How to Make a Pitch Deck in Keynote [A Detailed Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- 57 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Mark, one of our clients, asked us a straightforward question while we were making his pitch deck:
“Do you think we should make this in Keynote?”
Our Creative Director answered without hesitation:
“Not if you want maximum flexibility.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many pitch decks throughout the year. In the process we’ve observed one common challenge: people often assume Keynote’s polished aesthetics automatically make it the best tool for high-stakes decks, when in reality the tool you choose can limit the story you’re trying to tell.
So, in this blog we’ll talk about why we don’t recommend Keynote, but if you still prefer using it, we’ll also walk you through how to make a pitch deck in keynote.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why We Don’t Recommend Making a Pitch Deck in Keynote
Keynote is beautiful. It feels sleek and polished, but here’s the catch—it doesn’t always work when you need it most. Pitch decks live and die on clarity, flexibility, and compatibility. Keynote often stumbles on those fronts.
The first problem is portability. A deck that looks sharp on your Mac can easily break when viewed on a Windows system. Fonts shift, animations glitch, layouts move out of place. That’s the last thing you want when an investor opens your file right before your pitch.
The second issue is its closed ecosystem. Keynote is Apple-first. Most investors expect PowerPoint or PDF. Exporting from Keynote usually means losing something—animations, fonts, or file size control. The result is a deck that doesn’t look exactly like what you designed.
Then there’s collaboration. Pitch decks are never a one-person job. With PowerPoint or Google Slides, teams can edit, comment, and update quickly. With Keynote, unless everyone uses Apple, collaboration slows to a crawl.
That’s why we recommend PowerPoint. It’s universal, flexible, and dependable.
But If You Still Prefer Keynote...
Some of you are deeply comfortable with Keynote. You love its smooth interface, the templates, or maybe it just feels intuitive. We understand that. If you’re committed to sticking with it, the key is knowing how to use it without falling into the usual traps. That’s exactly what we’ll cover next—how to make a pitch deck in Keynote step by step.
How to Make a Pitch Deck in Keynote
If you’ve decided to build your pitch deck in Keynote, the challenge is to avoid the common traps we mentioned earlier and still deliver something compelling. A pitch deck is not just a collection of slides—it’s your story, your evidence, and your credibility wrapped into one visual narrative. The software is just the container. So if Keynote is the container you prefer, here’s exactly how to use it in a way that serves you, not works against you.
We’ll break this into three parts: story first, design second, delivery third.
1. Start With Your Story
Every strong pitch deck starts on paper, not on screen. Too many founders open Keynote and start dragging shapes around before they know what story they’re telling. That’s a recipe for confusion. You don’t want pretty slides that say nothing. You want a clear argument that gets investors to nod their heads as you present.
Here’s the structure we recommend before touching Keynote at all:
The Hook: What’s the opening line that makes someone lean in? Usually this is the problem statement. “Every year, businesses waste $10B on inefficient supply chains” hits harder than “We are XYZ company.”
The Problem: Define it in a way that investors understand immediately. This isn’t about drowning them in stats; it’s about showing a pain that matters.
The Solution: How you solve it differently. Keep it simple enough that a 10-year-old could repeat it back.
The Market: How big is the opportunity? Numbers are crucial, but clarity matters more.
The Traction: What proof do you have that this isn’t just an idea? Customers, revenue, partnerships—this is where you win credibility.
The Team: Why you? Investors bet on people, not just slides.
The Ask: How much are you raising and how will you use it?
Once you’ve outlined these points, only then should you start building slides in Keynote. Without this narrative spine, even the best design won’t save you.
2. Designing in Keynote Without Falling Into Traps
Now that you have your story, it’s time to use Keynote to bring it to life. Here’s where many people get carried away. Keynote makes it tempting to over-design. Smooth transitions, shiny templates, 3D charts—it can feel like a toy box. But investors don’t want a magic show. They want clarity.
