Using Keynote To Create Narrated Videos

Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can create a narrated video slideshow using only Keynote.

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So a very simple way to create an information video is to use Keynote. Keynote can be use, of course, to do presentations. You can make slides and present them in front of an audience. But you could also record yourself giving that presentation. Recording your voice on the microphone and and the timing as you advance from slide to slide. Then you can export that as video and then you can share that video a number of ways including uploading it to YouTube. It's a great way to get information out there in video format.

Here I have a simple eleven slide Keynote presentation. A title slide here and then an interesting piece of information on all of the additional slides. So the idea is that I want to export this as a video with voice narration and music. Now I could go to File, Export To, Movie and then say do a Self-Playing export. Give a number of seconds for each slide, Resolution, and export it. Then it would just end up a video with no audio or anything like that. I could bring that into iMovie and I can record narration over it. But you can do all of that right here in Keynote.

The first thing you need to do though is record the presentation. So this is like giving the presentation in front of an audience except there's nobody there but you and your microphone. You talk through the presentation and advance the slides at the precise times you want to advance them. It's going to remember not just your voice but also every time you advance a slide. So the timing will match what you're doing.

The way to do that is on the right sidebar go to Document and then Audio. Then you'll see a Record button here. Hit Record and it will go into Presentation mode just like you're presenting. So depending upon how many screens you have with your Mac you're going to see something a little different. You can always Customize here with that button there to customize what's on the different screens. But here on this screen I see my current slide and the next slide. It's similar to what you might see say on your MacBook screen, if you're presenting, where on the projector you've got just the current slide. Notice at the bottom here I've got a little volume meter. I've got some playback controls including a Record control. So when I hit Record it's going to countdown and then it's going to allow me to talk through the presentation and advance the slides and it's going to record all of that.

So let's do one of those recordings. Here are ten interesting facts about Apple. So the price of the first Apple computer was $666.66. Now I clicked the Record button again at the end of the last slide when I'm Done recording and it stops. You can see now I've got a Timeline here and I can slide back and forth. It even shows what slide I'm on and anytime during this I want I can press Play and I can hear my voice. So I can review what's going on. Now if I get to a point where, say, I've screwed up a little bit here I can start the recording from that point. So I can hit Record here and it will replace from this point on in the recording.

So as you're recording if you mess up immediately stop. Then you can move the playback back a little bit, find the right spot, and start recording again from there. So you don't have to do the entire thing perfectly all the way through. When you get all the way to the end and the recording is just like you want it or close enough hit the X button there at the top. Now you'll return to the regular presentation except that if you look under Document, Audio you'll see a recording here and a Clear button. You can Clear it to clear it out and start again. Record takes you back into the recording interface and now I can move the Timeline around and rerecord.

Once I have this recorded I'm ready to export with those timings in place. First let's add music though. You can drag and drop any music you want into the soundtrack here. I actually have a MP3 file here and I can put it in there. So you can see it appear. Now be warned that music at regular volume is going to overpower your voice. So you're going to want to bring the volume way down low like down to here. Now we can try exporting. So we'll go to File, Export To, Movie. Choose a Resolution and choose Slideshow Recording. It should already be chosen. Then we hit Next and it's going to Export.

Now you end up with a video like this. I'll open it up here in QuickTime Player and hit Play to hear what it sounds like. I want to check the music volume compared to my voice. I also want to check the total time. So notice here I see that it's 3 minutes and 57 seconds which is longer than the music I have. So I'm going to want to get a piece of music that matches that time and use that instead. But notice that too in Sound Track you can change from Play Once to Loop. So you can keep looping this piece of music if that works for you. 

Of course your slideshow can include a lot more in terms of graphics. You can include images and clipart. You can also do transitions between the slides and animations as each slide builds in and out. Once you have a finished video you can actually bring that into iMovie and combine it with other things that you have. For instance live video of you introducing the content or wrapping it up at the end. I'll upload the result of this example so you can see it if you like.