presentation apps for pc

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An integrated suit of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI.

Tell impactful stories, with Google Slides

Create, present, and collaborate on online presentations in real-time and from any device.

For my personal use
For work or my business

Jeffery Clark

T h i s c h a r t h e l p s b r i d g i n g t h e s t o r y !

E s t i m a t e d b u d g e t

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.

Design slides faster, with built-in intelligence

Make slides faster, with built-in intelligence

Assistive features like Smart Compose and autocorrect help you build slides faster with fewer errors.

Stay productive, even offline

You can access, create, and edit Slides even without an internet connection, helping you stay productive from anywhere.

Security, compliance, and privacy

Secure by default

We use industry-leading security measures to keep your data safe, including advanced malware protections. Slides is also cloud-native, eliminating the need for local files and minimizing risk to your devices.

Encryption in transit and at rest

All files uploaded to Google Drive or created in Slides are encrypted in transit and at rest.

Compliance to support regulatory requirements

Our products, including Slides, regularly undergo independent verification of their security, privacy, and compliance controls .

Private by design

Slides adheres to the same robust privacy commitments and data protections as the rest of Google Cloud’s enterprise services .

You control your data.

We never use your slides content for ad purposes., we never sell your personal information to third parties., find the plan that’s right for you, google slides is a part of google workspace.

Every plan includes

Collaborate from anywhere, on any device

Access, create, and edit your presentations wherever you are — from any mobile device, tablet, or computer — even when offline.

Get a head start with templates

Choose from a variety of presentations, reports, and other professionally-designed templates to kick things off quickly..

Photo Album

Book Report

Visit the Slides Template Gallery for more.

Ready to get started?

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, our pick for the best free presentation app

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, our pick for the best presentation software for collaborating with your team

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.

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A Zap with the trigger 'When I get a new lead from Facebook,' and the action 'Notify my team in Slack'

by Alexandra Vazquez

In this post

Renderforest
Beautiful.ai
Personify Presenter

Let me just go ahead and shaaaaare myyyy screeeeen…

Ok great. Can everyone see this? Today, I’ll be presenting about the best free presentation software for 2022.

We’ve all been there: struggling to put together the perfect slides for a really important meeting or school project. Bringing a visual aid to the table is necessary to keep your audience engaged.

But finding the right place to build your presentation is challenging. Are there templates? Are there customization tools? How much is this going to cost me?

You can use presentation software to create interactive slide decks to elevate your message. Presentation software allows users to build dynamic slides , stay brand consistent, and utilize other forms of media like images and videos. These presentations can be made even more interactive when integrated with audience response systems to construct live polls and quizzes and video conferencing software to make everything digitally seamless.

Free trials and free basic plans make upgrading your presentations a little easier on the bank. You can start building virtual presentations, adding immersive elements like animations and live participation tools, and collecting audience analytics – without spending a dime.

What are the best free presentation software solutions for 2022?

DocSend
Powtoon
Vyond
Personify Presenter

Best free presentation solutions

Whether you're creating an instructional onboarding deck or showing off your latest metrics in a team meeting, there is a free presentation solution to fit your needs and wants.

The list below contains real user reviews from the best presentation software category. It’s important to note that in the context of this list, vendors that offer a free trial are also considered to be free .

To be included in this category, a software must:

Provide tools for building presentation slides
Offer slide templates and themes
Utilize unique slide animations and transitions
Allow for users to embed text, audio, images, and videos within the presentation

*This data was pulled from G2 on April 4, 2022. Some reviews may have been edited for clarity.

DocSend by Dropbox helps companies create and maintain presentations and other important documents. DocSend’s free trial allows users to increase file security, share content within their organization, and track link analytics.

What users like:

"DocSend is simply a better way to share content with prospective clients, from documents and presentations to video clips and proposals. Prospective clients like the organized access to relevant content. It's quickly become a critical resource for us.”

What users dislike:

“Once you erase a version, you lose all the insights on it. It would be better to have a deposit of everyone reviewing the deck or document and improved version management.”

2. Renderforest

Renderforest is an all-in-one platform that brings presentations to life with graphics, videos, and animations. A free Renderforest plan allows for unlimited mockups, access to over 200,000 stock videos, and free subdomains.

“Renderforest is one of the best online video software for any of my video projects. Whether it’s an animation, intro project, corporate presentation, or slideshow, Renderforest gives you user-friendly templates that are customizable, and the final product is very professionally done. Since using this platform, the amount of commendation that my projects have received is overwhelming.”

- Renderforest Review , Sherdon F.

“I would like to see more templates and more flexibility in Renderforest.”

Powtoon is a visual communication platform that allows users to animate their presentations. Powtoon offers access to hundreds of presentation templates, brand-consistent slides, and shareable folders with paid options and a free plan.

“The best thing about Powtoon is the user interface. It’s super intuitive and the professionally designed template library is feature-rich with scenes, characters, props, background music, and much more.”

- Powtoon Review , Zuber A.

“The free properties are unique but very limited. It would be great if they added more.”

4. Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai has smart templates to make presentation building a breeze. The Beautiful.ai paid plan options include onboarding guides, collaborative workspaces, viewer analytics, and more. Their free trial lets users get a taste of everything they offer.

“Beautiful.ai makes creating presentations easy. Just finished your slide and want to add another point? Not a problem: you can easily add a bullet or object or chart, and the whole slide magically moves around and realigns for you.”

- Beautiful.ai Review , Anne-Marie M.

“There’s a small learning curve when getting started on the platform. Because the design is automated, some people have trouble with the minor limitations around customization. Be patient and explore the platform in its entirety. Eventually, you'll see that the limitations are extremely helpful in creating congruency and professionalism in your presentations.”

emaze gives users the tools they need to automate the digital presentation building process. The emaze free basic plan includes unlimited PowerPoint importation, widgets, embedding, graphs, contact lists, audience analytics, and more.

“I love the ease of use with emaze, with an added professional look with extra flair. Every template is different, and there are templates for every topic you can think of. The ease of use and editing helps from year to year when I update the same topic.”

- emaze Review , Dianna W.

“I wish there were more templates available for those who are not as creative as others. In addition, when presenting, I wish the bar at the bottom would disappear so that people can’t see how much of the presentation is left.”

RELAYTO is a document experience platform for creating immersive presentations. RELAYTO has sharing, embedding, converting, and auto-generating tools. Qualified users can enjoy these features for free.

“My experience with RELAYTO has been truly eye-opening. The ability to add depth and dimension to presentations truly elevates our status in the eyes of prospects and clients as a company that brings professionalism and real value to them. We know how great our solutions and client services are, yet using other platforms doesn't do the job of conveying that to the client as RELAYTO does.”

- RELAYTO Review , Mike R.

“I have only ever designed for print, so there's a bit of a learning curve, but their support is top-notch. You can book a consultation with an expert on how you want to use the platform. Once over that curve, the results are remarkable.”

Vyond elevates presentations with video. With Vyond, presenters can utilize video animations, character creation, and social media sharing capabilities. Users can sign up for a free trial to see if Vyond is the right fit.

“Vyond is really easy to learn, making it a great tool for our onboarding team members to learn and use right away. There is a low barrier for entry for new users, so we can rely on Vyond as a useful and result-oriented tool that our new team members can start using right away.”

- Vyond Review , Samantha L.

“The objects available in the Vyond library are not fully customizable, plus the library is small. You may not always be able to find what you’re looking for. Adding a feature in which users can customize those objects would be a solution to this.”

Knovio is a smart platform for creating on-demand videos and presentations. It offers tools for adding video and audio narration to presentation slides, sharing content collections, and analyzing viewer engagement. The free lite version of Knovio lets users test drive some of these features.

“Knovio has come quite a long way since I first used it. I love how responsive the company has been to improvement suggestions. I also love that you can edit your recording and replace slides.”

“The analytics are powerful; however, I feel creating custom reports could be improved.”

- Knovio Review , Tim D.

9. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is an audience engagement platform with tools to build interactive presentations, compile data from live polls, and collect insights about user participation. The Mentimeter free plan offers unlimited audiences and presentations.

“Any presentation created with Mentimeter looks professional and presentable. Mentimeter takes care of the design aspect for you. It's straightforward and extremely easy to use. It's also flexible - I've used Mentimeter for live surveys, quizzes, and training. They've got excellent customer support, too. ”

- Mentimeter Review , Haley S.

“At times, Mentimeter can feel a bit overly simplistic or repetitive. Most Mentimeter presentations tend to look very similar, and the engagement tools are limited to a degree.”

10. Personify Presenter

Personify Presenter is an online platform for integrating audio and video into presentations. It offers tools for recording, live editing, file uploading, and writing for seamless presenting. A 30-day free trial lets users give Presenter a try.

“It’s one of the best presenter tools for business presentations. It consists of preset themes and fonts. It also has a library of images and GIFs which can be added to the slides. The notes function only displays to the presenter of the slides which helps them recall the content if necessary.”

- Personify Presenter Review , Kumar A.

“It doesn't recognize boundaries too well, and the video resolution is a little low compared to HD.”

Next slide, please!

Before you deliver project metrics or show your students what the lesson has in store for them today, consider whether automating your presentation could boost the message. No matter your skill level, presentation software gives you the tools you need to create a unique presentation experience and upgrade the way you share.

If you have any questions, make sure to drop them in the chat.

Ready to unmute and wow your audience? Find out how you can elevate a virtual presentation and bring your content to life.

The (slide) show must go on!

Create interactive slides, embed multimedia, utilize smart templates, and improve participation in a new way with presentation software.

Alexandra Vazquez is a Senior Content Marketing Specialist at G2. She received her Business Administration degree from Florida International University and is a published playwright. Alexandra's expertise lies in writing for the Supply Chain and Commerce personas, with articles focusing on topics such as demand planning, inventory management, consumer behavior, and business forecasting. In her spare time, she enjoys collecting board games, playing karaoke, and watching trashy reality TV.

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Best presentation software of 2024

Make perfect slides for speeches and talks

Best overall

Best for branding, best for marketing, best for themes, best for media, best unique.

How we test

The best presentation software makes it simple and easy to create, manage, and share slideshow presentations.

A person setting up files to import into Powerpoint.

1. Best overall 2. Best for branding 3. Best for marketing 4. Best for themes 5. Best for media 6. Best unique 7. FAQs 8. How we test

Presentation software runs at the heart of business sales, management, and development, so it's important to ensure you have the best presentation software for your needs. This is especially when looking to share ideas, concepts, and workflows, and the ability to present these in a simple and understandable way is essential.

However, while presentation software has been traditionally limited to text and images, it has widened its ability to work with different media such as video and audio .

Therefore it's important for the best presentation software to not simply be easy and simple to use, but also be able to support additional media so that presentations can be more engaging, lively, and ultimately serve their purpose in educating and updating their intended audience.

