Microsoft PowerPoint is fantastic. There's a reason it's the standard presentation tool used in schools and businesses across the country:It's good, it's easy, it works, and it has lots of nifty features that make presentations simple 7 Tips for Creating Professional PowerPoint Templates 7 Tips for Creating Professional PowerPoint Templates No one benefits from a boring PowerPoint presentation. Use these tips to ensure your efforts always engage your audience. Read more.
But there are also reasons why you might not want to use it., The main reason is that you probably shouldn't buy Microsoft Office Don't Buy Office 2016! Here's why you don't need it Don't buy Office 2016! Why don't you need it? Should you buy the standalone suite version of Office 2016? We make our case for why we think you shouldn't and show you what you can do instead. Read More You'd be smarter to get an Office 365 subscription instead of an Introduction to Office 365:Should You Buy the New Office Business Model? An introduction to Office 365:Should you buy the new Office business model? Office 365 is a subscription-based suite that offers access to the latest Office desktop suite, Office Online, cloud storage, and premium mobile apps. Does Office 365 provide enough value to be worth the money? Read More
Why shell out cash when there are free alternatives? Mind you, none of these are that good Like PowerPoint, but many of them are good enough . And if you're in some sort of noncommercial environment, "good enough" should certainly be good enough.
LibreOffice it is the highest quality alternative to Microsoft Office that you will find today. It has improved a lot over the years, putting it on par with Microsoft Office in many ways. Is LibreOffice worthy of the Office crown? Is LibreOffice worthy of the office crown? LibreOffice is the king of free office suites. It's unlikely to replace Microsoft Office in a business environment, but it's a great alternative for casual users. This is what's new in LibreOffice 5.1. Read More Beyond PowerPoint:4 Linux Presentation Tools Beyond PowerPoint:4 Linux Presentation Tools Go beyond LibreOffice Impress, go beyond PowerPoint! Linux has plenty of options for presentations, and these lesser-known desktop apps are lightweight, powerful, and sure to surprise you with what they can do. Read more.
Impress It is the LibreOffice analog of Microsoft's PowerPoint. With it, you can create all kinds of slide-based multimedia presentations that can be viewed in a variety of ways:regular edition, outline mode, annotated slides, and even a booklet mode for printing paper presentations.
And yes, Impress supports all PowerPoint formats (PPS, PPT, PPTX) and also supports a handful of other formats and open standards.
You can also check out OpenOffice Impress, which is the original code base that was used to create LibreOffice Impress. OpenOffice is currently under Apache management, and although development is slower than LibreOffice, it is still a valid alternative.
Zoho it's another office suite in the vein of Microsoft and LibreOffice, but it's more like a medium for the two. It is not 100% free and open source, like LibreOffice, but it does come with a free option. If you want to unlock advanced features, you'll need to subscribe, just like with Office 365.
Zoho Show it's the presentation tool in this suite and it's a web application, so it's more similar to what you'd find with PowerPoint Online 10 Tips for Using PowerPoint Online 10 Tips for Using PowerPoint Online You can easily collaborate in real time with PowerPoint Online. Bring your PowerPoint experience to the web browser with these tips for better presentations. Read more . The beauty of this is that you can create, edit, and manage your presentations from anywhere with Internet access, and you can also collaborate in real time.
Not only can Zoho Show import half a dozen file formats (PPS, PPT, PPTX, PPSX, ODP, and SXI), but you can also be sure that each presentation format will remain true to the eye, no matter what format it's in. . use. No distorted designs or misaligned images.
Other features exist, such as the ability to publish presentations to the web, as well as the availability of Zoho mobile apps for Android and iOS [No Longer Available].
For people who need to give presentations from anywhere at any time How to Give a Presentation Online from Anywhere How to Give a Presentation Online from Anywhere Do you work with a global team or from home? The ability to give a presentation in real time is a professional necessity. Here are five tools to present from anywhere in the world. Read More , Google Slides It has been a solid answer for several years now. (Before 2012, it was known as Google Presentations.) As with Google Docs and Google Sheets, Google Slides is an online web application.
