The Five Best Tools for Creating Online Presentations
You don’t need to download an office suite to create great presentations for work, conversation, or study. There are many online options that work well from any computer with a web browser, whether it’s a desktop, a PC at work, or a laptop on the go. This week we’ll be taking a look at the top five.
There are many good reasons for choosing an online presentation app – in general, the best ones are either free or inexpensive, they store all of your data online so you can access it when you need it and you don’t have to wear it. bring your files or your computer to give a presentation – as long as there is a web browser you are heading into, you can perform flawlessly – assuming you know your material, of course – a great presentation is not just about slides. However, earlier this week, we asked you to share about the best tools for creating online presentations , and you’ve provided us with some great options. Here are your top five picks in no particular order.
Haiku deck
Haiku Deck was founded on the premise that simple, modern and elegant slide decks should be the norm, instead of being overly dense, hard to read and hard to read. Likewise, the service makes it easy to create such presentations thanks to its web app (and iPad app). The slides created with Haiku Deck focus on images and graphics, with a few words per slide, but you can customize your slideshows to best fit the story you’re trying to tell. You can see more than a few examples in the Haiku Deck Presenter Gallery , which gives you a quick idea of what your presentation might look like if you used the service. Haiku Deck is completely free and your account gives you access to over 35 million images and six presentation themes to choose from (additional premium themes and images available for purchase). You can also upload and use your own images for free, or import them from sites like Instagram, Flickr, Dropbox, Google+ Photos and more. The service also has built-in charting and graphing tools that you can use to display data.
Those of you who have nominated the Haiku Deck have supported it because it provides all the tools you need right at your fingertips to create great presentations. If you don’t know how to license images for use in public presentations, or music, or the only tool you’ve ever used is PowerPoint and you don’t want your slideshow to look like everyone else, Haiku Deck is it’s an elegant, easy-to-use alternative that handles the details for you. It has many presentation options and you can make your slideshow private, public, or limited to a few people. Many of you noted that this is great for people who just want a beautiful presentation but don’t want to spend all day creating it. Read more in the nomination thread here .
Prezi
Prezi isn’t just a great online presentation tool, it’s one of your favorite PowerPoint alternatives in general . The service made a splash when it launched many years ago because it gave users the ability to create dynamic, fluid, non-linear presentations with gorgeous animations and motion effects that add energy to the presentation that you wouldn’t get with a static series of one. slides after others. Of course, with its popularity came some overuse of these features as well, resulting in some equally gruesome presentations that zoomed in and blink across the screen, overusing motion effects to a dizzying degree. However, it is a very popular online tool that can be used for free for anyone looking to sign up. It is powerful in itself and allows you to visually show how ideas relate to each other, instead of just putting one idea after another. It is best used for non-linear presentations where you may need to go back to old themes, show how multiple themes are related, and show how details relate to the big picture. Prezi also allows you to make heavy use of images and media, graphs and charts, and other original details to truly personalize your presentation. Best of all, if you are working on a presentation with others, such as work or a cool project, you can let everyone collaborate on the presentation at the same time. As we mentioned, Prezi is free (but all your presentations will be visible to the public). Whether you need to use it for work, you need file storage, you need privacy, you want offline editing or you want more features, premium plans and discounts for students and teachers are available.
Those of you who have nominated and supported the Prezi nomination love that you can create and edit your presentations on any device using a browser, and that your work is instantly synced to other devices, including mobile devices. The Prezi Template and Media Library lets you find inspiration and use it in your presentation. It’s not ideal – many of you have shared your horror stories and praised the service as well, but overall, many of you appreciate Prezi’s ability to create unique and dynamic presentations that stray from traditional slides. Read more in the nomination thread here .
Google Slides
While other online presentation tools take a more dynamic approach and try to move away from the PowerPoint-style presentation style, Google Sides is adopting it – and that’s a good thing. If you’re already familiar with tools like PowerPoint and want something familiar yet simple and easy to use, Google Slides is the tool for you. In fact, we have to mention that this was another of your favorite PowerPoint alternatives . It has come a long way since its inception, but it has managed to combine a professional look and feel with some interesting and dynamic transitions, images, presentation themes and other tools that make it fun and refreshing to use. Like other Google Drive apps, Slides also allows you to collaborate in real time with other users, and everything is stored online, in Google Drive, so you can access it anytime, on any computer or device, or send it to everyone. who needs to see it. Slides also make it relatively easy to embed your own images, charts, graphs, videos, or any other type of media. Best of all, if you’re in the PowerPoint world, Slides lets you open, save, and convert PowerPoint files. Offline editing is part of the package, and best of all, it’s completely free. If you have a Google account, you already have access to it and you don’t need to register for anything else.
