Keynote on a PC?

ruinexplorer

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I was wondering if anyone has found a reliable way to play a Keynote presentation on a Windows machine? What I am looking for is if someone hands me a thumb drive with the file and there is no Mac available to export the file as a .ppt or anything else? The Mac forums seem to have explored this a few years back, but since there wasn't a good answer, there don't seem to be updates.

In the PC world, they provide a viewer for those who don't have PowerPoint.
 
Laugh at the person and walk away.

Build a hackintosh.

Hope and pray that they all adopt ODP.

I'm all for the walk away laughing. Our rule around our place is that client always supplies the PC the presentation is to be ran on. We always have our own, but we are at least covered.

There is no way to do it without a mac.
 
I would just smile and remind them that OSX is still only 6% of the market, while Windows (XP, Vista, 7) is 85%. If they want a Mac, they should provide it.
 
Half of the time, even if they provide the Mac, they don't have an adapter for it (not going into my normal rant about Apple and their need to do everything different). Unfortunately, you can't always just smile at them as if they are in the shallow end of the gene pool. My hope was that there was maybe some sort of player where I wouldn't have to destroy one of my own machines or provide the latest and greatest Mac and OS and appropriate adapter. Most of the time, I do get to let the Mac user know ahead of time what to provide, but there are other times where I am sent scrambling. So, I'm just adding to my arsenal.

Maybe some wiz kid will put out a plug-in for PowerPoint.
 
After a little time with google I found a possible option. Zamzar - convert document, eBook, image, audio and video - free online file conversion Shows they can do the conversion online, you upload the file then it gets emailed back to you. The downside is if you use the free version it says it could take up to an hour before you get the converted file back. There is a tiered pay version that moves you up higher into the queue and lets you convert larger files and a lot of other things as well. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it gives you a chance if you don't have any other option.
 
Cool find. I think I'll see if I can find a file to send them and see how it works out.
 
No matter what, the file you get back will have crippled formatting. Macs have a different set of fonts than windows, and PowerPoint itself does not support a lot of the animations and transitions that Keynote does. It'll teach the presenter to bring their Mac the next time, for sure!
 
What I am looking for is if someone hands me a thumb drive with the file and there is no Mac available to export the file as a .ppt or anything else?
Do you have a document camera? If so, throw the thumb drive on it, put the camera up on the screen and tell them you are displaying their presentation in the only way possible with what they provided.

Seriously, I'm far from being a professional presenter but after the problems I've encountered related to fonts, transitions, etc. between different versions of PowerPoint and/or different Microsoft OS's even I have learned to always bring my own computer/laptop/tablet and always preview the presentation on that device well before presenting it. I see this too easily becoming a no win situation where if you can't display their file it's your fault but if you try to and it doesn't look as they expected it to then that will also be your fault. To quote Joshua, "The only winning move is not to play. "
 
I have NEVER had a succesfull/happy experience with Keynote. It looks pretty but It does NOT translate or play well with others < Just like any mac software/hardware> I had to do an export a while back and for the life of me I cannot remember what the process was but after waiting a stupid long time to get it to open in Open office < I think> it didn't look the same the graphics were much grainier and all the timings were off the client hated it. I finally said, " You want in run on Keynote? Go get the adapter." Thene there was something wrong with her port and couldn't get it to work anyway. I wound up rebuilding the entire show in PP, in 45 minutes before the show.

Did I mention I hate Keynote ?
 
I have NEVER had a succesfull/happy experience with Keynote. It looks pretty but It does NOT translate or play well with others < Just like any mac software/hardware> I had to do an export a while back and for the life of me I cannot remember what the process was but after waiting a stupid long time to get it to open in Open office < I think> it didn't look the same the graphics were much grainier and all the timings were off the client hated it. I finally said, " You want in run on Keynote? Go get the adapter." Thene there was something wrong with her port and couldn't get it to work anyway. I wound up rebuilding the entire show in PP, in 45 minutes before the show.

Did I mention I hate Keynote ?

OpenOffice. There's your real problem. I've had all sorts of wacky bugs with that "suite" - best to stick to the real thing/s.
 
We actually use Keynote for a lot of our shows and anytime we're in an outside venue we bring our own computer for this very reason.
 
Half of the time, even if they provide the Mac, they don't have an adapter for it (not going into my normal rant about Apple and their need to do everything different).

Perhaps clarifiy that if you are need a connection to a projector, a VGA, DVI, or other connection is what is provided and the presenter is responsible for any needed adapters.

The Mini Displayport is developed by Apple and freely licensed. I've seen Dell laptops that have it and Lenovo has it in their lineup too.
 
I wish this were so simple. There's an entire magazine for people who do presentations, I just wish presenters would read it. Problem is, most people doing a presentation are not regular presenters. They fly across the country because their boss told them to, and they might bring their own computer, but often don't even own an adapter. Also, I have worked with many presenters who have someone else build their presentation because they don't even know how. Or they provide a computer which their IT department put "security" features on it, which makes it virtually useless for a presentation machine, so you have to use the one that you brought along.

There's just no simple solution to doing presentations because it isn't the regular thing for most presenters. Have I ever said that large corporations should have a quality presentation AV person as part of their staff? That way the presenters go off to their meetings prepared.
 
... Have I ever said that large corporations should have a quality presentation AV person as part of their staff? That way the presenters go off to their meetings prepared.

Sounds like YOU need to do some work with Nike.
:cool:
 
Have I ever said that large corporations should have a quality presentation AV person as part of their staff? That way the presenters go off to their meetings prepared.

We have one AV contractor that we work with occasionally that does some work for some local offices. Gov. Cuomo uses a guy out of Rochester that all they do is run the content and the telepromter. Works every time... and they always have a backup. They bring in a separate contractor for the projector even... literally all this guy does is run the content.
 
Laugh at the person and walk away.

Build a hackintosh.

Illegal

I would just smile and remind them that OSX is still only 6% of the market, while Windows (XP, Vista, 7) is 85%. If they want a Mac, they should provide it.

It's more around 20% and with iOS around 60%.


With that being said, everyone should still be saving as .pptx. Even if they save as .ppt, odd are .ppt won't work (perfectly) with office (dear God, please have the newest versions since most companies offer the software for $10). As an avid mac and win7 user, open the file with google docs. It does a decent to good job of converting the file.
 

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