Slides it's 100% free, supports templates, lets you create/edit/manage from anywhere with internet access, comes with mobile apps for Android and iOS, supports real-time collaboration and annotation, and converts seamlessly back and forth with PowerPoint.
Although Slides may seem to have a lower development priority compared to Docs and Sheets, it is far from being abandoned. In fact, some of the best updates made by Google in 2016 Top Google Updates in 2016 You'll Want to Know Top Google Updates in 2016 You'll Want to Know About Google has made some changes to many of its Products in the last 4-5 months. We decided to round up some of the more useful ones you might want to know about. Read More
Highly recommended for anyone already integrated into the Google cloud environment. In other words, if you're already a heavy user of Google Drive 7 Tips and Tricks to Get the Most Out of Google Drive 7 Tips and Tricks to Get the Most Out of Google Drive Google Drive is a great service, but installing the Google Drive app and syncing some files is just the first step. These tricks will help you take advantage of Google Drive, both on the desktop... Read More Why not?
Maybe options like PowerPoint and Google Slides are too complex for what you need. Or maybe they are too traditional and stuffy. SlideDog is the presentation tool for anyone who wants an alternative that is modern, yet easy to use.
With SlideDog, you can take all kinds of media formats—images, videos, PDFs, websites, and even PowerPoint or Prezi files—and seamlessly stitch them together. It's perfect for simple, straightforward image-to-image presentations.
What's even better is that you can share your SlideDog presentation live and anyone can see it on the internet in real time. In fact, they can ask questions, comment on slides, and even vote in polls. It's an amazing way to get immediate feedback on what you've submitted.
The lite version of SlideDog is free indefinitely. Advanced features (for example, custom backgrounds, dual screen mode, vivas, and audience interaction) are $99 per year or a $249 lifetime single account.
Visme it's not a dedicated presentation tool, but you can certainly create presentations with it if you want. Visme's goal is to make it easy to translate ideas into engaging content:presentations, infographics, reports, and more.
Visme comes with its own online editor and hundreds of templates to get you started in just a few minutes. You can change everything (fonts, backgrounds, colors, images) and you can publish your results on the web, offline or even save them as a PDF.
The downside is that you can't import from PowerPoint or export to PowerPoint. Also, while anyone can publish online, free accounts can only download projects, as JPG:PNG, PDF, and HTML5 are for paying customers ($7 per month for Standard, $16 per month for Full).
Sozi is a unique free tool that doesn't use the slideshow concept that seems so fundamental to presentations. Rather, you are given a large canvas that you can design however you like, either by drawing or inserting content, and then transition from one area to another.
It's really cool once you try it. Is it professional grade? No not yet. You'd be better off using something like Adobe After Effects, if you wanted to do something like this on a professional scale, but for simple presentations, where dynamism is important, Sozi rocks.
These three web tools are actually independent and not linked to each other, but I'm grouping them together because they're all the same in one way:their free versions only allow public presentations that are posted online and searchable.
If you choose Haiku Deck , Prezi , or Slid.es , all you have to do is use the respective online editor to build your presentation. In the case of Haiku Deck, audience members can even view your presentation through a mobile app.
Obviously, these aren't the best options for business or private projects, but if you don't care if strangers can access your presentation or if you want strangers to see it - then these services can be quite useful.
You can always unlock private presentations by upgrading to a paid account, starting at $5 per month for Haiku Deck, $5 per month for Prezi, and $6 per month for Slid.es.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to Microsoft PowerPoint alternatives. LibreOffice It's probably the closest real clone you'll find, but Zoho Show and Google Slides they're great if you prefer a cloud-based tool over a desktop tool.
On the other hand, SlideDog , Visme , and Sozi they're intentionally designed to be different from traditional presentation software, and if you've always felt limited by options like PowerPoint, or if you've been looking for something more modern or modern, you'll probably love these.
Then you tell us:Which one do you like the most and why? What features do you consider most important for presentation software? Would you rather just shell out the money for PowerPoint? Share with us in the comments!