Below we've listed the best presentation software currently on the market.

We've also listed the best free presentation software .

The best office software in the world is: Microsoft 365

<a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X363&xcust=hawk-custom-tracking&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fproducts.office.com%2Fen-us%2Fcompare-all-microsoft-office-products%3Ftab%3D2&sref" data-link-merchant="SkimLinks - office.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> The best office software in the world is: Microsoft 365 There are many different office software suites out there, but Microsoft Office remains the original and best, offering an unsurpassed range of features and functionality that rivals just can't match.

Even better, <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X363&xcust=hawk-custom-tracking&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fproducts.office.com%2Fen-us%2Fcompare-all-microsoft-office-products%3Ftab%3D2&sref" data-link-merchant="SkimLinks - office.com"" data-link-merchant="SkimLinks - office.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Microsoft 365 - previously branded as Office 365 - is a cloud-based solution which means you can use it on any computer, mobile device, or smartphone, without having to worry about compatibility. All your files are saved in the cloud and synced between devices, so you can begin work on a document at home or in the office, then continue working on it on the go.

<a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X363&xcust=hawk-custom-tracking&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fproducts.office.com%2Fen-us%2Fcompare-all-microsoft-office-products%3Ftab%3D2&sref" data-link-merchant="SkimLinks - office.com"" data-link-merchant="SkimLinks - office.com"" data-link-merchant="SkimLinks - office.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> You can sign up to Microsoft 365 here .

The best presentation software of 2024 in full:

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1. PowerPoint

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

For most people, Microsoft 's PowerPoint remains the original and best of all the presentation software platforms out there. While other companies have managed to catch up and offer rival products worthy of consideration, the fact is that PowerPoint's familiar interface and ubiquitous availability means it remains a favorite for the majority of people.

On the one hand, it's long been a staple of the hugely popular Microsoft Office suite, meaning that for most users this is going to be the first - and last - presentation software they are going to need to use.

Additionally, Microsoft has made PowerPoint, along with their other office products, available as free apps (with limited functionality) on both iOS and Android for mobile use, meaning it's even harder to avoid them. And this is before we even consider the inclusion of PowerPoint in Microsoft's cloud-based Microsoft 365.

It does everything necessary that you'd expect of presentation software, allowing you to add text and media to a series of slides, to accompany a talk and other presentations. There are easy-to-use templates included to help spice things up a little, but even a general user with little experience of it is likely to find themselves able to use PowerPoint without much trouble at all.

Overall, it's hard to go wrong with PowerPoint, and although Microsoft 365 has a nominal cost, the apps are free to use even if they do have more limited functionality.

Read our full Microsoft PowerPoint review .

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2. CustomShow

Reasons to avoid.

Branding says a lot about a business, and it’s something firms need to get right from day one – from a good logo to a suitable font. CustomShow is business presentation software that puts all these elements of branding first.

Using the system, you can design and present customized, branded presentations that reflect your company and the products you offer, featuring the aforementioned logo and custom fonts. As well as this, you get a slide library and analytics to ensure your presentations are a success.

What’s more, you can import presentations into the software, and use it to tweak them further. There’s also integration with SalesForce , and because the platform is cloud-based, you can access your presentations on computers, tablets, and smartphones.

Considering the focus on branding, this offering could be good for marketing and sales teams, and it's used by major companies such as HBO and CBS Interactive.

3. ClearSlide

Just like CustomShow, ClearSlide has a niche focus for companies. The platform is targeted at firms looking to generate successful marketing campaigns, pushing sales via presentations (and more), not least through a range of analytics and metrics to work for sales and marketing.

With the product, you can upload a range of files, including PowerPoint, Keynote, PDF, and Excel. ClearSlide is integrated with other platforms, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Salesforce.

This system is pretty complex and may offer too many irrelevant features for some businesses, but you can create customized content that reflects your company and the message you’re trying to get out to customers. There are also some good metrics and analysis features, and you can sign up for a free trial before making any decisions.

The real strength of ClearSlide comes from its focus on sales and marketing data, not least being able to track user engagement alongside other metrics.

4. Haiku Deck

Any presentation app will allow you to personalize your slides to at least some extent, but Haiku Deck goes one step further than the competition. It comes with a wide range of themes suited to different needs, and you also get access to 40 million free images from the Creative Commons collection.

When it comes to creating a presentation, you have the option to do so on the web, which means your presentation is accessible across a range of mobile devices as well as desktops. Regardless of the device used, you’re able to select from a variety of different fonts, layouts, and filters to make the perfect presentation.

The great thing about these various customization options is that they’re categorized into different industries and use cases. For instance, you’ll find themes for teaching, cooking, real estate, and startups. Most of the features require you to be online, but hopefully, you’ll have a sturdy net connection wherever you go.

5. SlideDog

It’s all too easy to end up creating a presentation that’s unappealing, and the last thing you want to do is make the audience fall asleep. SlideDog lets you combine almost any type of media to create a rich presentation that’s sure to keep the viewers’ peepers open, avoiding the ‘cookie cutter’ look that makes presentations seem dull.

Marketed as a web-based multimedia presentation tool, it gives you the ability to combine PowerPoint presentations, graphics, PDF files, Prezi presentations, web pages, pictures, videos, and movie clips. You can drag these into custom playlists and display them to your audience with ease.

You’re able to remotely control your presentations and playlists from your smartphone, the web, or a secondary computer, and there’s also the option to share slides in real-time. Audience members can even view your slide from their own devices by clicking a link. That’s a handy feature if you’re looking to create an immersive presentation experience.

SlideDog is probably the cheapest of the presentation software featured, with a free account that will cover the essential features. However, for live sharing and premium support, you need to upgrade.

Read our full SlideDog review .

Prezi is one of the more unique presentation tools. Instead of presenting your graphics and text in a slide-to-slide format, you can create highly visual and interactive presentation canvases with the goal of “emphasizing the relationship between the ideas”.

Presentations can also be tailored to the specific audience, as this is a flexible platform that’s capable of skipping ahead, or veering off into a side topic, without having to flip through all the slides to get to a particular bit.

For business users, there are a variety of handy tools available. By downloading Prezi , you can build and edit presentations with your colleagues in real-time, which is perfect for companies with teams based around the globe.

When you have created a presentation you’re happy with, you can present it live (in HD) and send a direct link to viewers. There are some analysis tools here, too – you can see who’s accessed your presentation, which parts of it, and for how long. The app is available for Mac and Windows devices.

Read our full Prezi review .

Presentation software FAQs

Which presentation software is best for you.

When deciding which presentation software 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 for your presentation needs.

How we tested the best presentation software

To test for the best 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 .

We've also featured the best alternatives to Microsoft Office .

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Nicholas Fearn is a freelance technology journalist and copywriter from the Welsh valleys. His work has appeared in publications such as the FT, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, The Next Web, T3, Android Central, Computer Weekly, and many others. He also happens to be a diehard Mariah Carey fan!

Jonas P. DeMuro

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Best Presentation Software of 2024

Table of Contents

Best Presentation Software
Things To Consider When Buying
How We Chose

Everyone has a message to share in some form. With presentation software, you can communicate that message a little easier and with more spark. If you don't have design and animation skills, don't worry; apps like Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint make it easy to craft a slideshow that helps people understand the concepts you're trying to convey.

Many of the apps in this buyers' guide are geared toward business presentations since that is often the primary use case. However, a few provide some slick tools for educators, entrepreneurs, community groups, and even family members to make a photo slideshow for a family reunion. Read on for the best presentation software available today.

Best Overall: Google Slides »
Most Compatible: Microsoft PowerPoint »
Best For Mac Users: Apple Keynote »
Most Flexible: Prezi »
Best Budget: Visme »
Best For Entrepreneurs: Slidebean »
Most Powerful: Canva »

Best Overall: Google Slides

Highly integrated With Other Apps

Totally free

Not integrated with Microsoft products

Minimal support

When Google Slides debuted in 2006, it took the world by storm. That’s because it was integrated even back then with Gmail, Google Docs, and other popular Google apps many of us use in business, at school, and in our personal lives.

Google Slides is entirely free, and there are no hidden costs or upgrade plans. What’s surprising, though, about Google Slides is that it is a highly capable app for presentations – easy to use, with plenty of templates, fonts, animation options, and integrations.

Apart from that, the key feature here is real-time collaboration. Other users can join you as you create and edit slides. They can comment and make suggested changes, or simply start editing the slides on their own. (You can decide if other users can suggest changes or make them directly.) You also can view speaker notes on a laptop when you run the slideshow on an HDTV or projector. Google Slides integrates nicely into the online meeting app Google Meet, and it can open Microsoft PowerPoint files and export in that format as well.

Overall, Google Slides wins extra points because of how intuitive it is. There’s hardly any learning curve with the app, and since it runs in a browser window, everything you create and edit will be saved automatically. For business users, teachers, or just about anyone in a hurry to share a complex message, creating a Google Slides presentation is a snap – which is why it is our overall top pick.

Specifications:

Operating systems are supported: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android, Linux
Number of templates and designs available: 23
Integrated apps: Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox, Box, LumApps
Collaboration features: Live editing, suggested edits
Multimedia supported: Photos, videos, audio, GIFs, and stickers
Export options: PDF, PowerPoint, Webpage, JPEG
Customer support options: Google Workspace only
Added features: Google Duet AI
Interface enhancements: Real-time editing and collaboration

Most Compatible: Microsoft PowerPoint

Highly compatible

Online and desktop versions

Easy to use

No free version

Templates are not as trendy

Microsoft PowerPoint is the app you want for compatibility with other apps and programs. Released in 1990, this presentation app is well-known in business circles and runs on just about any computer in the world. Because it’s so compatible, you will likely not have any trouble running the app on your phone or a tablet, in a browser, or even on seriously outdated PC laptops and desktops.

While apps like Prezi add slick animations and transitions that make a presentation come to life, PowerPoint is more like a trusted business partner; it works on just about any computer, the interface is well-known and straightforward, and it’s likely that everyone you know and collaborate with is already familiar with the app. Every other presentation app we reviewed also supports PowerPoint in terms of directly opening or importing the file, and exporting as a PowerPoint file.

You'll need a Microsoft 365 Personal Edition subscription to use PowerPoint. It may be an app that’s already installed and included with a new computer, at least for a trial period.

Operating systems are supported: Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android
Integrated apps: Adobe PDF, Shutterstock, YouTube, and many others
Multimedia supported: Photos, videos, audio
Export options: PowerPoint, XML, PDF, JPEG, and many more
Customer support options: Personal or business support
Added features: Integrated live camera, Microsoft Teams integration
Interface enhancements: Microsoft Copilot, speaker coach

Best For Mac Users: Apple Keynote

Exceptional designs

Desktop only

Graphic designers love Apple Keynote, mostly because the included templates and design options are so stellar. Your presentation will really come to life, helping you communicate about even complex subjects with flair and a trendy look.

