To rehearse a Keynote presentation on your Mac while keeping notes available, open the deck and choose Play > Rehearse Slideshow. Keynote opens a presenter display where you can follow your notes as you move through slides. You can practice this way without an external monitor; if you have one, you can also rehearse the display arrangement before presenting. Apple’s Mac rehearsal guide documents these controls.

Add or check your presenter notes first

Open the presentation in Keynote. If notes are not visible, click the View button in the toolbar and choose Show Presenter Notes. Select a slide in the navigator and type in the white notes area below the slide. Presenter notes are for you; Apple says they do not appear on the slide itself. Keep each slide’s notes focused on cues you need while speaking, such as a transition, a detail to explain, or a reminder to pause. Apple’s guide to adding and viewing presenter notes

You can also add or edit notes during rehearsal: double-click the Presenter Notes field in the presenter display, type, then click Done. This is useful when practice reveals a missing cue. Check that the edited note belongs to the selected slide before continuing.

Start rehearsal and navigate through the deck

In the slide navigator, select the slide where you want to begin. From the macOS menu bar, choose Play > Rehearse Slideshow. The presenter display appears, and you can read the notes while practicing your delivery. Press Right Arrow or Space to advance to the next slide or build; press Left Arrow to go back or reset builds on the slide. To jump to a slide, press a number, enter the slide number in the navigator that appears, and press Return. Press ? to open or close the keyboard-shortcut list. Press Esc when you are finished. Apple documents these rehearsal controls.

Use rehearsal to practice the handoffs between ideas, not only to read the notes. For example, after advancing, glance at the note cue, then explain the slide in your own words. If you keep looking down to find the next point, consider revising the note into a shorter prompt. This is a practice method, not a Keynote feature or a guarantee of a particular presentation result.

Make notes easier to read on the presenter display

If the note text is too small or the field is cramped, move the pointer to the top-right corner of the screen and click Display Configuration. In the configuration view, you can move or resize presenter-display items. With notes visible, move the pointer over the notes field and use its font controls to make the text larger or smaller. You can also invert the notes’ foreground and background colors. Click OK to return to rehearsal. These controls change the presenter display layout; they do not change the audience-facing slide. Apple’s rehearsal guide explains the layout and note appearance controls.

If you have an external display connected, press Option-X during rehearsal to choose which display to rehearse on. Without an external display, rehearsal still works and lets you practice the presenter view on your Mac. For a real presentation on a separate screen, make sure the displays are extended rather than mirrored if you need the audience to see slides while you keep the presenter display on your Mac. In Keynote’s full-screen presentation setup, the X key switches which display shows the slideshow and presenter display. Apple’s separate-display instructions cover this setup.

Rehearse while presenting in a video-call window

If you need to keep other Mac information accessible during a video call, Keynote supports playing a slideshow in a window. Apple documents Play > In Window and a separate presenter display window with presenter notes and current and next slides. Sharing choices depend on the video-conferencing app; check what the app is sharing so the presenter display is not visible to viewers. Apple warns that some conferencing apps may show the presenter display if it lies within the shared screen area. Apple’s video-conference guide for Keynote describes these options and that limitation.

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