How to Use Your Mouse As a Pointer During a Keynote Presentation

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Using a stick isn't a viable option for most people.
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If you don't have a laser pointer, you can make your mouse act as a pointer in Keynote 6.2 and use it to attract the attention of your audience to important parts of your presentation. It's faster to point at an area than to try and explain to the audience where the area is located on the slide. The arrow cursor will appear over your presentation every time you move your mouse or when you press a key. To enable this functionality, you must enable the "Show pointer when mouse moves" option. You don't need to install any additional tools on your Mac.

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Using the Mouse as a Pointer

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Launch Keynote and open the presentation. Click "Keynote" and select "Preferences" from the menu to display the Preferences window. Select the "Slideshow" tab to view all options related to the slideshow. Click the "Show pointer when the mouse moves" radio button to make the mouse act as a pointer. You can display the pointer without moving the mouse if you press "C" on your keyboard. The default option is "Show pointer only on slides with hyperlinks or movies." When this option is selected, the mouse pointer appears only on slides that contain hyperlinks or movies.

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Other Useful Slideshow Settings

If you want to display the playback controls of a movie when you mouse over it in the presentation, check the "Show playback controls when mouse is over a movie" box. The "Scale slides to fit display" forces smaller slides to fit the display by enlarging them. Enable the "Allow Expose, Dashboard and others to use screen" if you plan to use the Expose or Dashboard features; video performance is decreased. Select the "Present on primary display" or "Present on secondary display" option to choose which display to use for the presentation.

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