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The best presentation software

These powerpoint alternatives go beyond the basics..

The latest presentation apps have made it easier than ever to format slides and create professional-looking slideshows without giving off a "this is a template" vibe. Even standard PowerPoint alternatives have updated key features to make it easier than ever to collaborate and create presentations quickly, so you can spend more time prepping for your actual presentation.

If, like me, you've been using Google Slides unquestioningly for years, it's a whole new world out there. The newest crop of online presentation tools go way beyond the classic slideshow experience, with new features to keep your audience's attention, streamline the creation process with AI, and turn slide decks into videos and interactive conversations.

I've been testing these apps for the past few years, and this time, I spent several days tinkering with the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog .

When looking for the best presentation apps, I wanted utility players. After all, slideshows are used for just about everything, from pitch decks and product launches to class lectures and church sermons. With that in mind, here's what I was looking for:

Pre-built templates. The best presentation tools should have attractive, professional-looking templates to build presentations in a hurry.

Sharing and collaboration options. Whether you plan to share your webinar slides later, or you just want to collaborate with a coworker on a presentation, it should be easy to share files and collaborate in real-time.

Flexibility and customization options. Templates are great, but top presentation apps should enable you to customize just about everything—giving you the flexibility to build exactly what you need.

Affordability. Creating compelling presentations is important, but you shouldn't have to bust your budget to make it happen. With capable free tools on the market, affordability is a top consideration.

Standalone functionality. There's no reason to use multiple tools when one can do it all, so I didn't test any apps that require and work on top of another presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Familiar, deck-based UI. For our purposes here, I only tested software that uses slides, with the familiar deck-based editor you expect from a "presentation" tool (versus, for example, a video creation app).

While many apps now offer AI features in one way or another, I found many of these features to be lacking still—they're often slow, struggle to pull in relevant imagery, and yield wildly inconsistent designs. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict requirement (for now!), and I've still included apps that don't offer AI. (Of course, if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images from a separate tool and copy them into your presentation app of choice.)

Beyond that, I also looked for presentation apps that brought something unique to the table—features above and beyond what you can get for free from a legacy solution like PowerPoint or Google Slides. (And I opted not to test any brand new apps that are still in beta, since there are so many established options out there.)

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

I created a new deck, scanning through all available templates, noting how well-designed they were (and which were free versus paid).

I added new slides, deleted slides, edited text and images, and played around with other content types.

I changed presentation design settings, like color schemes and background images.

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

After my first round of testing, I went back into the top performers to test any unique or niche features like AI, brand settings, interactive content, and more. With that, these are the best presentation apps I found—each one really brings something different or radically easy to the table.

The best presentation software: at a glance

The best free presentation software, canva (web, windows, mac, android, ios).

Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

The Magic Design AI tool is still inconsistent and not super impressive

Canva offers one of the most robust free plans of all the presentation apps I tested. The app delays account creation until after you've created your first design, so you can get started building your presentation in seconds. Choose from an almost overwhelming number of beautiful templates (nearly all available for free), including those designed specifically for education or business use cases.

Anyone who's accidentally scrolled too far and been bumped to the next slide will appreciate Canva's editor interface, which eliminates that problem altogether with a smooth scroll that doesn't jump around. Choose from a handful of preset animations to add life to your presentations, or browse the library of audio and video files available to add. And Canva also has a number of options for sharing your presentation, including adding collaborators to your team, sharing directly to social media, and even via QR code.

Present directly from Canva, and let audience members submit their questions via Canva Live. Once you share a link to invite audience members to your presentation, they can send questions for you to answer. As the presenter, you'll see them pop up in your presenter view window, so you can keep the audience engaged and your presentation clear. Alternatively, record a presentation with a talking head bubble—you can even use an AI presenter here—to share remotely.

Canvas has added a number of AI-powered tools , but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. When I asked the Magic Design tool to generate a presentation from scratch, for example, the result was a bunch of unrelated images, inconsistent design, and surface-level copy. These features will likely improve in time, but for now, you're better off starting from one of Canva's many great templates.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $119.99/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

The best presentation app for AI-powered design

Beautiful.ai (web, mac, windows).

Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

Generative AI features aren't great yet

If you're like me, editing granular spacing issues is the absolute worst part of building a presentation. Beautiful.ai uses artificial intelligence to take a lot of the hassle and granular design requirements out of the presentation process, so you can focus on the content of a presentation without sacrificing professional design. If I needed to make presentations on a regular basis, this is the app I'd use.