Using the app feels a bit like you're the late Steve Jobs creating an award-winning presentation that will grab an audience. Jobs had a way of captivating those in the audience, and Keynote helps you do that with some of the best presentation templates around. For example, there are 40 templates to choose from, many of them full of color and using the trendiest fonts. Keynote also includes 100 transitions and animations to liven up a presentation. The app also includes 700 different shapes and icons that will help you enhance your slides.

Apple Keynote is powerful enough for any user, but it’s important to know the limitations. For starters, Keynote only runs on Mac computers. That makes it less compatible with Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. You can export the presentation from Keynote as a PowerPoint file, which is fine, but it means no one can edit the Keynote slides directly; they will have to use PowerPoint.

Keynote also only runs as a desktop app. That means you won’t benefit from the live editing and commenting features of Google Slides, where you can collaborate with anyone in real time on the same file. Instead, Keynote is more static, as slideshows can't be edited as a group in a browser window. It’s still incredibly powerful and intuitive but with a few key downsides.

Operating systems are supported: Mac, iOS
Number of templates and designs available: 50
Integrated apps: FaceTime, WebEx, Zoom, iCloud
Collaboration features: Collaborate through iCloud
Multimedia supported: Video, audio, images, 3D objects, stickers
Export options: PDF, PowerPoint, Movies, animated GIFs, images
Customer support options: Online help, support communities
Added features: Cinematic transitions, Keynote Remote on iPhone
Interface enhancements: Inspectors help with formatting

Most Flexible: Prezi

Unique concept

Trendy visuals

Unique design templates

Harder to learn

There’s something very compelling about Prezi, the presentation app that provides the most flexibility in terms of the message you are communicating. For starters, this is an app that knows it’s all about the message, whether you're an educator, business owner, entrepreneur, or even a scientist or engineer. Instead of a slideshow, you create a “canvas” with topics and subtopics. Think of it as a way to augment what you are saying with animated annotations, swoosh effects, and charts.

Prezi is the best at guiding you to the most powerful design features and giving you the tools to make even a complex subject more interesting and easier to understand. Part of this extreme flexibility has to do with how you're not creating slides at all, but enhancing a topic. Another way to think of Prezi is more like an animated whiteboard; when you show a presentation, it can come to life as you speak through a webcam.

All of this flexibility means you aren't limited to a boring slideshow, although there may be times when you are asked to make a slideshow and nothing more. For example, a school assignment or a boss might dictate that you need to create basic slides, not an animated whiteboard session. This is where you have to decide if Prezi matches the goals of the message you are communicating about.

Pricing options and plans: Standard ($7/month), Plus ($15/month), Premium ($19/month)
Operating systems are supported: Windows, Mac, Linux
Number of templates and designs available: 210+
Integrated apps: Google Drive, Slack, Canva, Zoom
Collaboration features: Real-time editing, comments
Multimedia supported: Photos, icons, video, GIF
Export options: PNG, JPG, PDF, GIF, and MP4.
Customer support options: Knowledgebase, online support
Added features: Offline mode, analytics
Interface enhancements: Broadcast link, tool tips

Best Budget: Visme

Free version available

Added visual tools

Good overall value

It takes more time to learn

Expensive pro plans

Visme is the best budget option because there is a free version that still provides many of the features you might need. It’s also a good value, because (similar to Canva) you can access all of the graphic design features to create infographics, brochures, logos, and rich documents all without paying for the premium version.

Even more important, Visme is a good value if you do choose the Starter or Pro plans because you can then unlock advanced features you might only find in Adobe Visual products. For example, at the Pro level, you can create an entire brand kit for a company including logos, brochures, and flyers that all have the same look.

While it's called an all-in-one marketing design platform and has hints of Canva, the first tool you would likely use is for creating presentations (e.g., It's the most prominent tool listed on their site). Because everything is geared more toward marketing and sales, Visme templates emphasize things like growth metrics, charts, and bullet points used to explain a product or service. Visme is also meant more for a group of business users. You can collaborate in real-time, leave comments on presentations, and even follow a workflow to mark presentation tasks as in progress or done.

Like Canva, because the Visme app is part of a suite of visual design products, it might take a little more time to learn all of the added tools. The presentation tool is just one of many included, even if this tool alone is easy to learn.

Visme is an extensive product with an upgrade path that unlocks more templates, customer support, and more supported file formats. Overall, it’s a good value because you can still create presentations without having to pay extra.

Operating systems are supported: Mac, PC, iOS, Android
Number of templates and designs available: 13,000
Integrated apps: Google Drive, Vimeo, Dropbox, Survey Monkey, and many more
Collaboration features: Real-time collaboration, assign tasks
Multimedia supported: Photos, videos, audio, GIFs, 3D graphics
Export options: JPEG, PNG, PDF, MP4, GIF, PPTX, HTML5
Customer support options: Email, chat, in-app
Added features: AI features, forms
Interface enhancements: Tool tips, video training

Best For Entrepreneurs: Slidebean

Design for entrepreneurs and salespeople

Unique features

Not as powerful as some

Not as well-known

Most presentation software is flexible and powerful enough for any message and for any purpose. However, Slidebean focuses on a more narrow segment. The app is designed to create a “pitch deck,” which is something an entrepreneur or salesperson uses to pitch a product.

For example, let’s say your company sells a new widget. Using Slidebean, you can explain the features and benefits, include a slide about pricing, and use the tools that are intended more for selling a concept than perhaps merely explaining it.

Once you finish creating the pitch deck, you can share it as a link for others to view. You can then measure how much time people spend viewing the slides, including time spent on specific slides in the presentation. Another major differentiator with Slidebean is that you can work with professional designers and writers (for a fee, of course) who will create the pitch desk and write all of the copy for you.

Operating systems are supported: Windows and Mac browsers
Number of templates and designs available: 160
Integrated apps: None
Collaboration features: Editing (not simultaneous), sharing
Multimedia supported: Images, icons, GIFs
Export options: PPT, PDF, and HTML
Customer support options: Knowledgebase
Added features: Consult with experts, finance templates
Interface enhancements: Startup video lessons

Most Powerful: Canva

Thousand of templates

Integrates with other Canva tools

Limited export options

Known as an “online graphical design platform” for everyday users, Canva provides plenty of tools for creating logos, brochures, postcards, and presentations.

Because these tools are all integrated, Canva is powerful enough for any message you want to communicate. It’s ideal for business, personal use, and schools. If you decide to build a presentation, you can also incorporate logos, fonts, clip art, and animations that are built into Canva. It means the palette for creating a presentation is more flexible because all of the other design tools are right at your fingertips. Let’s say you want to create a pitch deck about a new startup. You can create the logo, choose the colors and fonts, and then create the slideshow. Most presentation apps in our buyers' guide other than Visme don’t provide this level of flexibility and power in one online app.

Canva lets you run the presentation from within Canva itself, or you can export the slides and use them in Microsoft PowerPoint. There are thousands of templates available. Once you select a look and feel for your presentation, you can pivot and use those same graphics, fonts, and designs in a brochure or other material.

With all of this power in terms of visual design software comes a slight learning curve. Canva is intuitive and the interface is well-designed, but there are so many tools available that it takes some time to learn them all.

Operating systems are supported: PC, Mac, iOS, Android, browser
Number of templates and designs available: Thousands
Integrated apps: Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, HubSpot, and many more
Collaboration features: Real-time editing, whiteboards
Multimedia supported : Photos, icons, graphics, data visualizations, media elements
Export options: PDF, JPG, PNG, PPTX, MP4
Customer support options: Email
Added features: Magic Switch, Magic Write, Magic Animate
Interface enhancements: Search for designs, generate with Magic Design

The Bottom Line

If you're short on time and just need to create a presentation without a lot of hassle, Google Slides is the app for you. It’s completely free without any trial versions of “pro” upgrades, yet it's also quite powerful and intuitive to learn. Google Slides is also our top pick because it integrates into other Google apps like Gmail and Google Docs, is widely used and highly compatible, and still gets the job done when the main goal is to finish a slideshow and share your message.

Things To Consider When Buying Presentation Software

Features and functionality: When it comes to presentation software, it’s all about the templates. As you are considering which app to use, it’s a good idea to evaluate which templates are available and if they meet your needs. We’ve also noted how many templates are included with each app. Beyond that, look for the supported file formats since that will determine who can use and open the presentation. Collaboration features are also important, making it easier to work on a presentation within a group and make comments for everyone to see.

Ease of use and user interface: Creating a presentation shouldn't feel cumbersome. When you start the app, it should be easy to create the first slide from a template, add more slides, fill in the text and images, and finish the entire project without having to learn complex features. Apple Keynote is a good example of an app that's intuitive at first, and then you can always explore more advanced features later on.

Compatibility with different file formats: The most well-known presentation app is Microsoft PowerPoint. So it’s important that the app you choose supports the popular PowerPoint format. Beyond that, look for software that also supports PDF files in case you want a printed version of your slideshow or to share it online.

Collaboration and sharing capabilities: With presentation software, being able to work on a slideshow with a group of people all at the same time can be a time-saver but also produce better results. It should also be easy to leave comments for others to review. Once you're done with the presentation, it should also be easy to share the file or an online version of the presentation with others.

Customization options for design and branding: Visme and Canva allow you to customize the graphics and even make logos and experiment with a variety of fonts. All presentation apps provide ways to edit graphics, resize photos, and even incorporate video into your slideshow. Not every app makes it as easy to edit graphics as Google Slides does, however.

Availability of templates and pre-designed layouts: As with many software programs, templates save time and effort. An app like Microsoft PowerPoint includes pre-designed templates and graphics you can use to enhance a slideshow. Visme is a good example of an app with extensive templates (it has thousands built-in). While Apple Keynote doesn't have as many templates, the ones that are included tend to be more well-designed and trendy.

Pricing and licensing: Most presentation apps offer a monthly subscription to help you get started making a slideshow. In some cases, such as Visme and Slidebean, there’s a basic free version to help you experiment with the app right away. Only Google Slides is entirely free with no extra pricing options. Microsoft also offers a fully licensed version of PowerPoint as opposed to paying for a monthly subscription. The full licensed version costs $159.99.

Customer support and training resources: Microsoft is arguably one of the best companies to choose if you're interested in customer support. Because the product costs a little more – especially if you purchase the full licensed version – it includes extensive technical support. That said, even though Google Slides is free and customer support can be hit or miss, there are so many people using that product that you can usually find answers to questions by doing a simple Google search or asking on public support forums. Also, training videos are more readily available for Google Slides and Microsoft PowerPoint because they're both so popular.

