Finding Slide Backgrounds
October 07, 2006 Filed in: Technical
Tips & Tricks
Many of Keynote's default slide backgrounds are
pretty good. In fact, I'm very fond of the background
found in Apple's Storyboard theme (pictured).
However, using that background on other objects can
prove tricky.
What I wanted to do in revising a presentation was create a more random layout for my built text. Pictured below is the original slide followed by the outcome where I used a foreground object that uses the Storyboard background. This looks easier than it really was.
x
In order to pull something like this off, you need to know a little bit about how Mac OS X stores certain application information. Many Mac OS X applications are "packages." Put simply, this means what you see as an application is actually a series of directories that makes the program work all bundled up together. If an application is a package, the command "Show Package Contents" will be available in the contextual menu if you right-click the icon.
x
If you select to show contents, a new window will open with a set of vaguely named folders. (You may have to open a folder called "Contents" to see these depending on the application.) The information we are looking for is in the folder called "Resources." Don't mess with anything in this folder, you are just looking for another folder called "Themes."
Once you open this folder, you'll see a bunch of Keynote theme files with the extension ".kth." If you double-click on any of these themes, Keynote will open a new presentation using the theme you selected. That's not what you want to happen. Again, "Show Package Contents" comes to the rescue. Once you find a file called "theme_plain.tiff" (where theme is the name of the theme you are browsing), copy and paste that file to someplace you will remember. Do not move the image itself! Use copy and paste.
x
Now that we have the backgrounds we want copied to another location, we can use them on objects in our presentation. First, create your object. Then, using the Inspector, set the object to "Image Fill." Then you can browse for the image you want, or you can drag it into the image well on the inspector. Choose "Scale to Fill" to make sure the image fills the entire object, and you're done.
x
If you think you're going to use these backgrounds often, you should probably make a folder or an iPhoto album in which to store them all for easy access. You can also find image resources for charts and graphs this way, and this same trick got me the sticky note image seen in my second slide at the top of the post. (It came from opening up the Stickies Dashboard widget.) A final word of warning though – messing in the resource folders of application packages can really mess up the program if you move or delete anything. Remember, if you find something you want to use, copy it, and paste that copy to another location.
Update: I've discovered this method does not work for Keynote 1 themes. To extract a legacy theme's background, follow the steps above, but now you are looking for either "theme_bk.pdf" of "theme_cover.pdf." (Again, theme represents the name of the theme you are browsing.) I hope this helps some of my readers who got confused when opening up themes like Parchment!
What I wanted to do in revising a presentation was create a more random layout for my built text. Pictured below is the original slide followed by the outcome where I used a foreground object that uses the Storyboard background. This looks easier than it really was.
x
In order to pull something like this off, you need to know a little bit about how Mac OS X stores certain application information. Many Mac OS X applications are "packages." Put simply, this means what you see as an application is actually a series of directories that makes the program work all bundled up together. If an application is a package, the command "Show Package Contents" will be available in the contextual menu if you right-click the icon.
x
If you select to show contents, a new window will open with a set of vaguely named folders. (You may have to open a folder called "Contents" to see these depending on the application.) The information we are looking for is in the folder called "Resources." Don't mess with anything in this folder, you are just looking for another folder called "Themes."
Once you open this folder, you'll see a bunch of Keynote theme files with the extension ".kth." If you double-click on any of these themes, Keynote will open a new presentation using the theme you selected. That's not what you want to happen. Again, "Show Package Contents" comes to the rescue. Once you find a file called "theme_plain.tiff" (where theme is the name of the theme you are browsing), copy and paste that file to someplace you will remember. Do not move the image itself! Use copy and paste.
x
Now that we have the backgrounds we want copied to another location, we can use them on objects in our presentation. First, create your object. Then, using the Inspector, set the object to "Image Fill." Then you can browse for the image you want, or you can drag it into the image well on the inspector. Choose "Scale to Fill" to make sure the image fills the entire object, and you're done.
x
If you think you're going to use these backgrounds often, you should probably make a folder or an iPhoto album in which to store them all for easy access. You can also find image resources for charts and graphs this way, and this same trick got me the sticky note image seen in my second slide at the top of the post. (It came from opening up the Stickies Dashboard widget.) A final word of warning though – messing in the resource folders of application packages can really mess up the program if you move or delete anything. Remember, if you find something you want to use, copy it, and paste that copy to another location.
Update: I've discovered this method does not work for Keynote 1 themes. To extract a legacy theme's background, follow the steps above, but now you are looking for either "theme_bk.pdf" of "theme_cover.pdf." (Again, theme represents the name of the theme you are browsing.) I hope this helps some of my readers who got confused when opening up themes like Parchment!