perhaps in the process of changing this, so after putting it into iTunes, i rested with a nap and then came back. at this point it is kind of random whether a given file comes in as .mp3 or .m4v. i experimented with having iTunes opened or not but the bottom line is waffled right before my eyes. today it is importing as .mp3 or .wav.

5. make note that during this import from keynote, it is not just the suffix that changes. the prefix changes also, adding a numeric qualifier,

e.g.originals prefix-285.m4v, i speculated that the numeric prefix was added to give uniqueness to the audio file in the situation that it was used more than once. with the keynote 09 (v 5.3), i had observed that previewed book never worked whenever i used the same audio file on multiple slides within a keynote widget. i could use the same file in different keynotes in the same ibook. just not the same keynote. i worked around that issue and have not experimented with the new keynote to see if the problem has gone away as a result of the numeric piece added to the prefix. note that this numeric piece changes for difference instances of the same audio file across different imports of audio.

make no mistake about it. it would be extremely difficult for you to concoct a scenario where all i do is go to the media button on top of keynote page, go to audio to see my audios, double click on one and sometimes seat come in as .mp3 and other times as .m4v.

here are my three theories:

1. there are underlying bugs in keynote v6.5.3 dealing with audio files and certainly how keynote interfaces with widgets in iba. the only thing i could imagine was that iTunes was in the process of changing it when i was doing this. this does not surprise me as apple has gone wild with changing audio names in all kinds of ways.

2. sometimes i wonder whether apple is changing the software underneath me without me knowing. i know that's a bit paranoid of me, but is it paranoia if they are actually doing it. it seems on different days i get different results doing the same thing.

3. i had a theory earlier in my life that i once told a coworker but otherwise kept to myself. i had a discontinuity where it seemed i lost knowledge of what happened during a day in my life when i was younger. i figured i just had a long sleep. but later i wondered if i had actually died and went south. as i think about it now, it is amazing to me that would have been my destination as i was only about 22 years old and was pretty clean. now i could understand if that happened as i wish i could edit undo some mistakes i have made in my life. soon after that incident i was drafted into the army out of graduate school. although my life has had its ups and downs, the downs are bad and one needs an upper to make the downer seem even worse. perhaps i am dead and did go south. i have a book that i think is a masterpiece that will make a lot of money. right at the point of publication, the bottom falls out preventing me from getting it published. this is definitely s downer.

st this point i don't know which of these theories will prove true. i think you have to admit that your speculation that somehow i am healing with a video file when i am directly importing it from my iTunes which is on a brand new computer which only has a few audio files and no video and somehow i have also changed the prefix even though the rest of the prefix is the audio name. if it looks like the default audio button within keynote, comes up as audio in the pane where i can clearly see a -285.m4v replacing ,mp3 in the name and sounds like audio when i play it, it must be audio. there is just no way i could possibly be responsible for this. it is the software doing it.

i would almost opt to turn off the preference button in keynote which i am sure is part of this problem, but it sounds so ominous to do so. after all, i also want my movies to work in iOS. and make note, at some point audio files in keynote v5.3 (keynote 09) were being changed to .mov but never altered the prefix also with a numeric.

i am not at all sure whether i should drag and drop or select from iTunes. i am not sure if it makes a difference. i do think they are all tied into prpoblems using preview on the iPad.

not to beat a dead horse, but here are the facts.

i have an audio file that i am using named (band played on.mp3).

in my keynote 09 document (v5.3) it is on a slide named as band played on.mov. i cannot say with any degree of certainty at what point in the production process it was changed. i could go back to the old machine and find out, but i am thru with using keynote 09 and it would only be of marginal value to know at this point. there is no way i could have done this to well over hundreds of audios in my many keynotes. as a side point, whenever i had the same audio on two different slides in a specific keynote document, the ibook that incorporated this keynote in a widget would not work on an iPad. i limited by keynotes to never have the same audio on two slides in the same keynote document to get around this problem. i ported all my keynote 09 files to a new machine with all new software e.g. keynote v6.5.3(2151). i've taken this step because i was having too many problems with preview to an iPad.

i am going thru my slides and using the replace button to replace every audio from the original source (in a folder). doing so, the audio now shows up with the .mp3 name. if i now repeat that process, or add the same audio file to a different slide or do both, the audio name on the new slides shows up as (band played on 15-504.m4v). i suspect that apple is doing this as a fix to my observation that you cannot have the same audio file on two different slides in a keynote 09 document, but that is pure speculation on my part. alternatively, perhaps it is a bug or is being done for some other reason. the same behavior is obtained if i add it with the media button on top of the keynote page and extract the file from my iTunes.

as an aside, i do sometimes use the same movie. my movies have the .mov suffix (but the origin is a .gif). i've generated in another program a .mov from a ,gif and i use the replace button with the newly created .mov. it is replaced. but the second occurrence of using this movie in a keynote document came in as an .m4v (with a numeric change to the prefix), whether i drag and drop or whether i replace.

i have no idea whether if i created my .ibook with these audio files which have been changed to .m4v if the will work once it gets ported to the iPad. i will find out about the video's since i do use the same movie more than once in many keynote documents. i will test that out when i finish converting the current document by porting the .ibook to both the mac and an iPad and reply again to this post.

perhaps i will also open an incident, but am reluctant to open an incident if what i am doing is working, even though it is strange behavior.

Software is strange when you're a stranger

Branches look ugly when you're alone

Do Loops seem wicked when you're unwanted

Code is uneven, when you're down

When you're strange

Branches come out of the rain

When you're strange

No one remembers your name

When you're strange

When you're strange

When you're strange

When you're strange

strange indeed. as i continue to create my production ready ibook, in another keynote document i replaced several of the same .mov files (original a .gif file) created somewhere within keynote 09 to ibook process. this time all replaced .mov files have the same original name of the file doing the replacing. a .mov file. there was no change to the suffix to .m4v and no change to the prefix.

go figure.