How to find all old Keynote presentations on the computer

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I have some old Keynote presentations. When I try to open them with the latest Keynote (6.5.2 (2119)), I get the following warning:

This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old.
To open it, save it with Keynote ’09 first.

I've managed to get Keynote '09 installed, and I can open with that, save, open with the current version, and save again.

It will be a pain to do this with all of my Keynote presentations, but it seems it has to be done if I want to be able to access them in the future. Or I should convert them to PDF so they are in a format with more long-term access options.

How do I find all of the Keynote presentations on my computer that are outdated? Is there an mdfind option that will allow me to find just the old versions?

Best Answer

A Smart Folder is probably the easiest way to find all your old Keynote files. To create one:

Open a Finder Window
Click "File" > "New Smart Folder"
In the search box, type "key" and then select "Keynote Document" from the dropdown
If you like, you can add a last modified filer by clicking the "+" sign under the search box.
If you want to save the Smart folder, click the "Save" button

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AppleScript or Automator Workflow for Bulk-Converting Powerpoint Presentations to Keynote

I couldn't figure out how to get Automator to do it, but I was able to beat AppleScript into submission. Just save the following as an Application in the AppleScript Editor, then drag the files you want to convert onto the icon. It will prompt you to choose a folder where the converted files will be placed.

on open droppedFiles
    set theDestinationFolder to (choose folder with prompt "Choose destination folder") as Unicode text
    repeat with theFile in droppedFiles
        tell application "Keynote"
            open theFile
            set theSlideshow to slideshow 1
            set theDestinationPath to theDestinationFolder & (name of theSlideshow)
            save theSlideshow in theDestinationPath
            close theSlideshow
        end tell
    end repeat
end open

(I don't really know what I'm doing with AppleScript. If there are improvements that can be made here, I'd like to know about them.)

How to generate dynamic keynote presentations

You could create your keynote presentation as a series of separate files (either slides, or sections, eg. slides 1-20, slides 21-25, slides 26-40) and then merging them using Automator. This way you could simply replace slides 21-25 with alternative versions prior to merging?

Best Answer

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AppleScript or Automator Workflow for Bulk-Converting Powerpoint Presentations to Keynote

How to generate dynamic keynote presentations

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