Web Application and Grade Students Upload Video Presentations

If you've e'er had to present a product, host a webinar, or do whatever kind of public speaking, chances are you lot made a slideshow to go on with your presentation. The practiced news: many of the presentation apps bachelor today offer huge improvements on the old standbys y'all're used to.

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The latest presentation apps have made it easier than always to format slides and create professional-looking slideshows without giving off a "this is a template" vibe. Fifty-fifty PowerPoint alternatives like Google Slides have updated key features to get in easier than ever to interact and create presentations quickly, so you can spend more time prepping for your actual presentation.

The newest crop of online presentation tools likewise get beyond the classic slideshow experience, with new features to go along your audience's attention, streamline the cosmos process with AI, and turn slide decks into videos and conversations.

We tested more than twenty of the acme presentation software solutions out in that location to bring you the best of the best.

The best presentation software in 2021

• Google Slides for collaborating on presentations

• Canva for a free presentation app

• Ludus for artistic presentations

• Beautiful.ai for AI-powered presentations

• Prezi for not-linear, conversational presentations

• Powtoon for video presentations

• Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

• PowerPoint for Microsoft users

What makes a smashing presentation app?

How we evaluate and exam apps

All of our best apps roundups are written past humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing almost software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to exist used and evaluating information technology against the criteria we ready for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to whatever 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, we wanted utility players since slideshows are used for just about everything, from pitch decks and product launches to course lectures and church building sermons. With that in mind, hither'south what we were looking for:

• Pre-congenital templates: The all-time apps should have attractive, professional-looking templates to build presentations in a hurry.

• Sharing and collaboration options: More people are working remotely. Whether you program to share your webinar slides afterwards, or you just want to collaborate with a coworker on a presentation, it should be easy to share files and collaborate in existent-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, only you shouldn't have to bosom your upkeep to make it happen. With capable free tools on the market, affordability is a tiptop consideration.

The best presentation app for collaborating on presentations

Google Slides (Web, iOS, Android)

Google Slides—role of the Google Workspace family of apps—is a traditional presentation app designed around collaboration. Information technology works much like PowerPoint and other presentation apps you lot've used in the past, but Google Slides runs in your browser, for costless. Select a theme for the slideshow, then add standard slide layouts and insert text, graphics, and slide transitions from the menus.

Within its presenter view, Google Slides has a cracking Q&A tool to make your presentation more interactive. Plough information technology on, and it'll add a banner with a link to the top of your presentation. People can visit that link to enquire questions in a separate window and upvote other people's questions. Hosts volition run into incoming questions through a separate tab inside the presenter view.

Google Slides really shines when it comes to collaboration. Share a link to your presentation, and anyone yous want can add together details to your slides, write presentation notes, and annihilation else you want in your presentation. Add comments, like to Google Docs, to share feedback. Y'all can track changes with Google Slides' detailed revision log, so you don't have to worry nigh a coworker messing with that nautical chart you painstakingly created. Information technology's one of the best means to collaborate on a presentation.

An added bonus: Google Slides integrates with Zapier, so yous tin can exercise things similar update charts based on form responses or new spreadsheet rows, or even customize a template when you win a new deal in your CMS.

Google Slides Price: Gratis

The best free presentation app

Canva (Web, Windows, Mac, Android, iOS)

Canva offers i of the most robust gratis plans of all the presentation apps we tested. The app delays account creation until afterward you've created your first design, so you lot 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 likewise far and been bumped to the side by side slide will appreciate Canva's editor interface, which eliminates that problem altogether with a smooth scroll that doesn't jump effectually. Cull from a handful of preset animations to add life to your presentations, or scan the library of sound and video files available to add.

Present directly from Canva and let audience members submit their questions via Canva Alive. In one case you share a link to invite audience members to your presentation, they can send questions for you to reply. As the presenter, you lot'll see them pop up in your presenter view window, so you can go along the audition engaged and your presentation articulate.

Canva Pricing: Complimentary plan available; Pro plans start at $nine.99/calendar month and include additional features like Make Kit and custom design templates.

The all-time presentation app for creators

Ludus (Web)

Ludus is for creative folks who find presentation apps to be limiting and want their slideshow to be a work of art.

Ludus actually shines with its third-party integrations. You lot name information technology, they've got it: from YouTube and GIPHY to Google Fonts and Figma, so y'all tin can pull content from other sources to create a stunning presentation.

Graphic designers volition especially love Ludus. You lot can edit and break autonomously SVG files, upload your ain font files, or even re-create and paste files from Sketch and Adobe Illustrator. There are also some pretty advanced features that whatsoever web designer or illustrator would be familiar with, similar gradients and code blocks, making this a good option for graphic designers, fine art directors, UX designers, and the like. But you don't have to be a Photoshop pro to use these features; Ludus starts new users off with a guided tutorial, which gently introduces some of its more complex features.

Paid plans allow yous to countersign-protect your presentations, use a remote control, share and collaborate as a team, and even embed on Medium and Notion.

Ludus Toll: Gratis 30-day trial; from $14.99/calendar month (billed annually) for the Solo program with access to all features, unlimited presentations, and unlimited storage.

