For slideshows that aren’t self-playing, you can use the keyboard to pause, resume, and stop a presentation, advance to the next slide or build, go back to the previous slide or build, or jump to a specific slide.

Here are ways to pause and resume a presentation:

  • To pause the presentation and display the current slide (freeze), press F. To resume the presentation, press any key.

  • To pause the presentation and display a black screen, press B. To resume the presentation, press any key.

  • To pause the presentation and display a white screen, press W. To resume the presentation, press any key.

  • To pause the presentation and show the last application used, press H. To resume the presentation, click the Keynote icon in the Dock.

  • Click a hyperlink that opens a webpage, email message, or file. To resume the presentation, click the Keynote icon in the Dock.

Press any of the following keys to advance to the next slide:

Shift–Down Arrow, Shift–Page Down, or ] (right bracket)

Press any of the following keys to advance to the next build:

N, Space bar, Return, Right Arrow, Down Arrow, Shift–Right Arrow, or Page Down

Press any of the following keys to go back to the beginning of all builds on the current slide, or to the previous slide if there are no builds:

Left Arrow, Up Arrow, P, Delete, Page Up, or Shift–Up Arrow

If object builds have played on the current slide before pressing any of these keys or key combinations, the slideshow is returned to the beginning of the slide, the point before any object builds have played. If the slideshow is already at that point (or if there are no object builds on the current slide), then pressing any of these keys or key combinations will return the slideshow to the beginning of the previous slide.

Press any of the following keys to go back to the previous build:

Shift–Left Arrow, Shift–Page Up, or [ (left bracket)

Here are ways to jump to a specific slide during the presentation:

  • If you know the number of the slide you want to jump to, type the number and press Return or Enter.

  • To locate a particular slide, use the slide switcher.

    To open the slide switcher, press equal sign (=), the plus sign (+), or hyphen (-), or type a number.

    To move forward or backward through the thumbnails, press the Right or Left Arrow key, or drag the scroll bar below the slides’ thumbnail images.

    To see the thumbnail for the first slide, press the Up Arrow key; to see the thumbnail for the last slide, press the Down Arrow key.

    To show a particular slide, click its thumbnail, or type the slide number and press Return.

    To close the slide switcher without changing the current slide, press Escape.

    Note:  You can’t jump to a skipped slide (see Skipping Slides).
Here are ways to view keyboard shortcuts:

  • If you’re viewing the Presenter’s Display during a presentation, you can see which keys control the slideshow by pressing the Help, Question Mark (?), or Forward Slash (/) key.

  • To see a complete list of all Keynote keyboard shortcuts, choose Help > Keyboard Shortcuts.

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