The ability to make great presentations is vital no matter what field you are in: at one point or another you will need to demonstrate new strategy, present design ideas or simply outline your quarterly achievements at a meeting with investors. While PowerPoint is one of the most well-known presentation tools out there, there are many alternatives that offer exciting presentation possibilities. Grabbing – and keeping – the attention of your audience while getting your message across is the main goal of any presenter. And certain tools allow you to achieve this goal much easier than the PowerPoint.
Therefore, if you are on the hunt for new and fresh tools for your next presentation, here are the top PowerPoint alternatives that will certainly impress your audience.
1. Prezi
One of the most popular PowerPoint alternatives is Prezi. Prezi focuses on the visual components of a presentation. It provides a fun and creative opportunities to express thoughts and present information.
The unique feature of Prezi is the “zoom in” and “zoom out” approach to conveying the information to the user. It will give your presentation an animated and cinematic appearance often making the information easier to process. Prezi has a low learning curve and a moderate price tag. ‘Prezi Next is even more intuitive than Prezi Classic. You do not have to possess any special design skills or prior knowledge in order to create professional and powerful presentations’ says Ryan from Presentation Geeks.
Advantages of Prezi over PowerPoint:
- Zoom in and zoom out approach
- Ability to easily jump to previously presented ideas without the need to scroll through all the slides
- Easily share presentation online
2. Google Slides
This PowerPoint alternative offers virtually the same set of features, except it’s free. Google Slides tool focuses on making group presentations easier and the group work transparent and efficient. The service is cloud-based so all the information is always safe and can be accessed from anywhere as long as you have internet connection. The users have access to presentations offline as well.
Google Slides offers fewer choices of animation and effects and requires a Google account to sign in.
Advantages of Google Slides over PowerPoint:
- Google Slides is a free service
- The software is web-based and easily accessible both off and online
- Google Slides is a new program and offers several innovative features
3. CustomShow
This premium software is created help businesses make high-quality presentations. The tool offers a large presentation library, a variety of sharing options, and allows multi-platform delivery.
The advanced presentations made by CustomShow differ from what other presentation software has to offer due to sleek and high-quality design. It’s a good tool for collaboration and sharing within the organization.
CustomShow is cloud-based and can be accessed from different platforms. It allows conducting efficient team meetings and provides real-time interaction.
Advantages of CustomShow over PowerPoint:
- Advanced slide library management
- Seamless video integration
- High-quality presentations
4. VCASMO
VCASMO allows you to make a presentation by mixing video, audio and slideshows. You can edit the presentations online making them more accessible and convenient for the audience. In fact, you can edit a PowerPoint presentation and add videos and subtitles. You can also synchronize the slides with video and audio.
VCASMO allows easy presentation sharing. Moreover you can link to blogs or websites from within the presentation. You can do timeline organization of the slides.
VCASMO Advantages over PowerPoint:
- The tool offers a free version
- The presentations can be done online and then downloaded for offline use
- Video and audio editing
5. Keynote
Apple created this tool as an alternative to Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Keynote has a solid set of features to create a clean and easy-to-use presentation. The built-in graphic tools allow you to integrate and edit the images.
This tool allows you to export using QuickTime files with the following conversion for YouTube viewing. The software can easily be synchronized with most Apple gadgets, especially iPhone and iPad. Keynote has a low learning curve. However, Keynote presentations don’t work with Microsoft systems. There is an export option to PPT but the sustainability of the presentation is not guaranteed.
Advantages of Keynote over PowerPoint:
- A big variety of attractive themes for presentation creation
- Multimedia-friendly
- Apple integration
6. SlideDog
SlideDog is a great tool for building interactive presentations. It can turn already made presentation files into a more efficient presentation. Even though you can’t modify the existing files with SlideDog, you can take advantage of numerous features that can help you present these files to an audience.
The software allows you to combine presentations and media files into a playlist. The program comes with a free version and accepts all common file formats. SlideDog has a live sharing feature that gives up to 100 people access to the presentation over the web.
Advantages of SlideDog over PowerPoint:
- Live slide sharing
- Web control of the presentation
- Highly interactive presentations
7. Visme
This presentation-building tool has a big variety of features for building, editing, and sharing the presentations. It’s easy to use for both individuals and teams. You can use this tool to publish the presentations online, download it for offline work and embed it to the website.
Visme has a set of customizable templates and analytics tools. The cloud-based app makes the presentation editing accessible from any place with internet connection. The tool offers a drag-and-drop interface and a moderate price tag.
Advantages of Visme over PowerPoint:
- Easy presentation sharing
- Large graphics asset library
- Detailed analytics
8. HaikuDeck
HaikuDeck is an app for making simple presentations which can used as an iPad App, Web App or iPhone App. The tool doesn’t have a huge variety of options or templates. In fact, it’s purely straightforward. The user can pick the background image and insert words over them. This approach takes the complexity out of presentation creation.
HaikuDeck makes clean and straightforward slides for quick presentations. You can create and store the presentation on the cloud.
Advantages of HaickuDeck over PowerPoint:
- Low learning curve
- iOS or Web use
- Automatic appropriate image search for each text
9. ClearSlide
ClearSlide purchased SlideRocket and incorporated all of its features. It focuses more on the information than on the visual aspects of the presentation. The tool offers several interesting plugins, such as a dictionary or real-time Twitter feeds.
You can add videos from Flicker and YouTube. The software provides high-quality templates. The tool is easy to use and can be accessed from any gadget (iOS and Android), providing there is an internet connection. Overall ClearSlide focuses mostly on sales aspects. It incorporates SalesForce Sales cloud and Slack.
Advantages of ClearSlide over PowerPoint:
- Cloud-based + easy sharing
- Video import and editing
- Simple access
10. Powtoon
This is a great PowerPoint alternative for people, who are tired of bulleted texts and slides. The tool allows the user to illustrate the situation using animation, cartoons or video. You can make a movie out of your presentation and share it online.
This tool is fairly easy to use and comes with a free trial. It’s a wonderful option for classroom presentations. Powtoon gives you a great way to illustrate any process.
Advantages of Powtoon over PowerPoint:
- Animation presentation approach
- No download required
- Creates professional looking videos
Depending on your needs and targets, each one of these PowerPoint alternatives can become an irreplaceable tool in your arsenal. Try out and surprise your audience with creative and interactive presentation.