Here are practical steps to design effectively:
a. Choose a simple theme and stick with it
Keynote offers dozens of templates, but resist the urge to pick something overly stylized. Go for a clean, minimalist layout. Consistency matters more than flair. Investors should remember your idea, not the background pattern.
b. Use grids and alignment
One strength of Keynote is its alignment guides. Use them religiously. Slides that are even slightly misaligned look amateurish. Clean design builds subconscious trust.
c. Stick to two fonts
A bold font for headings, a clean sans-serif for body text. That’s it. Don’t use Apple’s system fonts just because they’re available. Ask yourself: will this font carry over in a PDF or PowerPoint export? If not, pick something universal.
d. Limit your color palette
We recommend one primary brand color, one secondary highlight, and neutrals. Too many colors scream unprofessional. Keynote makes it easy to overdo gradients and effects, but restraint is your best friend.
e. Use visuals, not stock clutter
Images are powerful when they actually support your story. A customer quote with a photo hits harder than a generic handshake stock photo. Replace fluff visuals with data, logos of clients, or product screenshots.
f. Keep animations subtle
Keynote’s animations are tempting, but use them for emphasis, not entertainment. A simple fade or build effect is enough. Anything more feels like showing off. Remember, the content should lead the show, not the software.
3. Building the Core Slides in Keynote
Let’s go slide by slide. This is the framework we use with clients.
Title Slide: Keep it minimal. Company name, tagline, and logo. No distractions.
Problem Slide: Use one bold statement or a striking stat. Support it with one visual, not five.
Solution Slide: Introduce your product in the simplest way possible. A screenshot or mockup works better than walls of text.
Market Slide: Use clear visuals—charts, infographics, or a TAM/SAM/SOM diagram. Don’t overload with numbers that no one can read in five seconds.
Business Model Slide: Investors should understand how you make money in one glance. Keep it visual—boxes, arrows, simple diagrams.
Traction Slide: Numbers, logos, press mentions. This is where social proof works best.
Team Slide: Photos, names, and one-liner credibility markers. Keep it clean.
Ask Slide: Make your funding request obvious. Spell out what you’ll use it for. Pair it with a roadmap or milestones.
Keynote can handle all of this if you don’t get carried away with style.
4. Exporting Smartly
This is where Keynote users often lose the game. No matter how beautiful your deck is, investors might never see it in Keynote. They’ll ask for a PDF or sometimes PowerPoint. You need to prepare both.
PDF Export: This is the safest option for email. Test it thoroughly. Are the fonts embedded? Do the images still look crisp? Open it on a Windows machine before sending.
PowerPoint Export: Use this if the investor explicitly asks. Check every slide after exporting. Animations and fonts are the usual culprits for breaking. Simplify where you can to avoid messy translations.
File Size: Keep it lean. Nobody wants to wait for a 40MB file to load in their inbox. Optimize images before inserting them into Keynote.
5. Practicing With Keynote’s Presenter Tools
One area where Keynote shines is its presenter view. Use it. You can see your notes, timers, and upcoming slides all in one clean interface. Practice with it so you’re not surprised during your pitch.
Also, rehearse without animations. Assume the investor’s copy will be a flat PDF. If your story still works without the bells and whistles, you’ve done it right.
6. Avoiding Common Keynote Pitfalls
From our experience, here are the most common mistakes people make in Keynote:
Over-designing: Too many transitions, too many colors. Keep it simple.
Forgetting compatibility: Your deck will likely leave Keynote at some point. Design with exports in mind.
Cramming text: Keynote slides are not Word documents. Keep text minimal.
Ignoring rehearsal: Even the cleanest deck fails without practice. Keynote won’t save you if you stumble through your story.
7. The Final Rule: Make the Idea Shine, Not the Tool
At the end of the day, investors don’t write checks because your Keynote animations wowed them. They invest because they believe in the problem, the solution, and you. Keynote is just the stage. A good stage makes the play easier to watch, but the play itself is what matters.
If you choose to make a pitch deck in Keynote, do it with discipline. Use its strengths—clean design, smooth interface, presenter tools—while protecting yourself from its weaknesses—compatibility issues, over-designed templates, and export problems. When you do that, you’ll have a deck that holds its own in the room and survives outside it.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.