Many apps have recently added AI design features, but Beautiful.ai has been doing it for years—and they've perfected the UX of AI design, ensuring the tool's reign as the most streamlined and user-friendly option for AI design.

The editor is a little different from most presentation apps, but it's still intuitive—and you'll start off with a quick two-minute tutorial. When creating a new slide, scroll through "inspiration slides" to find a layout you like; once you choose, the app will pull the layout and automatically adapt it to match the design of the rest of your presentation.

With 10 themes, several templated slides, over 40 fully-designed templates, and 23 different color palettes to choose from, Beautiful.ai strikes a perfect balance between automation and customization.

While Beautiful.ai doesn't offer a free plan, paid plans are reasonably priced and offer sharing and collaboration options that rival collab-focused apps like Google Slides. And speaking of Google, you can connect Beautiful.ai with Google Drive to save all your presentations there.

Note: I did test the newly released generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) and felt it wasn't much to write home about. It's great for adding individual slides to an existing presentation—automatically choosing the best layout and matching the design to the rest of the deck—but as with most other apps, it struggled to generate a quality presentation from scratch.

Beautiful.ai pricing: Plans start at $12/month for unlimited slides, AI content generation, viewer analytics, and more. Upgrade to a Team plan for $40/user/month to get extra collaboration and workspace features and custom brand controls.

If you're a founder looking for an AI presentation tool for your pitch deck, Slidebean is a great Beautiful.ai alternative for startups. The app offers a number of templates; a unique, content-first outline editor; and AI design help that you can toggle on or off for each slide. I didn't include it on the list mainly because of the price: the free plan is quite limited, and the paid all-access plan starts at $228/year.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

Prezi (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Prezi pros:

Doesn't restrict you to standard presentation structure

Lots of customization options

Prezi Video lets you display a presentation right over your webcam video

Prezi cons:

Steep learning curve

Struggling to squeeze information into a basic, linear presentation? Give Prezi a try. Unlike nearly all other presentation apps on the market, Prezi Present doesn't restrict the structure of your presentation to a straight line. The editor focuses on topics and subtopics and allows you to arrange them any way you want, so you can create a more conversational flow of information.

With the structural flexibility, you still get all the same customization features you expect from top presentation software, including fully-editable templates. There's a learning curve if you're unfamiliar with non-linear presentations, but templates offer a great jumping-off point, and Prezi's editor does a good job of making the process more approachable.

Plus, Prezi comes with two other apps: Prezi Design and Prezi Video. Prezi Video helps you take remote presentations to a new level. You can record a video where the presentation elements are displayed right over your webcam feed. Record and save the video to share later, or connect with your video conferencing tool of choice (including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet) to present live.

Prezi pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans start at $5/month and include additional features like private presentations and Prezi Present.

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (web, ios, android).

Powtoon pros:

Timing automatically changes based on the content on the slide

Can toggle between slideshow and video

Can orient presentation as horizontal, vertical, or square

Powtoon cons:

Limited free plan

Powtoon makes it easy to create engaging videos by orienting the editor around a slide deck. Editing a Powtoon feels just like editing a presentation, but by the time you finish, you have a professional video. 

You can edit your slides at any time, and when you hit play, a video plays through your deck—the feel is almost like an animated explainer video. Each slide includes the animations you choose and takes up as much time as is needed based on the content on the slide. Powtoon figures the timing automatically, and you can see in the bottom-right of the editor how much time is used on your current slide versus the total presentation. If you ever want to present as a slide deck, just toggle between Slideshow and Movie.

You'll likely need to subscribe to a paid plan to get the most out of Powtoon—like creating videos longer than three minutes, downloading them as MP4 files, and white-labeling your presentations—but doing so won't break the bank. Plus, you'll unlock tons of templates complete with animations and soundtracks.

One of my favorite Powtoon features is the ability to orient your video: you can choose horizontal orientation (like a normal presentation) or opt for vertical (for mobile) or square (for social media). When your presentation is ready, you can publish straight to YouTube, Wistia, Facebook Ads, and any number of other locations.

Powtoon pricing: Limited free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, and more.

The best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (web).