Integration with other software and tools: Integration is key when it comes to presentation software because you want to be able to access important graphics, photos, and videos easily. Canva is perhaps the most integrated option for that reason alone. It's a graphics platform for creating graphics and other design materials, so when you make a presentation, you can easily find what you need.

Security and privacy features: Security and privacy might not be the first concern when it comes to presentation software, since you might be making a simple how-to for employee orientation or a photo slideshow of your vacation. However, for a business creating a new product or for a new startup that has not launched yet, be sure there is a way to protect your presentation from prying eyes.

How We Chose The Best Presentation Software

Our contributor John Brandon poured over specifications and features for the best presentation software around. He’s used presentation apps since the debut of Microsoft PowerPoint and Google Slides. He also consulted with business owners who have started companies and need to communicate about their firms. This includes David Ciccarelli, an entrepreneur who started a company called Voices (an audio and video tech startup) and is the CEO of Lake , a vacation rental business. He also tapped Stephen Gagnon, a web designer with the search engine optimization company Web Scour , who has visual design and branding experience.

WHY SHOULD YOU TRUST US?

John Brandon worked in the corporate world for 10 years, often creating presentations for large teams and at corporate functions. He worked as an Information Design Director at Best Buy Corporation. Since then, he has tested and reviewed thousands of tech products including presentation apps, Wi-Fi routers, televisions, office products, and everything in between. His writing has appeared in Wired magazine, Inc. magazine, FoxNews.com, LAPTOP magazine, and many others.

For anyone who wants to communicate about a new product or service, help new employees with onboarding, or even share photos from a recent vacation, presentation software helps you communicate visually. The basic idea is that you can create a slideshow that augments and enhances what you have to say.

Presentation software is designed to help you communicate a message to an audience, either in a classroom, a conference room, or at home. You create a slideshow, insert graphics, photos, and videos, and then run the slideshow full-screen. When you run the presentation, you can click the mouse button or press the arrow keys on a computer to go back and forth in the slideshow.

Most modern presentation apps charge a monthly fee, usually around $8 or $12 per month. Google Slides is the exception to this rule since it is entirely free. Typically, with higher costs for the pro and premium plans, you gain access to more templates, more graphics, and the ability to export in more file formats, such as HTML or video files. At the high end, Microsoft PowerPoint also offers a fully licensed version, as opposed to a monthly charge.

The classic, tried-and-true presentation apps like Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote are available as a desktop version you install. In most cases, you will sign up for the app and then download the installation file and run that installer. However, more modern apps like Google Slides and Canva run in a browser window and don't require any installation.

PowerPoint is sometimes included on a Windows laptop. However, if you're looking for a fresh start with new templates and features for animation and video that go beyond PowerPoint and Keynote, you might consider upgrading. Also, presentation tools are now included in apps like Canva and Visme, making them more integrated.

U.S. News 360 Reviews takes an unbiased approach to our recommendations. When you use our links to buy products, we may earn a commission but that in no way affects our editorial independence.

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5 Best Free Presentation Software Programs

PowerPoint not required

Using free presentation software to create or edit presentations doesn't have to mean cutting corners on features or using a clunky interface that doesn't work the way it should. There are plenty of free presentation software programs have just as much to offer as Microsoft PowerPoint but you won't have to pay a dime for them.

Many similar features include easy to use slide design and transition effects, tabbed interfaces, spell check, free templates, and much more. You really can create exactly the presentation you want with these free programs.

WPS Office Presentation

WPS Office is a collection of office tools, one of which is a slideshow maker. It works a lot like MS PowerPoint and other full-featured slideshow makers, meaning there are lots of professional tools at your fingerprints.

There are premade templates you can load from directly inside the program, or you can of course start a blank slideshow. Lots of popular file formats are supported, so you can import PDFs, PPTX, POTX, XML, and even PowerPoint addin files. PDF is also supported when exporting, but regular presentation formats are, too, like Microsoft's and WPS' custom formats, plus some video and image file formats.

This program is super smooth, and the overall design and tabbed browsing makes it very modern. It has all the features you'd expect in a great slideshow builder, like transitions, animations, color schemes, Slide Master editor, OCR, and cloud access.

You can use this program as a guest, but if you make a free account, you'll get cloud storage for your files, free templates, and more.

It works with Windows, Linux, and macOS.

OpenOffice Impress

Multi monitor support.

Compatible with all OpenDocument compliant apps.

Open or save in PowerPoint format.

Lacks advanced PowerPoint features.

OpenOffice Impress is chock-full of all the features you need to build a great presentation. A simple wizard can walk you through setting up the initial backgrounds, slide design, and transition effects if you’d rather not start with a blank canvas.

There are extra features that include drawing tools, animation, text effects, and multiple monitor support, plus free templates and extensions, as well as automatic spell check and support for macros.

Overall, if you're looking for a free alternative to PowerPoint, this is the program you should choose. It even supports the popular PPTX and PPS files used in MS PowerPoint.

You can use it on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Integrates multiple files into one presentation.

Live chat and audience feedback functionality.

Screen sharing feature.

Requires monthly subscription.

Additional software required to view external media formats.

SlideDog is a bit different than these other presentation programs because it's built for presenting files rather than building and presenting.

It works by creating a playlist of media like video, images, PDFs, and PowerPoint files. The presenter can easily add all of these files to a playlist and then use SlideDog to display it in front of an audience.

SlideDog is a great way to organize a presentation if you want something more than the normal "slide after slide" look, which is how most presentation software work.

Pro features include watermark removal, dual screen mode, and live sharing with polls.

SlideDog supports Windows 7 and later editions.

SlideDog is free to use but because there's also a SlideDog Pro version, you don't have access to features like using your own background image, looping the slideshow, sharing with a live audience, and controlling your presentation from your phone.

Express Points Presentation Software

Intuitive user interface.

Easy to import PowerPoint presentations.

Lacks many features of similar apps.

Outdated user interface.

Can't save or export as a PowerPoint file.

Express Points Presentation Software has nothing near the exhaustive features that the above programs have, but it can still function well as a presentation program, especially if you've already tried the above and want a fresh look at a different program.

Options and features are organized nicely in this free presentation program and are easy to access while working. Included are templates, text formatting, primary slides, transitions, image effects, and the ability to add audio.

You can insert audio from a microphone directly into a slide, open Microsoft PowerPoint’s PPTX files, and autosave presentation files as often as every minute. It can export to several video file formats or upload directly to YouTube, Facebook, or Flickr (or save to PDF or a project file).

This program works on Windows (XP and newer) and macOS (10.5 through 10.14).

Apple Keynote

Many advanced features.

Compatible with PowerPoint.

Integrated with Apple iCloud.

Easy to use.

Only available for Apple devices.

Limited toolbar controls.

Apple Keynote is a free presentation software app for iOS and Mac users that allows for easy collaboration so the whole team can easily work together on creating that next presentation.

There are themes, slide transitions, object effects, text effects, and a whole handful of other tools in Apple Keynote.

Apple Keynote supports opening and saving to MS PowerPoint formats (PPTX and PPT). You can also export your Keynote presentation to PDF, a movie file, HTML, and an image file format.

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Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows

V 2021

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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The 9 best presentation software platforms in 2023

You’re in the middle of a busy work week, and you‘re winding down after a particularly productive day. There’s still a lot more to accomplish, but you’ve got momentum and you’re making good progress. As you check your calendar for the following day, you see a two-hour morning time slot blocked out for a company-wide meeting. What’s your gut reaction?

Is it something like “I can’t wait—this is going to be so fun and interactive!” Or is it something more like “Ugh—I’ve got so much to do, and this is going to be such a long presentation. Maybe I can get some actual work done while it’s on in the background.”

If your inner monologue sounds more like the second example, you’re not alone. Research from Zippia shows 65% of employees believe meetings inhibit them from getting their work tasks done and that people are multitasking in at least 41% of meetings.

With so many potential distractions lurking in inboxes, Slack channels, and smartphones, meeting leaders must do everything they can to make their presentations interactive and engaging.

Fortunately, many presentation software platforms offer powerful tools to help presenters tell more captivating stories. Let’s take a look at a few of the factors that separate good apps from great ones.

What makes a great presentation app?

From pitch decks to progress updates, presentation apps have countless uses within the modern business environment. But regardless of the content being shared, there are a few things the best presentation software all has in common.

Intuitive, user-friendly interfaces

If an application is loaded with incredible features that are difficult to use, most users will prefer to take the path of least resistance rather than spending hours Googling how to accomplish their goal. Best-in-class presentation software makes it easy for users to learn the basics and get started, often with built-in tutorials.

Easy customization

Platforms that make it easy to plug in your logo, colors, fonts, and photos create polished presentations that wow internal and external audiences alike. Look for an app with a variety of tweakable templates that allow teams to share different types of information while sticking to your brand and identity standards.

Visual storytelling

If you’re squeezing several hundred words onto each presentation slide and then reading them all aloud, your audience’s attention is likely to wane. Research has long shown people absorb a combination of visual and verbal content much better than spoken lectures alone. All the best presentation software streamlines the use of visual aids to help your audience retain information more effectively.

Sharing and collaboration features

As asynchronous work becomes increasingly common, it’s important for your presentation software of choice to streamline collaboration between teams who may not be in the same location (or even the same hemisphere). When done well, sharing and collaboration features can save time and confusion regarding the latest versions or revisions.

Integrations with other apps

Software that plays nicely with its binary counterparts can elevate a typical presentation into something compelling and visually stunning. Apps which enable embedding and presenting interactive features make outstanding add-ons that improve audience engagement while using your main slideware or communication tools.

1. Poll Everywhere

A versatile and customizable software platform for engaging your audience and encouraging participation, Poll Everywhere adds interactive elements to your presentation like polls, surveys, quizzes, word clouds, and much more. Made to turn dry lectures into two-way conversations, Poll Everywhere makes it easy to set up a variety of interactive activities for audience members. People can share their input via text, smartphone app, or web browser, which is then reflected on the screen in real time (don’t worry, there are moderation features for open-ended text responses).

Not only does Poll Everywhere enable more interactive presentations, it’s also a useful tool for things like employee surveys, group brainstorms, or submitting questions and agenda items ahead of meetings. It’s intuitive for new users to pick up and enables more open communication and team collaboration at every level of your organization.

For larger organizations, Poll Everywhere’s Enterprise plans let you customize the platform to reflect your company’s branding, logos, and colors (and remove the Poll Everywhere branding to give your presentations a more bespoke look). You also get additional features like Shared Activities for cross-team collaboration, upgraded security protocols, and robust reporting tools to translate audience responses into actionable insights.

Easy integration with most industry-standard slideware and communication apps
Encourages audience participation and engagement
Wide variety of functions and activities
Paid plans required for audiences larger than 25 people
Audience members must have Internet or cellular access to participate

Poll Everywhere offers a free plan that allows polling limited audience sizes and paid plans starting at $120 per year. Higher-tier plans include additional users, greater audience sizes, and increased moderation and support tools. Custom enterprise solutions for large organizations are also available.

