Rebranding Client Course Slides in Keynote: Slide Layouts, Custom Themes and Export

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When a client presents on a Mac, a course deck built in Keynote is often the most practical format to hand over. Keynote’s slide layouts and custom themes let you rebrand a white-label deck once and keep every future slide on brand. The steps below follow Apple’s Keynote User Guide for Mac, which covers Keynote 15.4 as of October 2026; menu names can shift between versions, so compare them with the guide for the version you have installed.

1. Rebrand the Slide Layouts, Not Individual Slides

Apple’s guide explains that a change made to a slide layout appears on every slide that uses that layout, while editing one slide leaves the layout untouched. Start with the layouts:

  1. Click the View menu button in the toolbar and choose Edit Slide Layouts.
  2. Select a layout in the sidebar, then update its background, the client’s logo position and the text placeholders.
  3. To turn a text box into a placeholder, select it, open the Style tab in the Format sidebar and choose Define as Text Placeholder. Images work the same way with Define as Media Placeholder.
  4. Click Done in the bar at the bottom of the window when you have finished.

One detail to watch: anything you add to a layout without defining it as a placeholder becomes part of the background and cannot be edited on individual slides. That suits a logo or footer line, but not a heading the client may want to change.

2. Apply Layouts to the Existing Slides

Select slides in the slide navigator and choose a layout with the Slide Layout button in the Format sidebar. If a slide has drifted from its layout, Control-click it and choose Reapply Layout to Slide; according to Apple, this resets placeholders and the background without deleting the content.

3. Save the Client’s Version as a Custom Theme

Choose File > Save Theme. Add to Theme Chooser places it under My Themes on your Mac, while Save creates a theme file you can send to the client, who can double-click it and add it to their own theme chooser. Apple notes that only slide layout changes are saved to the theme, which is another reason to do the branding work on the layouts.

4. Export the Formats the Client Needs

  • PowerPoint: File > Export To > PowerPoint creates a .pptx copy for clients or co-presenters on Windows.
  • PDF: File > Export To > PDF, with options for presenter notes, skipped slides and image quality. Apple says image and media descriptions are carried into the PDF for VoiceOver, so add descriptions before exporting.

Open the exported PowerPoint file and review it before delivery, especially fonts and animations, since the guide does not promise identical results in other apps.

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