What Does Masking Do In Keynote?

Masking is a Keynote feature that allows you to create semi-transparent areas in your slides. This can be useful for hiding text or images that you don't want your audience to see immediately, or for creating photo collages and other creative effects. The masking feature makes your presentation look more appealing. Below, we’ll show you what the masking feature does and how to create a mask in Keynote.

What does the masking feature do in Keynote?

Masking allows you to shape a picture in a frame. For example, you can edit a portion of your photo to be in a circle rather than a square.

Masking also allows you to hide or reveal portions of an image. For example, you can use masking to create custom shapes for your image, create a reveal effect, where part of an image is gradually uncovered, and even mask an image with text.

A mask can be added to any type of image in Keynote, including photos, shapes, and text.

How to mask an image in Keynote

The simplest way to mask an image in Keynote:

1. Upload the image you want to mask in Keynote. Click on the ‘Media’ icon in the toolbar menu and select ‘Image Gallery’. Drag the selection to the field in the center where it says ‘Drag images here’.

2. Next, insert a shape to mask the image with. Select the ‘Shape’ icon next to the ‘Media’ icon and choose from the wide selection of shapes.

3. Drap the shape to resize it and position it on the image.

4. Select both the image and shape by pressing and holding the ‘Shift’ key and clicking them.
5. Then, choose Format > Image > Mask with Shape.

You can further edit the mask image, adding a shadow, blur, or borderline.

You might also like to read: How to Change Font Size in Keynote iPad

How to add a text mask in Keynote

Apart from masking with a shape, you can also add a text mask in Keynote.

Unfortunately, there’s no native way to mask text in Keynote. But there’s a workaround you can use with a screenshot of a text in Pages, which will give you the same effect.

1. Create a big, bold text in Pages, take a screenshot of it and crop it.
2. Then open Keynote, and upload your base image and the text screenshot.
3. Next, select the text screenshot and open Instant Alpha in Format > Image to remove the inside of the letters.
4. After removing your text, you’ll see the background image in the letters’ empty space.
5. Double-tap on the image to resize it so it’s the same size as the text layer.
6. Lastly, it’s recommended to lock the text layer and the image together in a Group so they can be positioned as a single object. Here’s how to do it:
1. Hold the ‘Shift’ key on the keyboard, click on the text, and then click on the image in the transparent area.
2. This will bring up a menu on the right side. Select ‘Group’ to lock the text layer and image together.

And there you go! You have an image masked with text.