How to create a Keynote theme with 16:9 AND 4:3 support

keynotethemes

In Keynote you can create custom themes that show up in the Keynote theme chooser.
Apple's (newer) themes support all 16:9 resolutions (like 1920×1080) but also all 4:3 resolutions (like 1024×768).

BUT…

if I create a custom theme at a resolution of 1920×1080 and save it, the theme chooser will only give me options of resolutions with a 16:9 aspect ratio, no 4:3 resolutions.

So there's a 1920×1080 option and a 1280×720 option BUT there's no option for 1024×768 or 800×600.

Same goes the other way around.

How do I create a custom theme that supports ALL resolutions/aspect ratios,
like Apple's own themes?

Best Answer

There does seem to be a way to do this, but it involves mucking around inside the theme packages, so proceed at your own risk.

Create the theme you want in 1920x1080 and 1024x768 sizes. (Also at 1650x1050, if you'd like that as an option).
Save the themes with simple descriptors: theme_1920x1080, theme_1024x768, theme_1650x1050.
Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/iWork/Keynote/Themes/.
Use Unarchiver to extract the package contents. You can now delete the initial theme files.
In each package, navigate to /Contents/Resources/en.lproj/ and open the name.strings file in the text editor of your choice.
Delete the resolution part of the name.
i.e.: "name" = "theme_1920x1080" => "name" = "theme".
After you have done so to the name.string files in each of the packages, return to the Themes folder and add ".kth" to each of the folders. Finder will ask you if you're sure. Click "Add."