Genially pros:

Don't need a presenter (it's interactive)

You can set universal branding guidelines

Unlimited creations on the free plan

Genially cons:

Free plan has some limitations worth looking into (e.g., can only make public presentations)

While many presentation apps are built for presenter-led decks, Genially 's interactive features and animated templates make it easy to build a self-led presentation. A variety of interactive buttons allow you to show viewers additional context on hover, have them skip to any page of your deck, and let them navigate to external links.

This presentation program offers a bunch of searchable templates, including some for business proposals, reports, social media presentations, and more (though most of those are available on premium plans only). Genially also includes Smart blocks —templated blocks of content for elements like data visualizations and image galleries.

My favorite feature is the brand settings. Premium users can set universal branding guidelines that include your logo, color scheme, fonts, images, and backgrounds, among other options. Think of them like a custom template, created and customized by you, that the whole team can use. Once set, your team can easily create on-brand presentations that automatically apply your brand settings, without even thinking about it.

Plus, Genially supports additional content like training materials, infographics, and interactive images—all subject to your brand presets.

Genially pricing: Free plan available with unlimited creations and views and access to templates; paid plans start at $7.49/month and include additional download options, privacy controls, offline viewing, premium templates, and more.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

Pitch (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Start live video calls straight from decks

Pitch cons:

User interface is a little different than you're used to

Need to collaborate on presentations with your team? Pitch is a Google Slides alternative that gets the job done. As far as decks go, Pitch includes all the beautifully-designed templates, customizability, and ease of use you expect from a top-notch presentation tool. But the app really shines when you add your team.

The right-hand sidebar is all about project management and collaboration: you can set and update the status of your deck, assign entire presentations or individual slides to team members, plus comment, react, or add notes. Save custom templates to make future presentations even easier and faster.

You can also invite collaborators from outside your company to work with you on individual decks. And if you opt for a paid plan, Pitch introduces workspace roles, shared private folders, and version history.

The "Go live" feature is a personal favorite—with just a click on the camera icon in the top-right, you can start a live video call. Any team members who open the presentation can hop in and collaborate in real-time. 

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; paid plans start at $8/user/month for additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best simple presentation app

Zoho show (web, ios, android, chrome).

Zoho Show pros:

Simple and easy to use

Version history and ability to lock slides

Completely free

Zoho Show cons:

Templates are pretty basic

If you're looking for a simple, yet capable presentation app that's a step up from Google Slides, Zoho Show is a great option. It's completely free to use, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates.

While the handful of "Themes" offered are on the basic side, Zoho templates boast a more modern and professional design than much of what Google Slides or PowerPoint offer. And I love that you can set the font and color scheme for the whole template, right from the start.

The app doesn't skimp on collaboration or shareability either. You can invite collaborators via email or shareable link, and comments and version history make it easy to work together on presentations. Once you're ready to share, you can even broadcast your presentation to a remote audience right from within Zoho. Plus, you can one-click lock slides to prevent any more editing or hide individual slides to customize your presentation for different audiences.

You can even connect Zoho Show to Zapier , so you can do things like automatically create a presentation when something happens in one of the other apps you use most.

Zapier is the leader in workflow automation—integrating with 6,000+ apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use interfaces, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more .

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Chatbot-like experience

Can still manually edit the presentation

Gamma cons:

Not as much granular customization

I tested a lot of apps claiming to use AI to up your presentation game, and Gamma 's generative features were head and shoulders above the crowd.

Simply give the app a topic—or upload an outline, notes, or any other document or article—approve the outline, and pick a theme. The app will take it from there and create a fully fleshed-out presentation. It's far from perfect, but Gamma produced the most useful jumping-off point of all the AI presentation apps I tested. 

Here's the key: Gamma is much more geared toward the iterative, chatbot experience familiar to ChatGPT users. Click on the Edit with AI button at the top of the right-hand menu to open the chat, and you'll see suggested prompts—or you can type in your own requests for how Gamma should alter the presentation.

Once you've done all you can with prompts, simply close the chat box to manually add the finishing touches. While you do sacrifice some granular customizability in exchange for the AI features, you can still choose your visual theme, change slide layouts, format text, and add any images, videos, or even app and web content.

Gamma pricing: Free plan includes unlimited users, 1 custom theme, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the Pro plan ("coming soon," as of this writing) for $10/user/month to get additional AI credits, advanced view analytics, custom fonts, and more.

