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Equations in Keynote are fuzzy when viewed in iCloud

Applicability

The information on this page applies to:

MathType for Mac

Apple Keynote

Issue

You've written a lesson in Keynote, and the equations looked nice and crisp on the computer (first screenshot below). When your students view it in iCloud, they report the equations to look fuzzy (the second screenshot below).

keynote-8-3.png
keynote-icloud-stretched.png

Reason

This happens on equations where you have clicked and dragged a corner of an equation to resize it after inserting it into the slide. Even so, it's caused by Keynote, not by MathType 7

Best practices for using MathType with Keynote

Although Keynote causes this, there are steps you can take to keep this from happening:

  1. Inserting equations. Both of these techniques work for adding equations to Keynote:

    1. Use the Insert > Equation command in Keynote.

    2. Copy & paste or drag & drop from MathType 7 into Keynote.

  2. Sizing equations. Don't click and drag a corner to re-size equations. In MathType 7, use the Size > Define command to set the equation size to match the size of your text in Keynote. The fuzzy equations you see in the example above do not occur if equations are appropriately sized, as shown here:

    keynote-icloud-normal.png
  3. An added benefit to sizing equations this way is that it's quicker since you only have to make one size adjustment for each equation. Also, by dragging a corner, no two equations will be the same size, nor will they exactly match the text of your slide.

  4. Don't copy & paste equations within Keynote. We don't recommend this because while it may not appear to cause problems initially, we have seen cases where it will cause problems later. These problems are such that the only recovery is to recreate the equation, so it's best to insert equations as described in step 2 above.

Reporting this issue to Apple

Keynote is a good program, but this is Apple's bug to fix. Apple has provided a feedback form for reporting issues and requesting enhancements. We encourage you to take advantage of this. While we work with Apple on making MathType 7 work well with Keynote, Apple prefers to hear from its customers and bases its development priorities on what its customers say, not on what other software companies recommend.

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We hope this has been helpful. As always, please let us know if you have questions about this or if you have additional techniques that work. We'd love to hear from you.