How can I set the background image the same on all master slides without editing each master slide individually in Keynote?

Question

In PowerPoint the master slides have inheritance, so you can set common elements on all the master slides easily. I don't see anyway to do this in Keynote. For example, if I want to set the background image on all the master slides then I need to edit the background image on each master slide.

How to set the background image the same on all master slides without editing each master slide individually?

Answer 1

Create a slide with the background you want, then copy that background. Go the master slides section, click on the master slide you are using, and paste the background onto the master slide. All your slides (that use that master slide) will have the same background.

Answer 2

Drag down the handle at the top of the slide sidebar to reveal the master slides:

From there it works the same as in PowerPoint.

Answer 3

No, unfortunately there's no way to do such a thing (at least to my knowledge).

However, a quite effective workaround is to select all the items you want to apply to other master slides, by clicking all the items with ⌘ or ⇧ down, then copy them (⌘C) and paste to all other master slides. Luckily, Keynote doesn't move pasted items when pasting on another slide (as opposed to what it does when pasting the same item on the same slide).

Repetitive movement FTW:

1. Click on the master slide that you just edited.
2. Hit ↓.
3. Hit ⌘V.
4. Loop.

Kind of ridiculous, but you can actually do it pretty fast ;)

(yes, it should be possible to automate this, but I don't feel like it's a common enough use-case to spend time writing an AppleScript)

Answer 4

It appears the correct answer is I cannot do this unfortunately.