What about the old standbys?

You might notice a few major presentation players aren't on this list, including OGs Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides. These apps are perfectly adequate for creating basic presentations, and they're free if you have a Windows or Mac device or a Google account.

I didn't include them on the list because the presentation space has really developed in the last several years, and after testing them out, I found these behemoths haven't kept pace. If they weren't made by Microsoft/Apple/Google, I might not even be mentioning them. They're pretty basic tools, they're behind the curve when it comes to templates (both quantity and design), and they don't offer any uniquely valuable features like robust team collaboration, branding controls, video, and so on.

Some of these companies (think: Microsoft and Google) are openly working on some pretty impressive-sounding AI features, but they haven't been widely released to the public yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll retest tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides to see what new features are available.

In any case, if you're reading this, you're probably looking for an alternative that allows you to move away from one of the big 3, and as the presentation platforms featured above show, there's a ton to gain—in terms of features, usability, and more—when you do.

Related reading:

8 Canva AI tools to improve your design workflow

The best online whiteboards for collaboration

How to share a presentation on Zoom without sharing your browser tabs and address bar

This post was originally published in October 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez. The most recent update was in May 2023.

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Kiera Abbamonte

Kiera’s a content writer who helps SaaS and eCommerce companies connect with customers and reach new audiences. Located in Boston, MA, she loves cinnamon coffee and a good baseball game. Catch up with her on Twitter @Kieraabbamonte.

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Make beautiful presentations, together

Stay in sync in your slides, with easy sharing and real-time editing. Use comments and assign action items to build your ideas together.

Present slideshows with confidence

With easy-to-use presenter view, speaker notes, and live captions, Slides makes presenting your ideas a breeze. You can even present to Google Meet video calls directly from Slides.

Seamlessly connect to your other Google apps

Slides is thoughtfully connected to other Google apps you love, saving you time. Embed charts from Google Sheets or reply to comments directly from Gmail. You can even search the web and Google Drive for relevant content and images directly from Slides.

Extend collaboration and intelligence to PowerPoint files

Easily edit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations online without converting them, and layer on Slides’ enhanced collaborative and assistive features like comments, action items, and Smart Compose.

Work on fresh content

With Slides, everyone’s working on the latest version of a presentation. And with edits automatically saved in version history, it’s easy to track or undo changes.

Make slides faster, with built-in intelligence

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The 8 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives

Professional results for tight budgets

• Swansea University, Staffordshire University

Microsoft PowerPoint is a great tool for creating professional-looking slideshows and presentations. However, the home version requires a Microsoft 365 subscription, and the free mobile app locks some features behind the sub as well. Fortunately, there are plenty of free PowerPoint software alternatives out there. Here's a look at some of the best options and how they compare to PowerPoint. 

Best Direct PowerPoint Replacement: Google Slides

Very similar to PowerPoint.

Free to use. 

Compatible with PowerPoint.

An internet connection is strongly recommended. 

Where there's a need for an app, Google seems to have it covered. Google Slides is its PowerPoint equivalent and it's a lot like Microsoft's app. Very simple to use and offering full compatible with the alternative, you can access Google Slides via your browser and easily create custom presentations with audio and your own images, all entirely for free. It also offers great live collaboration features for teamwork purposes.

The only minor downside is you need an internet connection to at least get started but the service does also work offline with presentations syncing once you're back online.

Best for Designers: Prezi

Video editing included.

Can easily make data visualizations. 

Stylish user interface.

Free option is pretty basic.

No support.

Presentations viewable by all.

Prezi is a great option for designers who have a vision but aren't technically proficient at achieving it. Its simple drag and drop interface makes it a breeze to organize your presentation just how you want it. Backed up with other Prezi apps that mean you can create videos or more stylish data visualizations than simple graphs, it's ideal for industries that are more visual than others. A series of pre-made templates makes it all the more attractive. 

Prezi isn't as free as it seems though. To get the full wealth of features like advanced image editing, offline access, and narration, you'll need to pay a subscription fee.

Best for Quick Results: Zoho Show

A theme for every occasion.

Quick to create something.

Intuitive interface.

Need to be online to use it.

Simple to use yet highly effective is the sweet spot for quick results, and that's certainly the case with Zoho Show. You might need to be online to use it, but it's worth the connection with an intuitive user interface that adapts to what you need to do. You can easily embed videos, tweets, and images into your presentations with some neat transition effects making things more interesting. 

