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As anyone will tell you "it depends on what you plan on using it for". PowerPoint is the more mature, feature rich application of the two. However, Keynote is more elegant, better at rendering graphics and seems, to me anyway, easier to use. Keynote is also $99 while PowerPoint is $299, I think.
 
One thing you have to watch out for in comparing these two programs is that they are intended to be used slightly differently.

PowerPoint has many interactive features (drawing, URLs, video controls) that Keynote does not because, as far as I can tell, it's meant to be used as SJ does with just a clicker from slide to slide.
 
I've used PowerPoint a few times before, and I think that it seems to be pretty nice. It takes a little while find out where everything is, and how to do things. But, other than that, it seems to be pretty good.

I've never used Keynote, but I would like to.
 
I prefer Keynote MUCH MORE over PowerPoint

Its a lot funner to use and its really easy to make a presentation look very professional with very little work

the graphics on Keynote are also MUCH better
 
I have both and still prefer PowerPoint. Now as time goes on and more features are included, I might change my mind. I do a lot of presentations and you can just do so much more on PowerPoint at least at this time. Interface seems easier on Keynote for beginners, but I would not say PowerPoint is difficult to use. I am usually biased towards Apple products and against anything MS, but PowerPoint is a good product that allows a lot of freedom and features.
 
Originally posted by HasanDaddy
I prefer Keynote MUCH MORE over PowerPoint

Its a lot funner to use and its really easy to make a presentation look very professional with very little work

the graphics on Keynote are also MUCH better

I agree, Keynote is dead sexy when it comes to graphics and smooth fonts. It's a lot less stuffy than PowerPoint.
 
I prefer Keynote to powerpoint. The presentations that I do tend to have a lot of equations (I do turbulence modeling). Since I feel that office as a whole deals with equations very poorly, I switched almost entirely to LaTeX for my word processing needs. Keynote deals with LaTeX equations pretty well, and if you get Equation Service, it handles equations like a dream. At last my equations look like they should during a presentation. When I need to present on a PC I just save as a PDF file or quicktime movie, if I want the animations.

I can't wait to see how this program matures.

crackpip
 
I've never used Keynote as I only have a mac at home and a PC at work. Now I wouldn't mind getting Keynote and saving the presentations as PowerPoint and sending them into work, but would all that extra rich graphical beauty be transferred as well.

PowerPoint is powerful but I rarely need it for all that it does.

Does anyone transfer from Keynote to PP and if so, does the graphical superiority transfer as well?
 
Originally posted by jacobj
Does anyone transfer from Keynote to PP and if so, does the graphical superiority transfer as well?

From what I've heard, no. Once imported into PowerPoint, all the smooth text goodness is lost.:(
 
PowerPoint definitely has some advantages over Keynote, at this point. It is a bit of a more robust program. Believe it or not, in my experience, PowerPoint is the less buggy of the two. But then again, Keynot is still at version 1.x. I really like what I see in Keynote, and I can't wait to see how it develops and matures. I think in time, it could really be a PowerPoint killer.
 
I have both, and so far, i like powerpoint better. Granted i have a lot more experience with powerpoint, when i first tried keynote i found that it wasnt as easy to use as powerpoint.. and you are very limited to the animations you could do in keynote, unlike powerpoint.

aethier
 
I purchased Keynote today and I have used it bit this morning. It is much slower than powerpoint. In addition, it is missing some things that I would think would be simple, like cropping images. The biggest problem is the importing of charts from excel. In addition, I've had problems with the powerpoint/keynote conversion. It isn't as seemless as it should be. Lots of things are formated differently. Big pain.
 
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