Create a Keynote Presentation Video: Timing The Slides

By: Lori Thayer

Our tech tutorial for today is the third in our Keynote Video Series. This tutorial will demonstrate timing the slides of your keynote presentation.

There are a couple reasons why you may want to time your Keynote slides rather than manually advance them.

1. Have a pre-prepared presentation that another person can start.
2. Allow the presentation to move along on it’s own while you engage with your audience and answer questions as needed.
3. Record the slide presentation with the timing already set so you won’t “record” your keystrokes in changing the slide along with your audio.
4. Set a specifically timed audio track to a slide that has the same timing.

Timing The Slides:

There are several ways to affect the length of a slide including the slide transition time, element build in, build out and action time.

To time a slide, start with the slide transition time

1. Timing the slide transition time
   1. Click the inspector
   2. Go to the second tab, Slide
   3. Under Start Transition, choose Automatically
   4. Select a delay time (note: I’ve found you must use the arrows to set the time rather than enter in a number)

2.  You can also time the build out and  build in of images, text or other actions. These are not shown in the video, but you can access those via the third tab, build.

Check out the other videos in this series: How To Add Audio To A Keynote Presentation and How To Record Yourself With Garage Band.

Share your thoughts on this article, Create a Keynote Presentation Video: Timing The Slides, with us in the comments.

How To Set A Custom Thumbnail In YouTube

By: Lori Thayer

Do you like to create YouTube videos for your business or even just for fun? If so I bet you’ve been frustrated by an inability to choose the thumbnail image you want when you upload the video. YouTube gives you 3 images to choose from and if you don’t like any of them you’ve been out of luck. No longer, now you can set a custom thumbnail in YouTube and I’m going to show you how.

 If you want to set a custom thumbnail but don’t see the option available it is possible to make 1 small change and get the ability.

1. The set a custom thumbnail in YouTube button should be below your 3 default thumbnail options.
2. If you don’t have this button simply enable monetization. Don’t worry you don’t actually have to turn ads on for any of your videos. Enabling monetization will give you the ability to choose your own thumbnail though.
   1. Change monetization under Channel Settings
3. Once monetization is enabled go to the video you want to set an image for. Click the button to Choose Thumbnail. Select the image you want and upload it. YouTube may take a while to change the image on the video (it’s not instantaneous)
4. If you aren’t sure how to get the default image you want simply pause the video on a frame you like, then take a screenshot of the frame and use that image.
   1. On a Mac you can use Command + Shift + 4 to take a screenshot of just the area of the video you want.
   2. On a PC, go to Start, and search for Snipping Tool. This tool will allow you to take a custom area screenshot too.

Did this video tutorial help you? Share your thoughts on this article, How To Set A Custom Thumbnail In YouTube, with us in the comments.

How To Add Audio To A Keynote Presentation

By: Lori Thayer

Want to create a nice, professional presentation? This article will cover a very helpful trick to creating a great Keynote presentation, how to add audio from iTunes.

Recently we covered How To Record Yourself With GarageBand and a whole host of reasons why you might want to do this.

Now let’s take it a step further and go over how to use that track or any other you have in iTunes and attach it to your Keynote presentation. This could be a spoken word, music, sound effect or some other type of audio track.

My goal is to make technology not so daunting. Once you know how to use these tools you can create presentations and movies for your website quickly and easily that are professional, engaging and relay a lot of information.

 To add audio to your keynote presentation you have two choices:

1. Add audio to the whole presentation
   1. Click the inspector
   2. Go to the first tab, Document
   3. Click the audio button within the Document tab
   4. Select iTunes Library to add a track to the whole presentation
   5. Select the track you want in the Media popup box
   6. Highlight the audio track you want to use
   7. Drag it to the Soundtrack box in the inspector window
   8. Select whether you want the audio track to play once or loop to play over and over throughout your presentation
2. Add audio to individual slides
   1. First, make sure the presentation level audio is off by:
      1. Opening the inspector window
      2. Go to the Document tab
      3. Select the Audio button
      4. Select off in the soundtrack area
   2. Set a track to a specific slide by selecting the Media button
   3. Choose the iTunes track you want and drag it to the slide you want that track on
   4. In the Inspector you can set the audio to play automatically
      1. Choose the build tab
      2. Click the transition tab
      3. Select automatically under start transition

Did this video tutorial help you? Share your thoughts on this article, How To Add Audio To A Keynote Presentation, with us in the comments.