Collaboration tools further sweeten the deal with annotation features meaning you can work together well as a team and fast.

Best for Animations: Powtoon

Great animation tools.

Easy to use.

Can export to social media platforms.

Branding applied on free presentations.

More about animations than slideshows. 

PowToon tackles PowerPoint presentations from a slightly different angle than a lot of its competitors. It's primarily great for creating full animations and videos rather than presentations that you would click through and present yourself. That lends itself perfectly to the internet which is why it's so useful that you can export your presentations to various forms of social media. 

With a drag and drop template, you can create something within about 20 minutes from your browser. The free version bundles in branding logos so viewers will always know you've used PowToon to create them but that's a small price to pay for an otherwise very accessible and simple to use piece of software. 

Best for Mass Branding: Renderforest

Plenty of options for expanding branding.

300MB cloud storage for free.

Unlimited exports.

Exports can be low in quality.

Content is watermarked.

RenderForest thinks of itself as more than just a PowerPoint alternative. It tackles everything you might need from creating logos to designing promo videos, music visualizations, landing pages, and websites. That's on top of its extensive animations and intro creation. That might sound intimidating but the service keeps things simple, so it won't take you long to mock something up and develop it.

Stick to the free version and there are some restrictions such as branding on your videos, lower quality logos, and so forth, but it's a solid start for an otherwise entirely free service. In particular, if you just need to concoct a quick 3-minute video for a presentation, RenderForest has you covered.

Best for Non-Designers: Visme

Plenty of templates to choose from.

Can set up five projects at once.

Charts and widgets support.

Limited cloud storage.

Visme branding on free plan.

Been asked to make a presentation and you don't know where to start? Visme is perfect for those that aren't well versed with graphics as it offers an extensive template library. The free plan limits your options a little but there are still some decent choices here. In addition, the service provides cool ways to make stats and data look exciting thanks to chart and widget support. It's all done through a simple drag and drop interface too that makes it super simple to add video and embed other content. 

Just bear in mind that storage options are a little limited and everything on the free plan will contain Visme branding. 

Best for Office Replacement: LibreOffice Impress

Full program rather than browser-based.

Extensive support. 

Similar experience to Microsoft Office.

Requires installation. 

Not quite as intuitive as alternatives.

LibreOffice is a popular free alternative to Microsoft Office, so it makes sense to use LibreOffice Impress if you want the closest experience to Microsoft's package. Unlike most of the others here, you need to install LibreOffice on your PC or Mac which means it's no good for Chromebooks or moving between different systems. However, in exchange, you get an intuitive experience that makes it simple to create slideshows, whether you're handing them out to a class or conference afterwards, or simply projecting them on screen. 

Bear in mind you have to seek out templates yourself though which may be off-putting for the least technically minded user out there. 

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Best for Apple Users: Keynote

Simple to use. 

Apple Pencil support. 

Cloud based as well as app based.

App is only on Apple devices.

Keynote is Apple's direct competitor to Microsoft PowerPoint and it's a great alternative, especially if you're a Mac user. With app support for iOS and Mac, it takes seconds to get started. Alternatively, PC users can use Keynote via the iCloud website and easily work across multiple devices. 

One of the best features is the ability to use the Apple Pencil on an iPad to create diagrams or illustrations making it great for skilled artists. As well as that, Apple provides plenty of convenient templates for personal and professional projects. 

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Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows

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Microsoft PowerPoint: Create attractive presentations without complicating your life

Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation software application that has been the industry standard for decades. It is used by millions of people worldwide to create presentations for a variety of purposes, including business, education, and personal use. PowerPoint is known for its user-friendly interface and its wide range of features, making it a powerful tool for creating visually appealing and informative presentations.

What is Microsoft PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows is the latest version of PowerPoint that is available for Windows PCs. It is included with the Microsoft 365 suite of applications, which also includes Word , Excel , and Outlook . PowerPoint for Windows can also be purchased as a standalone application .