Powtoon takes your presentations to the next level by helping you create polished, professional-looking videos that are more captivating than your traditional text on a screen. Users edit “slides” similarly to how they would with most presentation software, except when you’re done, your deck becomes a seamless video complete with animations of your choosing. The software even figures out the correct timing based on how much content you add to each slide.

In addition to making your presentations sparkle, Powtoon is also useful for creating other marketing or social media assets. You can orient your videos to fit different dimensions and publish your finished creations directly to YouTube, Meta’s Ads Manager, and other platforms.

Makes your presentations more captivating and memorable
Useful for creating all types of videos
Wide variety of templates, animations, and characters
Limited templates on free version
Paid plan required for MP4 downloads

Powtoon’s free offering is somewhat limited, though paid plans start at a reasonable $20 per month. Premium plans include more storage space, unlimited exports, and the ability to customize characters and add your own branding.

3. Genially

In the era of remote teams working across different time zones, not every presentation needs to have a presenter. Genially makes it easy to create interactive, self-led presentations that engage your audience much more than simply sending them a deck or a document to review. A huge variety of templates include predefined interactive elements, or users can customize their own.

A well-planned assortment of content blocks lets you showcase everything from image galleries to data visualizations. And while it takes a bit of work upfront, you can also create your own template using your organization’s branding and then have anyone on your team use it to create their own presentations.

Anyone can create entertaining and interactive self-led presentations
Solid variety of templates, even on free version
Unlimited creations for all tiers, including free version
Paid subscription required to view presentations offline
Variety of options can be overwhelming at first

Premium plans range from $7.49 per month to $80 per month. As you go up the pricing tiers, you get access to more privacy and personalization features, plus integration with other platforms like PowerPoint and Google Analytics.

A software platform that’s shaking up the linear-presentation model, Prezi takes users out of the sometimes stifling flow of traditional slide deck design in favor of a more free-flowing approach. Prezi users list out ideas or topics they want to cover before threading them together into a compelling, visually striking presentation that’s more conducive to group conversations.

Prezi integrates particularly well with video conferencing tools, making it a great option for remote-first teams. You can even build your presentation as a Zoom overlay, which means your audience can see you and your slide content at the same time. It’s a nice way to maintain a human touch in video presentations, where audiences often miss out on seeing the presenter’s body language and facial expressions.

Can inspire more creative thinking when developing content
Robust library of templates and features
Excellent integration with video conferencing platforms
Can be a challenging transition for people used to the traditional slide deck model
Free version limited to five projects

While you can create five projects for free, paid plans starting at $19 per month include much greater import and export options. The $59 per month Premium plan includes phone support, presentation analytics, and advanced training tools. Custom enterprise packages are also available for large teams.

5. Google Slides

Truly free presentation software—not just a free trial or a limited feature set—is increasingly difficult to come by. However, anyone with a Google account can use the full version of Google Slides, with no recurring subscriptions or trial periods to speak of. And because it’s fully cloud-based, teams can collaborate on the same presentation without having to keep track of multiple versions.

While its offerings of features and premade templates may not quite equal some of its subscription-based peers, Google Slides remains a viable solution due to its simple interface and easy integration with the rest of Google Workspace. You can also add powerful third-party add-ons to make your presentations more interactive and visually appealing.

Cloud-based platform enables easy collaboration
Shorter learning curve than some other platforms
Can utilize add-ons to supplement the simple functionality
LImited templates and transition effects
No built-in asset library

The full version of Google Slides is free to use for anyone with a Google account.

If you need to create a beautiful presentation really fast, Canva is a fantastic software option. Its free plan offers some of the best-looking templates around, and because it’s a self-contained solution, you won’t need other apps like Photoshop to create eye-catching visuals. Drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to add your own content and visual assets, or you can pick from an extensive library of free photos and graphics (even on the free version).

While it’s an excellent tool for creating polished presentations, Canva has other uses too. It’s incredibly helpful for creating marketing materials like videos, social posts, and even logos. While it’s not a replacement for your design team, it can free them up for other tasks while empowering anyone in your organization to embrace their creative side.

Simplifies the creation of eye-popping presentations
Massive variety of templates, even on free version
Versatile platform for creating all types of materials
Can be difficult to make complicated charts or graphs
Cloud-based platform has limited offline functionality

Canva’s free version is excellent, though cloud storage space is limited. Paid plans start at $120 per year and include 24/7 support and an even bigger library of templates, photos, animations, and audio.

7. Beautiful.ai

If you’re the hawk-eyed type who spends just as much time fixing those annoying spacing issues as you do developing the actual content of your presentation, Beautiful.ai could be the software you’ve been looking for. As you might suspect from the name, it’s an AI-enhanced presentation platform that automates many aspects of layout to keep your slides looking professional and visually pleasing.

To help you get inspired when first starting a new project, you can browse through a number of slide types to find a layout you like, which then automatically applies to the rest of your presentation-in-progress, even on slides with other types of content. While templates and themes are somewhat limited compared to other platforms, all the included options are clean, modern, and well-designed.

Automated layout for polished and professional designs
Clean and intuitive user interface
Helpful tutorial videos to minimize the learning curve
Template, theme, and color options are somewhat limited
Bare-bones collaboration features on the free version

Individual subscriptions start at $12 per month and unlock most of the app’s best features. Monthly Team plans with added customization and collaboration tools start at $40 per user, and large–scale enterprise plans are also available.

8. PowerPoint

We’d be remiss if we didn’t include this category-founding behemoth in our list, as it’s still one of the most popular presentation softwares in use around the globe. (There’s a reason many other presentation apps feature PowerPoint integration as a selling point.)

With a wide variety of templates, effects, animations, and customization options, experienced PowerPoint users can create presentations every bit as compelling as you’ll get with any other platform. And with useful extension apps available for both Mac and Windows versions, you can integrate additional interactive elements to make your next meeting more memorable.

Compatible with the world’s most popular software suite
Solid selection of templates and effects
Easy to get started creating simple presentations
Steep learning curve for advanced features
Can take longer to create visually stunning presentations

PowerPoint is included in the Microsoft 365 software suite with plans starting at $6.99 per month. Standalone licenses are also available at a flat rate of $159.99.

If your organization makes heavy use of Apple products, Keynote is an excellent free presentation software option that rivals PowerPoint in terms of rich functionality. The interface is mostly intuitive, though perhaps slightly more complicated than the ultra-stripped-down feel of Google Slides (which makes sense, given Keynote’s additional features).

Built-in templates and asset libraries are plentiful, and in keeping with Apple’s brand aesthetic, help you create contemporary-looking presentations that wow your audiences. And while PowerPoint may have a wider variety of add-ons, Keynote still works with numerous third-party apps to incorporate interactive elements like polls, quizzes, word clouds, and more.

Excellent variety of templates and built-in assets
Creates clean, modern, and polished presentations
Mobile, desktop, and web-based platforms
Requires some time to master
Few truly unique features

Keynote is free to use for all Apple users.

When done well, presentations are still one of the best ways to inform and invigorate an audience and align everyone regarding goals, priorities, and progress toward achieving them. With so much user-friendly presentation software available in 2023, there’s no need to host boring, lecture-style meetings that test your attendees’ attention spans.

If you’re looking for more ideas about how to make your presentations more engaging and interactive, check out our free guide detailing best practices for prese nters .

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PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet

Are you getting the most from PowerPoint for Microsoft 365/Office 365 in Windows? Learn about the key new features in Microsoft’s powerful presentation app.

Computerworld Cheat Sheet > Microsoft > PowerPoint [Office 365]

Need to create and share a presentation? If so, you probably turn to the most popular presentation application in the world, Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows.

Microsoft sells Office under two models: Individuals and businesses can pay for the software license up front and own it forever (what the company calls the “perpetual” version of the suite), or they can purchase a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription, which means they have access to the software for only as long as they keep paying the subscription fee.

When you purchase a perpetual version of the suite — say, Office 2019 or Office 2021 — its applications will never get new features, whereas apps in the “365” subscriptions are continually updated with new features. For more details, see “Microsoft Office 2021 vs. Microsoft 365: How to choose ” Confusing matters even more, Microsoft has renamed most, but not all, of its Office 365 subscriptions under the “Microsoft 365” moniker, which generally means the plan includes everything from the old Office 365 plans plus some additional features and apps.

This cheat sheet gets you up to speed on the features that have been introduced in the Windows desktop client for PowerPoint in Office 365 and Microsoft 365 since 2015. We’ll periodically update this story as new features roll out. (If you’re using the perpetual-license PowerPoint 2016 or 2019, see our separate PowerPoint 2016 and 2019 cheat sheet .)

Use the Ribbon

The Ribbon interface that you came to know and love (or perhaps hate) in earlier versions of PowerPoint hasn’t changed much in Microsoft 365/Office 365. Because the Ribbon has been included in Office suite applications since Office 2007, we assume you’re familiar with how it works. If you need a refresher, see our PowerPoint 2010 cheat sheet.

Over the years, Microsoft has tweaked the way the Ribbon looks several times, including a recent facelift that aligns with the look of Windows 11. It has a flattened look that’s cleaner and less cluttered than in previous versions of PowerPoint, and its high-contrast colors make the icons and text easier to see. But it still works in the same way, and you’ll find most of the commands in the same locations as in earlier versions.

The Ribbon in PowerPoint for Microsoft 365/Office 365 has been cleaned up, with text and icons that are easier to see. (Click image to enlarge it.)

To find out which commands live on which tabs on the Ribbon, download our PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 Ribbon quick reference. Also note that you can use the search bar on the Ribbon to find commands.

As in previous versions of PowerPoint, if you want the Ribbon commands to go away, press Ctrl-F1. (Note that the tabs above the Ribbon — File, Home, Insert, and so on — stay visible.) To make them appear again, press Ctrl-F1. You can also make the commands on the Ribbon go away by clicking the name of the tab you’re currently on. To make the commands reappear, click any tab.

You’ve got other options for displaying the Ribbon as well. To get to them, click the down arrow at the bottom right of the Ribbon. A drop-down menu appears with these four options:

Full-screen mode: This maximizes the content portion of PowerPoint, which now takes up the entire screen, eliminating the entire Ribbon as well as the Quick Access toolbar. To show the Ribbon again, click at the top of PowerPoint.
Show tabs only: This shows the tabs but hides the commands underneath them. It’s the same as pressing Ctrl-F1. To display the commands underneath the tabs when they’re hidden, press Ctrl-F1 or click a tab.
Always show Ribbon: Selecting this shows both the tabs and the commands.
Hide/Show Quick Access toolbar: This hides or shows the Quick Access toolbar, which gives you fast access to PowerPoint features you want to have always available, such as New, Undo, Repeat, and so on. It can appear above or below the Ribbon. To customize the toolbar, click the small down arrow at its right, and from the drop-down menu that appears, choose which features to put on it. If you don’t see a command you want, click More Commands , find the command you want on the left, and click Add .