The all-time presentation app for AI-powered presentations

Beautiful.ai (Web, Mac, Windows)

If you're like me, editing granular spacing issues is the absolute worst office of building a presentation. Beautiful.ai uses artificial intelligence to have a lot of the hassle and granular blueprint requirements out of the presentation process, so you can focus on the content of a presentation without sacrificing professional design. Look at the GIF above as an example: when you drag an element toward a specific surface area of the slide, it'll automatically drop it into place for you.

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

With ten themes, several templated slides, over twoscore fully-designed templates, and 23 different colour palettes to choose from, Cute.ai strikes a perfect residuum betwixt automation and customization.

While traditional collaboration features are express on the gratuitous plan, paid plans are reasonably priced and offer sharing and collaboration options that rival collab-focused apps similar Google Slides. And speaking of Google, you lot can connect Beautiful.ai with Google Bulldoze to save all your presentations there.

Beautiful.ai Toll: Free for unlimited slides, 60+ "Smart Slide Templates," collaboration features, and more. Paid plans start at $12/month and include revision history, secure sharing, and whitelabeling.

The all-time presentations app for conversational presentations

Prezi (Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android)

Struggling to squeeze information into a basic, linear presentation? Give Prezi a endeavour. Dissimilar nearly all other presentation apps on the market, Prezi Present doesn't restrict the construction 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 than conversational flow of data.

With the structural flexibility, you nevertheless get nevertheless customization features you lot expect from top presentation software, including fully-editable templates.

Plus, Prezi comes with two other apps: Prezi Design and Prezi Video. Prezi Video helps you have remote presentations to a new level. Using the desktop app, you tin can record a video where the presentation elements are displayed correct over your webcam feed. Record and save the video to share afterwards, or connect with your video conferencing tool of choice (including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and more) to present alive.

Prezi Pricing: Gratuitous xiv-day trial and a costless programme that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans first at $5/month.

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (Web, iOS, Android)

Powtoon makes it piece of cake to create engaging videos past orienting the editor around a slide deck. Editing a Powtoon feels just like editing a presentation, just past the time you lot finish, you lot accept a professional person video.

Yous can edit your slides at whatever time, and when you hit play, a video plays through your deck—the feel is well-nigh like an blithe explainer video. Each slide includes the animations yous choose and takes upwardly equally much time every bit is needed based on the content on the slide. Powtoon figures the timing automatically, and you can see in the bottom-correct of the editor how much time is used on your current slide versus the total presentation. If you ever want to present every bit a slide deck, only toggle between Slideshow and Movie.

You'll probable need to subscribe to a paid plan to go the near out of Powtoon—like creating videos longer than 3 minutes, downloading them as MP4 files, and whitelabeling your presentations—but doing and so won't break the banking concern. Plus, y'all'll unlock tons of templates consummate with animations and soundtracks.

One of our favorite Powtoon features is the ability to orient your video: you tin can cull horizontal orientation (similar a normal presentation) or opt for vertical (for mobile) or foursquare (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: Express free plan bachelor; Pro plans start at $19/month and include whitelabeling, priority back up, additional storage, and more than.

The all-time presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (Spider web)

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 diverseness of interactive buttons enable you to show viewers additional context on hover, skip to whatsoever page of your deck, and navigate to external links.

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

Our favorite feature is the brand settings. Premium users can set universal branding guidelines that include your logo, color scheme, fonts, images, backgrounds, and more. Think of them like a custom template, created and customized by yous, that the whole team can employ. Once set, your squad can hands create on-brand presentations that automatically apply your brand settings, without even thinking near information technology.

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

Genially Pricing: Gratis plan bachelor with unlimited creations and views and access to templates; paid plans start at $7.49/month and include additional download options, offline viewing, advanced collaboration features, and more.

The best presentation app for Microsoft users

Microsoft PowerPoint (Web, Windows, Android, iOS)

Full transparency: Microsoft PowerPoint wouldn't make the cut for this list on its own. Simply for those who can access it for free on their Microsoft devices or with an existing Microsoft 365 subscription, it's a perfectly capable pick.

The OG of presentation software, PowerPoint enables you to do merely about anything you need to build a basic presentation. Y'all tin can choose from about a dozen templates, with more than advanced designs available with Premium subscriptions.

Bank check out Design Ideas afterwards adding your content to see layout and formatting options for the slide, recommended by "Office intelligent services." While this feature isn't truly AI-powered, it does arrive quick to run into how different layouts and designs volition wait with your content. Y'all tin can besides add temporary markups to slides every bit you present: your audience will encounter them, but they won't be permanently added to the slide.

Microsoft 365 subscriptions include access to both the desktop and web versions of PowerPoint, so you can create anywhere, with or without a download.

PowerPoint Pricing: Both the spider web and desktop versions are included with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, which start at $5/user/month for Business Basic or $69.99/year for one personal license. The desktop version is included for free on Microsoft devices.

This post was originally published in Oct 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez.

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Source: https://zapier.com/blog/best-powerpoint-alternatives/

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