Key features of Microsoft PowerPoint

PowerPoint for Windows offers a wide range of features that make it a versatile tool for creating presentations. Some of the key features include:

• Templates : PowerPoint offers a variety of templates that can be used to create presentations with a professional look and feel.
• Themes : PowerPoint themes allow you to change the overall look of your presentation, including the colors, fonts, and layout.
• Slides : PowerPoint presentations are made up of individual slides, each of which can contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia content.
• Transitions : PowerPoint transitions allow you to smoothly move between slides in your presentation.
• Animations : PowerPoint animations can be used to add visual interest to your presentations.
• Multimedia : PowerPoint supports a variety of multimedia content, including images, videos, and audio.
• Collaboration : PowerPoint allows you to collaborate on presentations with others in real time.

Creating a presentation with Microsoft PowerPoint

Creating a presentation with PowerPoint is a straightforward process. To create a new presentation, simply open PowerPoint and select the desired template . Once you have selected a template, you can start adding content to your slides.

Adding content to slides

To add content to a slide, you can simply type text into the text box. You can also add images, videos, and other multimedia content by clicking on the appropriate button on the ribbon .

Customizing slides

You can customize the appearance of your slides by changing the background color, font, and layout. You can also add transitions and animations to your slides .

Reviewing and saving your presentation

Once you have finished creating your presentation, you can review it in slide show mode to see how it will look when presented. You can save your presentation in a variety of formats, including PPTX, PPT, and PDF .

Why Microsoft PowerPoint so popular?

Microsoft PowerPoint is incredibly popular for several reasons, making it the go-to presentation software for individuals and businesses worldwide. Its widespread adoption can be attributed to its user-friendly interface, comprehensive feature set , and ability to create visually appealing and informative presentations.

User-friendly interface

PowerPoint's intuitive and straightforward interface makes it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise. The drag-and-drop functionality, familiar menus, and clear visual elements enable users to navigate and utilize the software effortlessly . This simplicity has been a key factor in its widespread adoption, particularly among non-technical individuals who need to create presentations.

Comprehensive feature set

PowerPoint boasts a robust feature set that caters to a wide range of presentation needs. Its extensive library of templates and themes provides a foundation for professional-looking presentations, while its design tools allow for customization and personalization. Additionally, the inclusion of multimedia elements, transitions, animations, and interactive features enhances the visual appeal and engagement of presentations .

Visual appeal and informational content

PowerPoint's ability to combine text, images, videos, and other multimedia content makes it an effective tool for delivering information in a visually engaging and impactful manner. Users can effectively communicate their message through a combination of visual elements and clear, concise text . This combination of visual appeal and informational content holds the audience's attention and enhances the overall effectiveness of the presentation.

Widespread familiarity and compatibility

PowerPoint's widespread use and familiarity among individuals and organizations have made it the de facto standard for presentation software. This commonality ensures compatibility across platforms and organizations, facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing. Moreover, PowerPoint's integration with Microsoft Office suite further enhances its practicality and accessibility.

Global adoption and educational usage

PowerPoint has become an essential tool in educational settings, empowering instructors to effectively deliver lectures, presentations, and course materials . Its versatility enables teachers to incorporate various multimedia elements, interactive exercises, and collaborative activities to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.

Business and corporate use

In the business world, PowerPoint is indispensable for meetings, presentations, and communicating information to clients, partners, and stakeholders. Its ability to visually present complex data, highlight key points, and engage the audience makes it a valuable tool for effective communication and decision-making .

Microsoft PowerPoint's enduring popularity stems from its user-friendliness, comprehensive feature set, ability to enhance visual appeal and informational content, widespread familiarity, and exceptional compatibility across platforms and organizations. Its versatility makes it a preferred choice for individuals, educators, and businesses worldwide, cementing its place as the industry standard for presentation software .

Final words about the app

Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows is a powerful tool for creating presentations. It is easy to use, offers a wide range of features, and can help you create presentations with a professional look and feel. However, PowerPoint is a paid software application and can be limited in terms of creativity.

PowerPoint for telling your story. A new, modern take on the familiar PowerPoint application to design and share your most impactful presentations

Get your ideas across with beautiful design, rich animation, cinematic motion, 3D models and icons. Let intelligent technology help you bring your presentation to life with a few clicks.

Tell your story with confidence with slide-by-slide notes only viewable by you. Easily translate your slides into the preferred language and use the built-in accessibility checker to be sure your audience doesn’t miss a thing.

Get premium versions of PowerPoint and other Office apps like Word and Excel by subscribing to Office 365. With Office 365 you'll get great PowerPoint features like Designer, Editor, and real-time co-authoring. Plus, you'll receive exclusive, new features every month ensuring you're always up-to-date.