To customize the title bar above the Ribbon, select File > Options > General . In the “Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office” section, click the down arrow next to Office Theme and select Dark Gray , Black , or White from the drop-down menu. To make the title bar red again, instead choose the Colorful option from the drop-down list. Just above the Office Theme menu is an Office Background drop-down menu — here you can choose to display a pattern such as a circuit board in the title bar.

When you click the File tab on the Ribbon, you get sent to a useful area that Microsoft calls backstage. If you click Open , Save a Copy , or Save As from the menu on the left, you can see the cloud-based services you’ve connected to your Office account, such as SharePoint and OneDrive. Each location now displays its associated email address underneath it. This is quite helpful if you use a cloud service with more than one account, such as if you have one OneDrive account for personal use and another one for business. You’ll be able to see at a glance which is which.

The backstage area (under the File tab) shows which cloud-based services you’ve connected to your Office account and lets you connect to additional ones. (Click image to enlarge it.)

You can also easily add new cloud-based services. From the screen that shows you your online locations, click Add a Place and choose which service to add. Note, though, that you’re limited to SharePoint and OneDrive.

Possibly in the works: A simplified Ribbon

Microsoft has been working for some time on a simplified version of the Ribbon for all Office applications. Like the existing Ribbon, it will have tabs across the top, and each tab will have commands on it. But it’s more streamlined and uses less space than the existing Ribbon.

For now, only Outlook for Windows is the only Microsoft 365 desktop app that uses the simplified Ribbon. However, you can get a preview of what it will look like in PowerPoint by going to the online version of PowerPoint. Click the down arrow at the bottom right of the Ribbon and choose Single Line Ribbon . To revert to the regular Ribbon, choose Classic Ribbon .

A cleaner, simpler Ribbon will be available in PowerPoint at some point. To try it now, head to the online version of PowerPoint, pictured here. (Click image to enlarge it.)

In the simplified Ribbon, all the commands are still there for each tab, but only the most commonly used are visible. Click the three-dot icon at the far right end of the Ribbon to show the rest of the commands in a drop-down menu.

All that said, the simplified version of the Ribbon has been in the works for years and still hasn’t made an appearance in the desktop app. We’re eagerly awaiting its appearance but are beginning to lose faith that it will ever arrive.

Use the Search bar to accomplish tasks quickly

PowerPoint is so chock-full of powerful features that it can be tough to remember where to find them all. Microsoft 365/Office 365 has made it easier via the Search bar, which can put even buried tools or those you rarely use in easy reach. (Note that at one point, the feature was called Tell Me.)

To use it, click in the Search bar — it’s above the Ribbon in the title area. (Keyboard fans can instead press Alt-Q to go to the Search box.) Type in a task you want to do, such as change handout orientation . You’ll get a menu showing potential matches for the task.

In this instance, the top result is a Handout Orientation listing that when clicked gives you two options — one to set the orientation to horizontal and the other to vertical. Just click the one you want to use. If you’d like more information about your task, the last items that appear in the menu let you select from related Help topics or display additional search results.

The Search bar gives advice on changing the handout orientation (or any other task you query). (Click image to enlarge it.)

Even if you consider yourself a PowerPoint pro, give Search a try. It’ll save you lots of time and is much more efficient than hunting through the Ribbon to find a command. It also remembers the features you’ve previously clicked on in the box, so when you click in it, you first see a list of previous tasks you’ve searched for. That makes sure that tasks that you frequently perform are always within easy reach, while at the same time making tasks you rarely do easily accessible.

Search is gaining more capabilities, too. Some users of enterprise and education editions of the subscription version of Office are now able to use the Search box to find people in their organization, SharePoint resources, and other personalized results from within PowerPoint. (These features are being rolled out in stages, so you might not have them yet.)

Get a jump-start on your presentations

QuickStarter is a great tool for anyone who hates being confronted with a blank slate when starting a presentation. It jump-starts your presentation by helping you with research and outline creation.

To use it, when you create a new presentation, select QuickStarter, type in the topic of your presentation, and then choose from a list of subtopics. QuickStarter suggests a set of slides you might want to use, based on Bing searches and information from Wikipedia. Choose which slide(s) to keep, and then select a look for your slides, including a theme complete with background graphics. You’ve now got a good start on your presentation.

QuickStarter recommends slides you might want to use for your presentation, based on Bing searches and information from Wikipedia. (Click image to enlarge it.)

When Microsoft releases its AI assistant Microsoft 365 Copilot this fall, you may get a far more powerful tool than QuickStarter to help create presentations. Microsoft claims that Copilot will be able create entire presentations from scratch, using your existing documents. It says you’ll be able to “create beautiful presentations with a simple prompt, adding relevant content from a document you made last week or last year.”

Try Smart Lookup for online research

If you do research to gather information for presentations, you’ll want to check out another useful feature, Smart Lookup. It lets you do online research from right within PowerPoint while you’re working on a presentation, so there’s no need to fire up your browser, search the web, and then copy the information to your presentation.

To use Smart Lookup, right-click a word or group of words and select Search xxx (where xxx is the word or words you’ve highlighted) from the menu that appears. PowerPoint then uses Bing to do a web search on the word or phrase and displays definitions, any related Wikipedia entries, related media, and other results from the web in the pane that appears on the right.

You can do web research from right within PowerPoint. (Click image to enlarge it.)

Smart Lookup has been getting smarter over time. When the feature first launched, it wasn’t very good at finding specific, timely information such as the current inflation rate in the United States. It was much better at finding more general information, such as a biography of the artificial intelligence pioneer Arthur Samuel. But Microsoft has done a lot of work on it, and it now works well when finding granular information as well.

Keep in mind that in order to use Smart Lookup in PowerPoint or any other Microsoft 365/Office 365 app, you might first need to enable Microsoft’s intelligent services feature, which collects your search terms and some content from your presentations and other documents. (If you’re concerned about privacy, you’ll need to decide whether the privacy hit is worth the convenience of doing research from right within the app.) If you haven’t enabled it, you’ll see a screen when you click Smart Lookup asking you to turn it on. Once you do so, it will be turned on across all your Microsoft 365/Office 365 applications.

Also note that there’s a reasonably high likelihood that Smart Lookup (and all search functions in Office and Windows) will get a serious makeover when Microsoft 365 Copilot is released. Microsoft has indicated that Copilot’s features will generally live in the right pane of its apps and Windows itself. We’ll keep you updated when that happens and include all the details you need to know about how to use it.

Tap Designer for slide design ideas

PowerPoint’s Designer feature makes it easy to quickly create high-quality slides without you doing much work. When you insert an image into a slide, the Designer panel opens on the right side of the screen, offering you a choice of multiple layouts for the slide. Choose the layout you want and take it from there.

Microsoft claims the feature was built with the help of graphic designers and takes into account the content of the image. A Microsoft blog post about Designer claims that “if the visual contains a natural scene, Designer can zoom, crop and frame it. But if the image contains a chart, it focuses in on the relevant region to ensure the important data is highlighted.”

When you insert an image into a slide, the Designer panel offers suggestions for the best layouts to use. (Click image to enlarge it.)

To make sure your version of PowerPoint has enabled Designer, click File > Options , and at the bottom of the screen in the PowerPoint Designer section, click the box next to Automatically show me design ideas , then click OK .

Add new types of charts

In PowerPoint (as well as Excel and Word) for Microsoft 365/Office 365, you get eight new types of charts you can add to documents: Treemap, Sunburst, Waterfall, Histogram, Pareto, Box & Whisker, Funnel, and Map. Each provides a unique way to display data visually. See our Excel for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet for details about the new chart types, including what each one looks like and what type of data it’s best suited for.

To insert any of the new chart types (or any other chart) in a document, select Insert > Chart from the Ribbon or click the chart icon in the area that appears when you create a new slide — it’s in the box that also lets you add text, tables, graphics, and other content. Either way, you’ll be shown the full gallery of charts you can insert. Make a selection and click OK, and it appears in your document with placeholder data; at the same time a pop-up window appears that looks like a mini Excel spreadsheet. Enter or edit the data, or else click the Edit in Excel button to open it up in Excel and edit it there.

When you insert a chart, a window where you can edit the data pops up. (Click image to enlarge it.)

Note that the Pareto chart does not show up in the main list of chart types. To insert one, you’ll have to first select Histogram from the list of chart types, and at the top of the screen that appears, select the option to the right, Pareto .

Morph from one slide to the next

This feature lets you show motion in transitions and inside slides, but without having to use the Animations tab. To use it, duplicate an existing slide: Select the slide, then, on the Home tab, click the down arrow next to New Slide and select Duplicate Selected Slides .

Then make changes to that duplicate, such as shrinking an element or elements in it, making them bigger, moving them to new locations, and/or rotating them. Now select Morph from the Transitions tab, and PowerPoint automatically creates an animated transition between the slides. Onscreen, they look like a single slide morphing.

Collaborate in real time

An important feature in PowerPoint Microsoft 365/Office 365 for those who work with others is real-time collaboration that lets people work on presentations together from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Microsoft calls this “co-authoring.”

Note that in order to use co-authoring, the presentation must be stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online, and you must be logged into your Microsoft 365/Office 365 account. Also, co-authoring works in PowerPoint only if you have AutoSave turned on. To do it, move the AutoSave slider at the top left of the screen to On.

To collaborate on a document, open it, then click the Share button in the upper-right part of the screen and select Share . The “Send link” window opens. Enter the email addresses of the people with whom you want to collaborate and type in a message if you want.

Here’s how you invite others to collaborate in PowerPoint.

By default, the people you share the document with can edit the document, but you can give them read-only access by clicking Anyone with the link can edit just above the input box, and on the “Share settings” screen that appears, select Can edit in the “More settings” area. From that screen you can also set an expiration date for the sharing link and set a password that people to whom you’ve send the link will need to access the spreadsheet. (If you use a business, enterprise, or education edition of Office, your IT department may have set up different default sharing permissions and options.)

In the “Send link” window, you can alternatively copy a link to the file and send that yourself instead of having PowerPoint send it for you, or send the link through Outlook. A final option is to send a copy of the presentation instead of the link, either as a PowerPoint presentation or as a PDF, but that option doesn’t allow live collaboration.

When you’re done, click the Send button.

To begin collaboration: When the email recipient gets your invitation to collaborate, they click a button or link to open the document, which opens in PowerPoint Online in a web browser, rather than in the PowerPoint desktop client. They can either edit or read it in PowerPoint Online, depending on the permissions you granted, or click Open in Desktop App and use it from the PowerPoint desktop client.

