Keynote - editing the slide number footer

[Kandrew]

As the title says, I'm trying to edit the slide number footer. Simple. For some things, yes, it is. But for other things that I think should be able to be done, I can't find a way to accomplish what I want.

In the footer with the slide number, I want to add a reference to a book. Different slides will have different books referred to, so I can't simply put in the name of the book and page number. I'm not trying to do that. But what I do want to do is put a simple separator character before the slide number so that when I insert the name of the book and slide number on the slide, I don't have to remember to insert something to separate the items.

Please imagine that this is the footer area:
/[code that Apple uses to insert Slide Number]
That red slash is all that I'm trying to add - my separator character. But I can't get it to work. The colour isn't important. I've used red here simply to highlight what I'm trying to insert.

Any ideas, please?

 

[hg.wells]

You can’t edit the slide number in the slide layout. You can edit it in the actual slide but it sounds like you don’t want to do that.

The alternative is editing the master slide layout and inserting a text box next to the slide number with your chosen character in it.

 

[Kandrew]

You can’t edit the slide number in the slide layout. You can edit it in the actual slide but it sounds like you don’t want to do that.

You're right that I don't want to do that. I've done about 20 slides that way and it's become very tedious, even using copy and paste and having first ensured that I have the formatting correct. And I have plenty of slides to make. (Just in case you're worried that this will be a 'Death by Keynote' event, please don't. This is going to be a repository for different slide shows where people can come and get the slides that they need.)

The alternative is editing the master slide layout and inserting a text box next to the slide number with your chosen character in it.

Thanks for this suggestion. It's not a feature/technique that I've used much (ever?) and I'm getting stuck. 'Help' isn't helping me at all.

I've created a text box and entered the character. And I press 'Done'. That takes me to the slide and when I attempt to enter some text, I get an error message, 'This object can be edited on the slide layout only.' And I can't see what I'm doing wrong, but I am obviously doing something very wrong.

 

[Slartibart]

you have to add the text box as placeholder to the template. If you want fixed and editable text boxes you have to create e.g. 2 elements on the template, a fixed / followed by a text box placeholder.

 

[hg.wells]

you have to add the text box as placeholder to the template. If you want fixed and editable text boxes you have to create 2 elements on the template, e.g. a fixed / followed by a text box placeholder.

Slartibart beat me to it.

I did just test it, though and as long as you have the text box defined as a text placeholder, you shouldn't need to create two elements.

 

[Kandrew]

you have to add the text box as placeholder to the template. If you want fixed and editable text boxes you have to create e.g. 2 elements on the template, a fixed / followed by a text box placeholder.

Slartibart beat me to it.

I did just test it, though and as long as you have the text box defined as a text placeholder, you shouldn't need to create two elements.

View attachment 2137835

There's nothing like a bit of competition, @hg.wells!

Thank you both, @Slartibart and @hg.wells.

I said in my previous message that Help wasn't helping me. I had read the section that Slartibart linked to but it made no sense to me then. I read it again today whilst following the instructions from both of you and all of a sudden, it was so much clearer.

I tried both of the methods that you provided and yes, both worked. As long as I remember them, I can see myself using both methods in different scenarios.

Again, thank you so much!
Andrew