• Ease of use
• Wide range of features
• Professional look and feel
• Collaboration
• Limited creativity

Also available in other platforms

• Microsoft PowerPoint for Android
• Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac
• Microsoft PowerPoint for iPhone

Microsoft PowerPoint for PC

User reviews about microsoft powerpoint.

to continue there improving this important application because it downloading weakly

by محمد ناصر

I WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PROGRAM AND RESTORE IT IN MY COMPUTER

by francis t lopaz

Would've given it a better rating had you let me downloaded it!

by Anonymous

i love it. it works well and it has very good animations transistions and fonts

Why do we need to pay now. why do we have to pay i mean before we had it for free why now tho i cant pay even tho i need to do presentations bu t how im i supposed to pay for a powerpoint when i cant convince my parents to give me money to go to the cinema?  More

yes we can summarize. power point no there was problem for receive their own point Pros: to add the file in power point Cons: t o save correctly not anywhere  More

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Best free presentation software of 2024

Find an alternative to PowerPoint

Best overall

Best for speed, best for functionality, best for collaboration, best user interface.

• How we test

The best free presentation software makes it simple and easy to create presentations as an alternative to subscribing to Microsoft PowerPoint.

1. Best overall 2. Best for speed 3. Best for functionality 4. Best for collaboration 5. Best user interface 6. FAQs 7. How we test

While PowerPoint is the market leader when it comes to presentation software, some people may be unwilling to subscribe to a Microsoft 365 subscription, especially if they don't expect to need to use it very often.

However, there are plenty of great alternatives to PowerPoint available for free that you can use. While these won't have the same advanced features as PowerPoint, they still offer a very competent platform to design most any presentation that you need.

To help you choose, we've listed below the best free presentation software currently available.

Add images to your presentations using the best free photo editor .

<a href="https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Google Workspace : Collaboration + productivity apps There are many different presentation software packages but Google Workspace formerly known as G Suite remains the original cloud office software and one of the best business office suites, offering a huge range of features and functionality that rivals can't match, especially when it comes to presentation software. <a href="https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Try it free for 14 days .

The best free presentation software of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Prezi turns the traditional approach to presentations on its head. Instead of creating slide after slide, this presentation software gives you a single giant canvas. You can add blocks of text or images, or even create miniature slides. During your presentation, you can seamlessly fly around the canvas and zoom in to look at individual chunks of content.

For how complex Prezi seems, it’s impressively simple to use the platform. The only major divergence from Microsoft PowerPoint is that you need to add animated paths from one part of the canvas to another. The tools for this are fairly straightforward, especially if you’ve ever used an animation or video editing software.

Of course, this type of presentation structure isn’t always ideal. Prezi makes it hard to visualize structured data like financials, which can make it difficult to use in business applications. Some viewers also might not appreciate the fly-around animation style that’s inherent to the presentation software.

Read our full Prezi review .

• ^ Back to the top

Canva is perfect for making speedy presentations right in your web browser. This software offers a handful of free layouts to help you get your slideshow started, and it’s easy to customize the templates to fit your needs. There isn’t a huge variety of content elements to add to your presentation, but Canva makes up for this with a searchable library of more than 1 million images you can use.

Your Canva presentations live online, which makes it extremely easy to collaborate. You can invite colleagues to edit your slideshow (although simultaneous editing is not supported) or seamlessly share your finished presentation. However, beware that Canva can’t import presentations from Microsoft Powerpoint or export finished work to a Powerpoint-editable format.

Read our full Canva review .

3. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and it includes a Powerpoint equivalent called Impress with nearly all of the same functionality. The only big difference you’ll find between the two slideshow creation tools is the LibreOffice lacks some modern features like built-in collaboration and integration with Microsoft OneDrive.

However, Impress does have a few advantages of its own. The software can import files from Keynote, the default presentation software on Mac computers. Plus, there are hundreds of free templates that you can download for free. Even better, there’s no limit on what fonts you can use with Impress, so it’s easy to change the look of your presentation from what Powerpoint typically allows.

On the whole, LibreOffice Impress is about as close as it gets to simply replicating Microsoft Powerpoint for free.

Read our full LibreOffice review .

