keynote-parser

keynote-parser is a Python module for unpacking and re-packing Apple Keynote .key files. It supports Keynote files generated by Keynote version 10.1 (current as of August 2020).

Keynote uses a proprietary, compressed binary format to store its presentations. This format is comprised of a zip file containing images and videos, as well as Snappy-compressed Protobuf .iwa files containing metadata, text, and all other definitions used in the presentation.

keynote-parser unpacks these component files into .yaml files in a directory, making them editable by text editors and/or scripts, then allows re-packing of these files into a working Keynote archive.

What could you use this for? Well, I use it to allow versioning of Keynote files in Git, which makes diffs more understandable (rather than binary), as well as modifying text in Keynote files in response to external scripts. (e.g.: figures that update from databases before giving a presentation)

Installation

pip3 install keynote-parser

Usage

# Unpack MyPresentation.key into ./MyPresentation/
keynote-parser unpack MyPresentation.key

# Re-pack ./MyPresentation/ into MyPresentation.out.key
keynote-parser pack ./MyPresentation/

# List the files within a Keynote archive
keynote-parser ls MyPresentation.key

# Dump a particular .iwa file into its yaml representation on stdout
keynote-parser cat MyPresentation.key /Index/Slide-00001.iwa

# Replace text within a Keynote file in-place
keynote-parser replace MyPresentation.key --find "hello world" --replace "hello dolly"

Formats

keynote-parser supports reading a list of replacements from a JSON file passed in as --replacements. This file must have the form:

{
  "replacements": [
    {
      "find": "regexp to search for",
      "replace": "string to replace with"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

This argument can be passed to keynote-parser replace to replace text in a Keynote file in-place. It can also be passed to keynote-parser pack to pack a directory into a Keynote file, replacing text along the way.

Replacing Images

The replacements json format can also be used to replace images in a Keynote file. To do so:

• Use the keynote-parser ls command to determine the name of the image to replace.
• Set the find pattern to the image's name, with the -\d\d\d suffix removed.
• Set the replace field to the local path to the replacement image.

keynote-parser will automatically rescale the replacement image to fit all of the sizes of the target image.

Updates

As keynote-parser includes private Protobuf definitions extracted from a copy of Keynote, new versions of Keynote will inevitably create .key files that cannot be read by keynote-parser. As new versions of Keynote are released, the following steps must be undertaken:

• Run proto-dump on the new copy of Keynote to dump new Proto files.
  • Any . characters in the Protobuf definitions must be changed to _ characters manually, or via the rename_proto_files.py script in the protos directory of this repo.
• Connect to a running copy of Keynote with lldb (or any other debugger) and manually copy the results of [TSPRegistry sharedRegistry] into mapping.py.
  • Versions of macOS >= 10.11 may protect Keynote from being attached to by a debugger - to attach, temporarily disable System IntegrityProtection to get this data.
  • The parse_proto_mapping.py script in protos may help turn the output from this step into a JSON mapping, usable in mapping.py.

Credits

keynote-parser was built by Peter Sobot but heavily based on prior work by Sean Patrick O'Brien. A copy of O'Brien's format documentation is included in the docs folder for posterity.

License

All code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License.

Copyright 2019-2020 Peter Sobot

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The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or
substantial portions of the Software.

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