Different colored icons identify the different people working on the document. You’ll see all their comments, they’ll see yours, and you can see the changes everyone makes.

Collaborating on a presentation. (Click image to enlarge it.)

You can do more than see each other’s work. Everyone can make comments, and others can respond to them, live. To make a comment, right-click an area and select Comment from the menu that appears. The Comments pane appears. Type in your comment and click the arrow at the bottom of the comment, and everyone can see it. They can then respond, so that comments are threaded, making it easy to follow conversations.

You can open and close the Comments pane by clicking the Comments button towards the top right of the screen. From the pane, you can review people’s comments and make comments of your own.

If you want a co-worker who isn’t actively collaborating on the presentation to know you need their input on one of your comments, in the comment type @ and the first few letters of the person’s name, then choose their name from the list that appears. When you click the arrow to post the comment, they’ll get an email telling them they were @mentioned and linking to the comment in the presentation.

Be aware that how well real-time collaboration works depends on the strength of your internet connection. On slow or flaky connections, you won’t immediately see edits that other people make and they won’t see yours immediately — there will be a lag. So it’s always best, when possible, to have the strongest connection possible when collaborating.

Use AutoSave as a safety net while you work

Worried about losing your work on a presentation because you forgot to constantly save it? Worry no more. AutoSave automatically saves your files for you, so you won’t have to worry about system crashes, power outages, PowerPoint crashes, and similar problems. Be aware, though, that it works only on documents that are stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online.

You may think you’re already protected against these problems because of the AutoRecover feature built into earlier versions of Office. But AutoSave is significantly different and better than AutoRecover. AutoRecover doesn’t save your files in real time, so it’s easy for you to lose work. Instead, every several minutes it saves an AutoRecover file that you can try to recover after a crash. But this feature doesn’t always work — for example, if you don’t properly open Office after the crash, or if the crash doesn’t meet Microsoft’s definition of a crash. And Microsoft notes, “AutoRecover is only effective for unplanned disruptions, such as a power outage or a crash. AutoRecover files are not designed to be saved when a logoff is scheduled or an orderly shutdown occurs.” And the files aren’t saved in real time, so you’ll lose several minutes of work even if all goes as planned.

AutoSave is turned on by default in PowerPoint for Microsoft 365/Office 365 for .pptx files stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Online. To turn it off (or back on again), use the AutoSave button on the top left of the screen.

Using AutoSave may require some rethinking of your workflow. Many people are used to creating new presentations based on existing ones by opening the existing file, making changes to it, and then using Save As to save the new version under a different name, leaving the original file intact. Be warned that doing this with AutoSave enabled will save your changes in the original file. Instead, Microsoft suggests opening the original file and immediately selecting File > Save a Copy (which replaces Save As when AutoSave is enabled) to create a new version.

If AutoSave does save unwanted changes to a file, you can always use the Version History feature described next to roll back to an earlier version.

Review or restore earlier versions of a presentation

Another useful feature you should know about is Version History, which lets you go back to previous versions of a file, review them, and copy and paste from an older file to your existing one. You can also restore an entire old version.

To use it, with a file open, click the file name at the top of the screen. A drop-down menu appears with the location of the file and a Version History section. Click Version History, and the Version History pane appears on the right side of the screen with a list of the previous versions of the file, including the time and date they were saved.

Scrolling through previous versions of a presentation. (Click image to enlarge it.)

Click any older version, and that version appears in a new window. Scroll through the version and copy any content you want. You can also overwrite your existing presentation with the earlier version or save the earlier version in a separate file.

Version History works best when used in conjunction with AutoSave. You can use it without AutoSave, but it’s not as useful because you don’t get as many saved versions to go back to.

Use Zoom to present nonsequentially

Ever wish you could jump around in your presentation, showing your slides in nonsequential order? The Zoom feature does this by creating a kind of visual shortcuts table that lets you quickly zoom from one section to another — handy in case you want to go back to a previous slide or skip over a section of your presentation.

When you’re in a presentation, select Insert > Zoom . You get a choice of three different kinds of Zoom:

Summary Zoom: This lets you create a visual summary of your presentation. You select the slides you want included in the summary. Each of those slides becomes the beginning of a section of the presentation. When you’re giving a presentation, you can click a thumbnail on the Summary Zoom slide to go to the beginning slide of a section.
Section Zoom: If you’ve already created sections in your presentation, when you choose Section Zoom you’ll see those sections. Choose which you want to put on your Section Zoom slide. Then when you’re giving a presentation, click any thumbnail to jump to that section.
Slide Zoom: This lets you jump from a slide to any other slide in the presentation. It’s generally best used for short presentations without many sections. After you click Slide Zoom , you select which slides you want to be able to jump to, and they’ll show up in a Slide Zoom slide. Click any slide to jump to it.

Here’s how to insert a Summary Zoom slide, with thumbnails of your entire presentation. (Click image to enlarge it.)

Other useful PowerPoint for Microsoft 365/Office 365 features

PowerPoint for Microsoft 365/Office 365 has several more useful features. Although they’re not as significant as the other features we’ve covered here, they’re worth knowing about.

Insert 3D models: This visual trick lets you show full three-dimensional details of an object. Select Insert > 3D Models and choose the 3D model you want to insert, either from your computer or from an online Microsoft library. Once it’s inserted, you can tilt or rotate the model any way you want during your presentation.

Text highlighter: Here’s a simple way to draw people’s attention to specific pieces of text: Use the new text highlighter to choose different colors to emphasize different portions of your presentation. It’s the same highlighter that Word has had for some time. To do it, select the text you want to highlight, then choose Home > Text Highlight Color .

Easier background removal: After inserting a picture, you can remove its background as a way to focus more on the photo’s subject or a detail. In earlier versions of PowerPoint you could remove backgrounds but had to use the drawing tools to select and fine-tune the item you wanted to keep; now the process is more automated. To do it, select the picture whose background you want to remove, then select Picture Format > Remove Background .

Royalty-free images: To get access to thousands of royalty-free images, icons, and stickers, go to Insert > Pictures > Stock Images , select the type of image you’re looking for from the top of the screen, and scroll though the images. You can also do a search for images as well.

Use a Bluetooth-enabled pen to control a presentation : If you’ve got a Bluetooth pen like the one that comes with a Surface device, you can use its button as a clicker to move to the next slide or a previous one. First pair the pen with your computer. Then go to the Windows Settings app and select Bluetooth and devices > Pen & Windows Ink . Under Pen Shortcuts, check the box next to Allow apps to override the shortcut button behavior . A single click will now move to the next slide in a presentation, and holding down the button will move one slide backward in the presentation.

Record a presentation: You can record your presentation ahead of time and then share it with others. Click the Record button toward the top right of PowerPoint, then select either From beginning or From Current slide . You can choose from three views: Teleprompter, Presenter, and Slide. You can pause and retake the video as many times as you want. When you’re satisfied, click Export . You can then share the video with anyone you want. See Microsoft’s video recording blog post for details.

Check for the Microsoft 365 Copilot launch

Microsoft has been building generative AI capabilities, called Copilot, into its entire product line. Microsoft 365 Copilot is currently being tested in private trials at 600 enterprises and is scheduled to be launched generally on Nov. 1. Here’s how Microsoft describes what Copilot will do in PowerPoint :

Copilot in PowerPoint helps you turn your ideas into stunning presentations. As your storytelling partner, Copilot can transform existing written documents into decks complete with speaker notes and sources or start a new presentation from a simple prompt or outline. Condense lengthy presentations at the click of a button and use natural language commands to adjust layouts, reformat text, and perfectly time animations.

Note that not everyone will have access to Copilot. The service will be available to Microsoft 365 corporate customers as an add-on , for $30 per user per month.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Using keyboard shortcuts is one of the best ways to accomplish tasks quickly in any version of PowerPoint. See “ Handy PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac ” for our favorites.

And don’t forget to download our PowerPoint for Microsoft 365 Ribbon quick reference guide, which explores the most useful commands on each Ribbon tab and provides keyboard shortcuts for each.

This story was originally published in February 2021 and updated in October 2023.

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Windows computers are an invaluable tool for work and entertainment. And even though they come with some key apps preinstalled, where a PC really shines is after you add third-party software.

Every time I perform a fresh installation of Windows on my PC or get a new one , I launch the default web browser and download several key apps -- including my web browser of choice -- to increase the overall functionality of the computer. I generally install more than 11 applications, but the apps I rounded up below are the ones I absolutely cannot live without. If you're a Windows user looking to get more out of your computer, try these essential apps (in no particular order), and thank me later.

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Google chrome, experience fast, secure, and customizable web browsing.

A fast, secure, and free web browser that offers extensive customization through extensions.

I use Google Chrome as my web browser of choice. It's the first thing I install on every computer I own (Mac, Windows, Linux, etc.). If you don't like Google Chrome, there are plenty of other browsers to choose from, but only Microsoft Edge comes preinstalled on Windows. Meaning if you're like most people who decide to ditch Edge, you'll need to install your preferred browser, and Chrome is a safe bet.

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Access a vast library of games, from indie gems to aaa titles.

A comprehensive gaming platform that provides access to thousands of games, with free and paid options available.

I use my Windows computer primarily for gaming, and Steam is a core part of that. Just about every PC game I own is on Steam, with a couple of exceptions from Epic, Ubisoft, and EA. From Valve first-party games like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike to other triple-A games and indie gems, they're all on Steam -- often at a discount -- making Steam a must-have for all PC gamers.

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Play almost any video or audio format with ease, vlc media player.

A free, open-source media player that supports virtually all file formats without the need for additional codecs.

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A free file archiver with high compression ratios, supporting various formats including its own 7z format.

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Ditto clipboard, save and manage your clipboard history for efficient workflows.

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Identify and manage large files to free up disk space.

A free, open-source utility for analyzing disk usage and cleaning up the disk.

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An open-source alternative for photo and graphic editing.

A free and open-source image editor offering a feature set comparable to premium tools.

Everyone loves Photoshop . Not everyone loves paying for Photoshop. If you're among the latter camp, GIMP is a totally acceptable Photoshop replacement that's packed with many of the same features, and it's completely free. I find its interface to be a little clunkier than Photoshop, but once you get used to it, it's a worthwhile replacement that I've relied on for years.

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Libreoffice, a free suite of productivity tools compatible with major file formats.

A free, open-source office suite offering a robust set of productivity tools compatible with other major office formats.