4. Google Slides

Google Slides is part of Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), and it does a nice job of matching a number of PowerPoint’s capabilities. This free presentation software supports embedding videos, creating diagrams, and adding animations to your slides. While the selection of templates is somewhat limited, you can easily import hundreds of additional templates for free or create your own.

Even better, Google Slides supports the collaboration tools users have come to expect from Google. Multiple people can work on a slideshow simultaneously, and there’s a built-in group chat so you can keep track of what everyone is doing. It’s also nice that you can play your presentation in presenter mode, which allows you to preview how it will look to your audience and rehearse timing.

The only downside to Google Slides is that bloated slideshows can experience some loading delays. Also beware that while you can move between Slides and Powerpoint, the conversion often messes with the layout of your slides.

Read our full Google Slides review .

5. WPS Office Free

WPS Office Free is a Microsoft Office look-alike that fully support PowerPoint files without any layout issues during import. The WPS Presentation tool has all of the same capabilities of PowerPoint, including tons of animations, slide transitions, content effects, and video embedding. The selection of included presentation templates is also very impressive for a free software.

One of the best things about this presentation software is that the user interface will feel incredibly familiar if you’re coming from Microsoft. All of the tools are displayed in a top ribbon, with your slides shown on the left side of the screen for easy navigation. It’s simple to display your presentation right from WPS Presentation, which means there’s no unexpected troubleshooting when it’s time to show off your work.

There’s not much to dislike about WPS Presentation. However, keep in mind that the software is supported by ads. Some users find the ads annoying, but they’re not overly in the way.

Read our full WPS Office Free review .

We've also featured the best free office software .

Best free presentation software FAQs

Which alternative to powerpoint is best for you.

When deciding which alternative to PowerPoint to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require.

How we test the best free presentation software

To test for the best free presentation software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .  

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Michael Graw is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review. 

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Record your presentation

You can record your PowerPoint presentation—or just a single slide—and capture voice, ink gestures, and your video presence. The completed recording is like any other presentation. You can play it for your audience in Slide Show or you can export it as a video file. So instead of just handing the deck to someone, people can see your presentation with all your passion and personality intact. 

Record is an improved version of Record Slide Show for PowerPoint for Windows. The feature replaces the older experience and provides enhanced capabilities for capturing your presentations for later viewing.

What's new?

New access points for recording a video of the presentation .

New features added for recording video

The new Record window has two screens: Record and Export .

When you select Record , the Record screen opens by default.

If you select Export in the top right of the Record screen, the Export screen opens.

You can switch between the Record and Export screens using the  Record  and Export  buttons in the top bar of the window. 

New features added to the Record window

You'll see the following new features in the Record window:

You can also use the seek bar to skip to any point while you're previewing the video on the current slide.

New Export window

The  Export  window is another change with the Record feature. After recording, you’ll be lead through instructions to create a shareable video file of your presentation. By default, the video is in Full HD 1080p resolution in an mp4 format and will be saved to the same location where the presentation is stored.

The exported video includes all recorded timings, narration, animations, transitions, media, ink, and laser pointer gestures. If there's no recorded timings for a slide in the presentation, the slide will be displayed for 5 seconds in the exported video by default. 

By default, the exported video has the same filename as the presentation, but you can create a unique filename for the exported video, if you want. 

Depending on the size of your presentation, it may take a few minutes to export. After the export starts, you can track its progress in the  Export  window. You can also exit the  Record  window and track the progress in the status bar in PowerPoint. 

The  Customize Export  button takes you to the backstage export menu to change resolution and time spent on each slide in the exported video. 

Recording tips

Recordings are added to the presentation on a per-slide basis. If you want to change a recording, you can re-record one or more slides. You can rearrange the order of slides in a recorded presentation without having to re-record anything. This also means it's easy to pause for a break while recording a presentation.

PowerPoint doesn't record audio or video during transitions between slides, so be sure not to narrate while advancing the slide. There's also a brief buffer of silence at the beginning and the end of each slide.

Use video preview to make sure everything is set up correctly before recording.

Presentation recording works best with touch-screen PCs that have a web camera but you can use an external webcam and/or microphone.

If you're using PowerPoint on a tablet or laptop and you're inking with a stylus, you can use an external camera and microphone to minimize stylus noise.

After you finish your first slide recording, play it back to make sure your audio and video are set up the way you expect.

You can adjust and edit the size of video and ink in edit view.

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