Keynote Quartet '06
Jumsoft
Price: $99 (component licensing available)
Pros: Impressive elements that hi-light Keynote's superiority, a quick way to add new life and variety to your presentations.
Cons: Inconsistent graphic styles, limited relevance, and varied quality.
by Gerrit Dalman, 1st Lt, USAF
Few who have seen the difference will dispute that Apple's Keynote is the best presentation software available on the Mac. A variety of advanced features put the competition to shame, including real-time compositing, true transparency, broad video support, beautiful transitions, and web views.
Unfortunately, the limited supply of themes and graphic elements included with the iWork package son't show off these amazing features much. Unless you're a graphic artist with time to burn, Keynote Quartet '06 is the easiest way to add to your repetoire.
Themes 5.0
For starters, Keynote Themes supplements the now familiar themes that came with Keynote. These reinforcements offer a much broader selection of styles and motifs - each containing more slide layout options than the stock ones do.
More variety means you're more likely to find one that fits your presentation, but Jumsoft's selection is a mixed bag. Some of them seem whipped together with low quality background images and imprecise photo masks while others, like "Art" and "Nature," make great use of alpha channels, color schemes, and innovative design elements.
Photos 2.0
Once you've applied the right theme to your content, photos can do a lot to make each slide stand out. Unfortunately we don't always have the right shot in iPhoto. That's why professionals sometimes pay out the nose for stock images. Keynote Photos saves you a bit with an inexpensive selection of 199 photos to provide a little texture to your slide show.
Each is a scene full of color and texture. They are not meant to be content, but rather to be placed in the background to provide some appropriate color and shape to an otherwise monotonous series of bullets. For example, if you're discussing finances, you might use a shot of a stack of coins, electronics - a circuit board, sports - a basketball net, and so on.
These generally macro shots are not as likely to suit your needs as a searchable index online, but you get a great sample for your dollar and might find just the splash of color or texture you're looking for.
Stills 3.0
With your backdrop complete, You can add a lot of life to a slide with photo objects. With realistic transparency they may be the subject of your slide or animated to add depth to your presentation, but they will always fit in with their surroundings.
When it comes to selection, there's no kitchen sink, but there are 200 everyday items for you; from tools, to food, and more. They seem to lack a little polish though - many are imperfectly masked and loosely cropped and none feature realistic transparency (you can't see through the lens in the magnifying glass, for example). While that does leave you wishing for a little more, there' s still a lot to love, like a picture frame you can actually put photos in and and a TV that can perform the same trick on movies.
As an added bonus, Stills also includes Keynote Jam 1.1, 60 computer-generated objects with even more uses. Jam includes iconic objects. subtle atmospheric overlays (like lens flares), and hilights for existing objects (badges and colored labels) some of which do use partial transparency for more realistic layering.
Animations 4.0
Finally we come to the most impressive part of the package. Why? Because fully composited animations are one of the coolest things Keynote can do, but you'd never know it since Apple doesn't provide a single example right out of the box! These animations can be placed anywhere on a slide and will always blend right in - allowing any objects behind the animation to remain visible.
Keynote Animations includes everything from brightly colored CG hi-lights like bouncing arrows and sophisticated accents like a wall of fire all the way to primary content like spinning globes and turning gears. Though some of the animation is simplistic and unnatural they all energize an other-wise static slide show. If you've never seen these in action, be sure to check out one of the examples on Jumsoft's website.
Conclusion
We work in an environment dominated by PowerPoint and are subjected daily to ugly and uninteresting presentations. This is made all the more frustrating by knowing that Keynote makes much better slides with less work. Nothing impresses an O-5 quite like replacing mismatched clipart with seamless graphics.
If you want to take it upon yourself, as I have, to show your branch a better way, it behoves you to be properly equipped. Sure, some photos from the internet and a military clip art CD may go a long way, but if you really want to show them the light, you'll need more. Unless you happen to be handy with both Photoshop and Quartz Composer, Keynote Quartet is probably the best ammunition you can get for your dollar.
The elements of Keynote Quartet are available individually, which is nice if you just want Stills and Photos for use in Pages, but if you're looking to maximize your Keynote potential, the whole package is really the only way to go. With a little luck, you'll soon convince your unit to get a MacBook for making presentations that will really wow the two-stars!
System Requirements:
* Keynote 1.0 or later (Keynote Stills and Keynote Photos work with other apps as well)