Those of you who nominated it noted that it is free, easy to use, and offers a set of features that rivals more complex tools, but the user interface makes things simple and easy to understand. It may not be flashy or dynamic, as some of you have pointed out, but it’s this simplicity that really makes it – and the presentations you create with it – stand out the way you want it to. You have more control and are not subject to anyone’s specific design preferences for transitions, styles, or slide themes. Others of you have praised Google Slides integration and mobile accessibility . Read more in the nomination thread here .
Reveal.js / Slides.com
If you like free open source presentation tools hosted online or in your own GitHub repository, Reveal.js and its online editor Slides.com are perfect for you. Reveal.js is a framework that lets you create robust slide decks and presentations using HTML or Markdown right in your browser, so you don’t need to download anything. The kit is remarkably sturdy and well built, not to mention simplicity and ease of use. It may seem like a developer’s dream presentation tool, but you don’t have to be one to make the most of it, or an online editor. Easily create animations, transitions, graphs and diagrams, or even upload and attach your own to your presentation. Reveal.js makes it easy to check these presentations on the go, on any device, or embed them in your blog or website so people can see them when they visit. Likewise, you can simply send the link to people to view your presentation, or save a PDF with all of your slideshow to stream that way. A lot of advanced features are also available – you can create presentations and keep them private, present your deck offline, control the presentation from your mobile device, sync your work with Dropbox if you choose, and much more. You can see a full list of features here , most of which are free, but some are only available with a Pro account – or with the option to fork your entire project and add or manage them yourself.
Those of you who have nominated Reveal.js and Slides.com commented on how well the tool is built and how easy it is to do things like nested slides, add speaker notes, and more, all while building and running the project yourself. it alone or with a free web app. Some of you have pointed out that the open JavaScript API allows developers to easily add their own functionality, let alone save their presentations anywhere. You can read more praise in his nominations thread here , here and here .
Keynote for iCloud
Keynote is best known for being Apple’s own presentation software, which is part of the iWork Productivity suite, but thanks to iWork for the iCloud Beta, Keynote is also available entirely online if you’re looking for a web presentation maker (and you have an Apple account and access to iWork.) The web version contains most of the same features as the desktop version. It can open PowerPoint files, use a variety of templates to make it easy to create a beautiful presentation from scratch, and also lets you upload and add your own media, diagrams, graphs, and other images if you don’t want to use site-created editors for them. If you like the transitions, styles, themes, and presentation types you’ve seen in Apple’s keynote speeches, or just want a beautiful alternative to something like PowerPoint, it’s worth taking a look if you have an iCloud account. All of your presentations are saved in iCloud and are available on your other Apple devices (and Windows PCs). Likewise, you can deliver presentations from any computer with a web browser, which is very important in order to be a good online presentation tool.
For those of you who have nominated Keynote, it was remembered that it was a presentation tool built specifically for Apple’s keynote speeches during the Jobs era, and a breath of fresh air in a PowerPoint-based world when it came to business presentations when it launched. … The ability to work and present from iOS devices or other devices is also a welcome addition, and the online editing tools also make it easy on your Apple computer or Windows PC. Plus, it’s completely free. It’s worth mentioning, however, that the service is technically in beta and Apple may end support or impose restrictions on it at any time. Read more in the nomination thread here .
Now that you’ve seen the top 5, it’s time to put them to a vote to determine the community favorite!
No honorable mentions this week, although some of you have expressed interest in Microsoft Office Sway , a new product that Microsoft recently announced, and they hope it ultimately will completely change the way you create online presentations and multimedia . However, it is still new, so it remains to be seen whether it will supplant other products, grow on its own, or, as some say, save PowerPoint from its troubles.
Do you have anything to say about one of the applicants? Want to substantiate your personal favorite even if it wasn’t on the list? Remember, the Top 5 is based on your most popular nominations from the Call for Applicants thread earlier this week . Don’t just complain about the top 5, let us know which option you like best and justify it in the discussions below.