Saving a presentation in a file format different than .key is called Export. To export your presentation in PDF, PowerPoint, or video format can be very useful. For example, if you need to send it to someone else, using other software like PowerPoint.
Another reason to export it in a different file format is if you want to make sure that the other person sees the presentation as you intended, without missing fonts, broken animations, etc.
This can be achieved when exporting to PDF, HTML, or Video. PDF saves the slides as they were intended to look but cannot save animations.
If you export the presentation to a video the file size is going to be much higher. However, animations will be there and you can even add narration.
The master of them all is the HTML document because with an HTML you can be sure that every desktop can open your presentation correctly and it can be like an interactive webpage with animations, transitions, the right font, video, and sound. Its minus is that it cannot be viewed on mobile devices and its file size is big.
Of course, a PowerPoint file can be opened only by the PowerPoint software and there are lots of problems. The formatting of the elements is not transferred through, the font needs to be sent and installed additionally and some of the animations won’t work. So, this option is good only if you want to send an editable file with only pictures and text that is with system font for both computers receiving the file.
Below you can see a comparison of advantages and disadvantages when exporting a Keynote file to another file format.
For this purpose, we have exported the same Keynote file in all of the formats. Its size is 30 MB and includes text with a non-system font, animations (build and transitions), video, sound, and interactive buttons.

Now let’s see how to export the keynote presentation into different file formats.
Exporting to PDF
Click on the service menu on top of your screen File > Export To
1. Choose from the options: Include presenter notes; Include skipped slides; Print each stage of builds; Require password to open.
2. In the Image quality drop-down menu, we suggest to always choose Best, of course, it can be lower if it suits your needs.
3. Click Next…
4. Enter a name in the Save As field. Add tags if you want to in the field below.
5. To choose where to save the presentation, click the arrow next to the Where pop-up menu, then choose a location in the dialog. For example, it can be on the desktop. The default location Keynote chooses is the Keynote folder on your iCloud. This folder keeps your presentation across all of your iOS devices.
6. Click Export.
For more PDF options, click Cancel, choose File > Print, then click Show Details at the bottom of the print options.

Exporting to PowerPoint
1. Click on the service menu on top of your screen File > Export To > PowerPoint
2. You can choose to Require a password to open.
3. Or in the advanced options, you can choose either to save it as .pptx or .ppt. The .ppt file is for later versions of PowerPoint.
4. Click Next…
5. Enter a name in the Save As field. Add tags if you want to in the field below.
6. To choose where to save the presentation, click the arrow next to the Where pop-up menu, then choose a location in the dialog. For example, it can be on the desktop. The default location Keynote chooses is the Keynote folder on your iCloud. This folder keeps your presentation across all of your iOS devices.
7. Click Export.

Exporting to Video
1. Click on the service menu on top of your screen File > Export To > Movie
2. If you recorded narration, you can click the Playback pop-up menu, then choose Slideshow Recording. If you want the slides to advance by themselves, you can leave the option Self-Playing.
3. If you choose Self-Playing you can enter the time you want the next slide or build to advance. These timings apply only to click events.
4. On the Resolution drop-down menu, you can choose the resolution the video is going to be exported in. There are two default sizes – 720p and 1080p. That’s the size of the horizontal in pixels. We suggest 720p for smaller screens, like phones and tablets, and 1080p for desktop, since the technology advanced so much lately.
5. If you want to use another size, click Custom. Edit the numbers in the field. We suggest the H.246 option. This is .mp4 and it is going to work on any device and software.
6. Click Next…
7. Enter a name in the Save As field. Add tags if you want to in the field below.
8. To choose where to save the presentation, click the arrow next to the Where pop-up menu, then choose a location in the dialog. For example, it can be on the desktop. The default location Keynote chooses is the Keynote folder on your iCloud. This folder keeps your presentation across all of your iOS devices.
9. Finally, Click Export.

Exporting to HTML
1. Click on the service menu on top of your screen File > Export To > HTML
2. Click Next…
3. Enter a name in the Save As field. Add tags if you want to in the field below.
4. To choose where to save the presentation, click the arrow next to the Where pop-up menu, then choose a location in the dialog. For example, it can be on the desktop. The default location Keynote chooses is the Keynote folder on your iCloud. This folder keeps your presentation across all of your iOS devices.
5. Finally, Click Export.
HTML presentation exports with all of its assets in a folder. Therefore, everyone can open the presentation in their browser and still keeping the font the same and the pictures at the best size. To open the presentation in a browser, simply click the index.html file in the folder and it will open in your browser.

Exporting to Image
1. Click on the service menu on top of your screen File > Export To > Images
2. Choose the slides you want to export as images and select an image format for your slides. The higher quality of the image, the larger the file size, but the better the quality. For a better file size to quality ratio, we recommend exporting to PNG.
3. Click Next…
4. Enter a name in the Save As field. Add tags if you want to in the field below.
5. To choose where to save the presentation, click the arrow next to the Where pop-up menu, then choose a location in the dialog. For example, it can be on the desktop. The default location Keynote chooses is the Keynote folder on your iCloud. This folder keeps your presentation across all of your iOS devices.
6. Click Export.

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Now I am ready to do my breakfast, later than having my breakfast coming
again to read additional news.
Interesting comment even though I am not sure what exactly you mean? 🙂 Can you elaborate a bit 😛
Thanks for the helpful info, Boris!
My Keynote slide show has 85 photographs/slides.
I exported to HTML but the 2 songs playing in the background were lost in the export. Could you explain how or if it would be possible to have the music retained?
Please let me know. Thank you, Anna
Hey Anna, thank you for reaching out! We believe you will need to upload those 2 songs on a server and link/connect them to the HTML separately. These are files you’ve uploaded in Keynote, so you can play them there, but when you export an HTML file and try to open it in a browser, those files should be linked additionally.
Hope this helps!
Thanks Boris. Can you tell in a nutshell why HTML export won’t work on mobile devices ?
Hey Theirry, thanks for reaching out! To be honest, we’re not really sure what you mean, since Keynote doesn’t even have an HTML export option in the menu in the first place. Can you please clarify a bit?
Hi Mihail, thanks.
I am refering to your sentence in your introduction regarding html : ” Its minus is that it cannot be viewed on mobile devices….” which is very true unfortunately.
Do you know what prevent the html version to work on mobile devices ?
Best
Hey, Thier! Boris here this time. 🙂
That’s a very interesting question, I would say. Don’t know the answer and I have been playing with this in the last hour or so and it’s strange I can access the index html from my mobile and see the first slide but from there… nothing. Yet, it works on desktop.
What I can tell you though is that I just logged a bug report to Apple with my email address explaining / showcasing the issue. Let’s do it this way, enable notifications for comments and in case I have answer from them (let’s see that one :D) I will put it here again.
How does that sound?
Boris