Add text in Keynote on Mac
To add text to a slide, you can replace placeholder text, or add a text box or shape then type text in them.
Replace placeholder text
Double-click placeholder text, then type your own.
If the theme has placeholder text you want to remove, click the text once to select its text box, then press the Delete key on your keyboard.
Add a text box
Click in the toolbar.
A text box is added to your slide (you can change how the text looks later).
Drag the text box to where you want it.
If you can’t move the box, click outside the box to deselect the text, then click the text once to select its text box.
Type to replace the placeholder text.
To resize the text box, drag the selection handle on the left or right side of the box.
To delete a text box, click it (a blue outline appears around it), then press the Delete key on your keyboard. If the blue outline doesn’t appear, click outside the box to deselect the text, then click the text once to select its text box.
Text boxes are objects that can be modified like most other objects; you can rotate the text box, change its border, fill it with a colour, layer it with other objects and more. See Intro to images, charts and other objects in Keynote on Mac.
Set a default text box for a presentation
Every Keynote theme comes with a default text box style, so when you add a text box to a presentation and type text in it, the box and the text use this style. You can modify this default style — change the font, font colour, fill colour and so on — then make it the new default style for the presentation. Your default text box style applies only to the presentation where you create it.
Add a text box to your presentation and change it however you want.
You can change the font and font size, add a border to the box and so on.
Click the text box to select it.
Choose Format > Advanced > Set as Default Text Box Appearance (from the Format menu at the top of your screen).
You can change the default whenever you want, and it won’t affect any text boxes already in the presentation.
If you want to apply the same design changes to other text boxes that already exist in the slide, you can save the default text box style as an object style, then apply the object style to other text boxes.
Add text inside a shape
Double-click the shape to make the insertion point appear, then type your text.
If there’s too much text to display in the shape, a clipping indicator appears. To resize the shape, select it, then drag any selection handle until all the text is showing.
You can change the look of text inside the shape just like any other text on your slide.
To add a caption or label to an object, see Create a caption in Keynote on Mac.