Shrink text to fit in Keynote is gone from Inspector

Shrink text is only available in preset text boxes:

Custom text boxes don't have shrink text as it will be a custom design by the user who will want to set a specific text size.

As for questions 2 & 3 help is indeed very inefficient, which is why I use an external search engine for such tasks.

If we go back to 1988, there would be no Keynote to create presentations and there would be no internet to ask important questions like this.

text still shrinks to fit user made boxes, so even if you specify a font size, the font in the end may be scaled with no ability to turn it off.

I can't understand how you are getting that result, there is nothing I can do to replicate your result on any of the systems I have access to, and has never been the case in any previous version of Keynote.

Please provide the following information:

when you say "user made boxes" do you mean a custom text box placed on the slide using the text button on the tool bar?

• version of Keynote used
• version of Mac OS
• what font is used
• theme & slide master used

I grew up on blank page programs in which text, for example, automatically appeared in the western, flush upper left reading mode as a STANDARD style.

Yes thats a convention for modern page layout, when the end product is print.

However we are discussing Keynote, a video based presentation application, which requires a different set of conventions; the ability to design layouts for computer displays, video projectors and TV displays, with text, video and graphics incorporating video effects.

Also, Save Theme and changing the New Documents theme in Preferences also didn't work -- still comes up with Title & Subtitle, with its dumb-*** centre-centre style.

Then you have not created or set a custom Master Slide with the text attributes you require, you have used one of the built in preset masters.

You create a slide Master using: View > Edit Master Slide

right click the Blank master slide and select duplicate

right click and name it

create the design you require using text boxes shapes and graphics

to create text placeholders: select the text box or shape then: Format > Advanced > Define Text Placeholder

when completed, click the Done button

To change to a different Master slide: Inspector > Format > Change Master Slide and click Change Master button

there is neither Format > Styles nor Format > Font > Styles anywhere in Keynote's menus, as Help suggests; there is a Copy Style, but no way to change the default text style (as ALL older programs made obvious).

Sorry, this is one seriously crappy program.

Text Style and layout is not a menu selection its in the Inspector:

click the text box to select, then

Inspector > Format > Text > Style or Inspector > Format > Text > Layout

I think its an excellent application with a few flaws, but I'v taken the time to learn how it works.

I would still argue Shrink Text is a basic formatting tool/option that should be universal.

Shrink Text is available for those who want to use it, using preset text boxes.

For those of us who design our presentations, we decide the size of text to be used in any situation, we do not want Keynote dictating the terms of a design. That is achieved in custom text boxes.

That gives us choice.

Managing text (font, size, colour and position) is achieved by creating custom themes and slide masters.

For details go to: Keynote > Help and type in; "create and manage themes"

Keynote can indeed dictate settings to the user, but I'v never used Keynote in that way. I start all my presentations with a blank template, a blank slide master and create a presentation from the ground up, designed for a specific project.

Keynote is an authoring application, where assets; video, sound, graphics are imported, and the inbuilt tools are used to produce a unique end product, fit for purpose.

I do realise from what I see shown on projection screens all over the country, most users would like a one click wonder application to create a presentation as fast as possible without much care for how it looks or is received by viewers, as long as there is something to show on the screen.

Thankfully, Keynote can also be used intelligently and creatively.

Gary, this is absolutely not true.

Since "Shrink to fit text" is only an option on preset text boxes, user made boxes don't have this option. The catch is that the text still shrinks to fit user made boxes, so even if you specify a font size, the font in the end may be scaled with no ability to turn it off. So it could scale your text even just a little bit without you knowing it. This is incredibly frustrating and goes against your idea that a designer would want to specify a certain text size. So this statement is false:

Custom text boxes don't have shrink text as it will be a custom design by the user who will want to set a specific text size.

Ah ok. Agreed.