Hey there, I have spent the better part of the morning looking for a way to batch convert PPT (not PPTx) files to Keynote. I found a few Automator workflows and Applescripts, however they’re old and don’t seem to work. I’m an automating newbie to say the least. Does anyone have any resources they can point me to that are geared towards absolute beginners… Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Using a web-based converter might be most straightforward if you’d like to get this done now. E.g., you could pay Zamzar several dollars for a month and then cancel; I just tested two simultaneous old .ppt files and they converted well. Powerpoint to KEY - Convert your PPT to KEY for Free Online
Yeah, I’ve continued to dig and this converter seems to be the simplist way to do things. So much of the information around Automator I found/came across just seems to be outdated. Hopefully, Shortcuts will be a “better” solution (moving forward). Thanks for the link! #cheers
Is Keynote able to read PPT files (or only PPTX)?
If the former Keynote can probably be automated to do it.
“Keynote can probably be automated to do it.”
Yeah, I thought so too, but after searching/trying for the better part of a day, the functionality just doesn’t seem to be there (at least from a newbie’s perspective). I looked into applescript, automator and shortcuts and could not find anything.
Question: Can PowerPoint read a keynote file? If so you can break this into two parts:
And the reason this isn’t simpler is the PPTX format is completely different. Being, thankfully, XML and zip file based.
No. PowerPoint doesn’t recognize a Keynote file (but Keynote DOES recognize both PPT and PPTx files).
The only other thing I can think of is a VBA script that copies all the objects. Yeuch!
Waaaaay, beyond my pay-grade 
! Thanks.