Like GIMP, LibreOffice is a powerful free replacement for expensive apps. In this case, you get a full suite of office software designed to replace Microsoft's offerings. Instead of paying for Word, Excel, and the like, you can download LibreOffice to manipulate documents, spreadsheets, and other files with a smooth interface that should feel right at home if you're used to Microsoft Office. If you're sick of paying for Office, give LibreOffice a try; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

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Introducing Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business

Nancie Gaskill, General Manager, Surface

AI-powered PCs built for a new era of work

We are excited to announce the first Surface AI PCs built exclusively for business: Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business. These new PCs represent a major step forward in customer-focused design and are packed with features that business customers have been requesting – from amazing performance and battery life to more ports, better security and custom, durable anti-reflective displays. These are the first Surface PCs optimized for AI, with the new Copilot key being added to Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro keyboards that accelerate access to the best Windows AI experiences 1 . In addition to the new Surface for Business products, we are pleased to announce the Microsoft Adaptive Accessories will now be available to commercial customers.

These new PCs are powered by the latest Intel® Core™ Ultra processors. We partnered with Intel to deliver the power and reliable performance our customers depend on, along with compelling AI experiences for Surface and the Windows ecosystem. Surface has also been leading in Neural Processing Unit (NPU) integration to drive AI experiences on the PC since 2019, and the benefits of these connected efforts are evident. From a performance perspective, Surface Laptop 6 is 2x faster than Laptop 5 2 , and Surface Pro 10 is up to 53% faster than Pro 9. The benefits of the NPU integration include AI features like Windows Studio Effects and Live Captions 3 and the opportunity for businesses and developers to build their own AI apps and experiences.

Meet Surface Pro 10 for Business

Surface Pro 10 for Business is designed for teams that need a no-compromise device. It is our most powerful Surface Pro ever powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, and the first time we’re bringing 5G 4 to the Intel platform. It brings a new level of productivity and versatility – whether used as a powerful tablet for frontline workers out in the field, a versatile laptop in the conference room, or anywhere in between – Surface Pro 10 adapts to our customers’ needs and to how they use technology.

With the power of AI assistance from Microsoft Copilot and the innovation in Windows 11 Pro, Surface Pro 10 unlocks the ability to be more productive than ever before. We’ve added the Copilot key to all of our new Surface Pro keyboards, including a new version with a bold keyset 5 with a larger font, high contrast and backlighting that make the keys more visible and easier for everyone to type.

But our customers don’t choose Surface Pro to interact with it using only the keyboard. They’re choosing Surface Pro to use with touch gestures, voice commands and even with handwritten prompts with Surface Slim Pen. With Surface Pro, they are able to use all these natural input methods to make it even easier to use Copilot. And in Microsoft 365 apps like OneNote, Copilot will be able to use AI to analyze handwritten notes, saving time and keeping them in their flow.

This device comes with the best display we’ve ever shipped on a Surface Pro. Whether working under fluorescent office lighting or outside in the field, the display looks incredible in almost any lighting condition. We’ve made it 33% brighter and with a higher contrast ratio and have added a custom designed durable anti-reflective coating, all without making any sacrifices to the experience when using it with touch, and pen.

We focused a lot of attention on making the video calling experience on Microsoft Teams and other apps even better. With Surface Pro 10, we’ve put in a new Ultrawide Studio Camera that is the best front-facing camera that has ever been put into a Windows 2-in-1 or laptop. It’s the first Windows PC with a 114° field of view, captures video in 1440p, and uses AI-powered Windows Studio Effects to ensure that the speaker is in frame and looking their best during video calls.

Surface Pro 10 is a Secured-Core PC that delivers the industry-leading security that our business customers need. We’ve added additional layers of security to keep customer and company data safe and secure with Enhanced Sign-in Security on by default and a brand-new NFC reader designed to make secure password-less authentication even easier with NFC security keys like YubiKey 5C NFC .

Meet Surface Laptop 6 for Business

Surface Laptop 6 for Business is the ultimate laptop that’s built for business. It is powered by the latest Intel® Core™ Ultra H-Series processors and designed with improved thermal capacity to deliver incredible performance. This allows your team to be their most productive with the least amount of downtime when crunching huge data sets in Excel, creating marketing assets in Adobe Photoshop, or building critical applications in Visual Studio.

Consistent with the legacy of Surface, Surface Laptop 6 has an industry-leading typing experience that is designed for quality, and confidence. Every element of the keyboard has been considered to ensure productivity when typing, with nothing to get in the way of self-expression. Also, the new Copilot key on Surface Laptop 6 makes accessing the power of AI even easier, with a quick button press to invoke Copilot in Windows 1 to help customers to plan their day, find a document using natural text, analyze a website and more with commercial data protection built in.

Choose between 13.5” and 15” PixelSense touchscreen displays that are built for touch to help browse and navigate with ease. These vibrant displays also all come with anti-reflective and adaptive color technology that helps to clearly see the content on the screen in almost any lighting environment and reduces reflections by up to 50%.

We’ve designed a new Surface Studio Camera for Surface Laptop 6. The new camera captures 1080p video and uses AI-driven Windows Studio Effects to help everyone look their best on video calls. Windows Studio Effects are enabled by machine learning algorithms that run efficiently on the NPU leaving plenty of power to run other critical apps like Microsoft Teams on the CPU and GPU.

In the U.S. and Canada, customers will also be able to choose options on the 15” Surface Laptop 6 that include an integrated smart card reader. This helps customers in highly secure industries like government agencies and financial services login without a password simply by inserting their smart card.

Advances in accessibility, sustainability, security and modern tools for IT

In addition to the new products, there are advances in accessibility, sustainability, security and IT tools that will help our customers to empower all of their employees, advance their sustainability efforts, further secure their critical data and manage their devices over their life cycle.

Our Designed for Surface accessory partners are proud to offer a range of accessories specifically created to enhance the Surface experience in various commercial and industry scenarios. Our collection spans the Surface portfolio and includes everything from protective cases to mobile-kiosking retail solutions. One example is the ViewSonic ColorPro 4K Monitor , which offers Pantone Validation, stunning 4K Ultra HD resolution and calibrated color accuracy – making it a great option for Surface Laptop 6 customers. Our commitment is to ensure that your team can deploy Surface in any way and place you need.

Accessibility

Accessibility is core to Surface design and to Microsoft’s mission to enable every person and every organization to achieve more. Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 for Business bring the power of AI to accessibility, bringing together the latest hardware innovations from Surface with the software experiences designed to make it possible to use your device in the ways most natural to you.

We’ve made it even easier to turn on accessibility features through Copilot in Windows 1 . Ask Copilot to “turn on live captions” or “turn on the magnifier” without having to navigate to settings in Windows. Live captions 3 are now even better on these new products as the processing for this feature is offloaded to the NPU so the system operates with greater efficiency, freeing up the CPU and GPU to run other demanding applications.

We’re also launching the first ever Surface Pro Keyboard with bold keyset 5 , featuring a bold font change and brighter backlighting, making it easier to read and reducing eye strain for everyone. And finally, we’re very excited to launch our Microsoft Adaptive Accessories to commercial customers, empowering anyone with difficulty using a traditional mouse and keyboard to create their ideal setup, increase productivity, and use their favorite apps more effectively.

All of these innovations in accessibility have been created to match the elegant design of our products and empower more people to be productive and efficient in the way that works best for them.

Sustainability

In 2020, Microsoft committed to becoming carbon negative, water positive and zero waste by 2030. This commitment means that we are constantly working to advance the sustainability of our products, and we know that many of our customers are also pursuing their own ambitious sustainability goals. Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 contain the most recycled content that we’ve ever put into our PCs with the Surface Laptop 6 enclosure being made with a minimum of 25.8% recycled content and the enclosure on Surface Pro 10 being made with a minimum of 72% recycled content 6 . Both devices are even easier to service and repair with built-in QR codes that provide convenient access to service guides. In Surface Pro 10 we’ve also included internal markings that identify the number of screws and driver types needed for key components. This increased device repairability can offer significant carbon emissions and waste reduction benefits 7 . We are also making trade-in more convenient and secure for our commercial customers in the U.S. to help limit device waste.

Security is of critical importance to our customers, and we design devices with Zero Trust security principles to help keep their most sensitive data safe and protect all the way down to the firmware level. Surface Laptop 6 and Surface Pro 10 for Business have the highest-level security features and protections available in the ecosystem, are certified Secured-Core PCs, and have Enhanced Sign-In Security (ESS) on by default. We’ve made updates to the hardware itself with an optional smart card reader on Surface Laptop 6 and new NFC reader on Surface Pro 10. These new features combined with chip-to-cloud security deliver the ultimate in authentication and protection.

Modern tools for IT

At Surface we think about the entire lifecycle of the device, and how we can make customers’ lives easier. Today we are excited to introduce innovation from Surface and Intune to create the most modern and comprehensive solution for IT. The Surface Management Portal delivers insights-based monitoring to bring value and efficiency to device management. Customers can also track the estimated sustainability improvements of their devices right in the management portal. We’ve also created the Surface IT Toolkit with features to help modernize deployment, security and data compliance. Read more on the Surface IT Pro Blog .

Our team works relentlessly to create and tune every detail of our products to help our customers be more productive and engaged in the work they do today and in AI workstreams to enhance creativity and collaboration going forward. Our new Surface for Business portfolio is a key part of a holistic offering that includes Copilot, AI enhancements across key applications, and innovation in Windows 11 to bring our customers into a new era of work.

Surface Pro 10 for Business and Surface Laptop 6 for Business are available for pre-order starting today, with product shipping to customers starting April 9. To learn more and pre-order your devices today, visit Surface.com/Business to find an authorized reseller or the Microsoft Store.

Disclaimers

Copilot in Windows (in preview) is available in select global markets and will be rolled out to additional markets over time. Learn more . Copilot with commercial data protection is available at no additional cost for users with an Entra ID with an enabled, eligible Microsoft 365 license . When Copilot for Windows is not enabled on the device, pressing the Copilot key will launch Windows Search.
Based on 3DMark TimeSpy benchmark measuring graphic performance.
Live Captions supports English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Danish.
Surface Pro 10 with 5G will be available later in 2024 and not available in all areas. eSIM and 5G support are also not available in all areas; compatibility and performance depend on carrier network, plan and other factors. See carrier for details and pricing.
Surface Pro Keyboard with bold keyset available only in U.S. English and is available only in the U.S. and CA.
Based on validation performed by Underwriter Laboratories, Inc. using Environmental Claim Validation Procedure, UL 2809-2, Second Edition, November 7, 2023.
Based on Microsoft-commissioned assessment of greenhouse gas emissions and waste impacts prepared by Oakdene Hollins in April 2022 comparing device replacement to factory repair and Microsoft ASP repair.

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From a performance perspective, Surface Laptop 6 is 2x faster than Laptop 5 2, and Surface Pro 10 is up to 53% faster than Pro 9. The benefits of the NPU integration include AI features like Windows Studio Effects and Live Captions 3 and the opportunity for businesses and developers to build their own AI apps and experiences.