10 Truely Great Alternatives to Powerpoint

Powerpoint has been the workhorse of presentations for over three decades but there are alternatives. We've curated 10 of the very best.

Written By : on October 31, 2019

Powerpoint has been the workhorse of presentations for over three decades but there are alternatives. We’ve curated 10 of the very best.

It’s probably fair to say that Powerpoint has been the workhorse of presentations for over three decades now. In big business, we’ve seen it used for strategic planning, proposal writing and sometimes even presentations!

So, whilst Powerpoint is a brilliant tool, there are alternatives. Whether you’re looking for a cheap or free solution or just looking at new creative ways to get your ideas across, there’s probably a solution for you. We’ve compiled a list of 10, very viable, Powerpoint alternatives.

1. Prezi

Prezi has been around for quite a while now. It takes a non-linear approach to presenting. It uses a concept of zooming into and out of parts of your presentation. I guess the idea is to focus on small sections/ideas at a time without distracting the audience. I’m not sure about their proclamation, “Designed for people who are not designers”. In order to produce a visually professional presentation, you’re still going to need a few design skills or at least good taste, no matter what tool you’re using.

You can share your presentations online (via a shared link) or offline using their desktop app. The basic version is free so you can try it out risk free.

https://prezi.com

2. Canva

Canva is not just a presentation tool. It’s a general media creation tool for many different types of graphic media, social media posts, flyers, you name it, Canva has probably got a template for it. Again, this is aimed at helping non-designers create beautiful looking designs.

Canva is on the list because it has some pretty good presentation templates and has some great output options.

Canva is predominately a browser based tool, however, they do have apps available too.

As usual, there are both free and pro (paid) versions available.

https://canva.com

3. Adobe Express

Previously Adobe Spark, now updated to Adobe Express with ever expanding features and functionality.

Adobe Spark Screen Shots

If you have a full Adobe Cloud subscription, you’ll already have access to Adobe Express. The system is a little like Canva (above) in that it offers a full spectrum of media formats. It has a particular focus on social media and has options to create media for all the major platform formats.

In terms of creating presentations, the reason it’s in this list is because of it’s video story creation tool :

If you’re not using narrative structures in your presentation, you’re missing out on a powerful communications tool. Visit https://www.thestorymill.co.uk for more about storytelling in business.

When you have finished creating your video presentation, you can download it (it saves as a mp4 video format file) or you can create a unique link to share online or email it.

4. Google Slides

Google Slides Screen Shots

“Click here to add title”. There’s something pretty familiar about that isn’t there? Google Slides is part of Google’s suite of online applications. Not surprisingly is well integrated into the whole suite. I particularly like the integration with google hangouts.

So, is it any good?

I wouldn’t say it’s as full-featured as Microsoft’s Powerpoint, but for the average user, it provides all the functionally you’ll ever need. So all in all a pretty decent app.

It’s predominately a cloud-based tool, although they do have an android app.

As it’s an online tool, collaboration is well catered for and people can add their comments to your presentation.

https://www.google.com/slides/about/

5. Slide Bean

Another online presentation tool. Great templates and a clean interface. However, what really stands out with this app is their AI engine. You can enter all your content (images, text, graphics etc) in outline mode without worrying about how it looks. Once the content is entered, you can hit a button for the AI engine to kick in and automatically arrange your content into a pleasing design. You can, of course, move things around manually or hit the arrange with AI button again if you don’t like the initial layout. Pretty cool stuff!

6. Visme

This is probably one of the fullest featured online presentation tools we’ve seen. There are some great templates available. What’s interesting about this app to us, is how it categorizes content. It’s actually fairly intuitive and everything is where you might expect it to be.

One downside I can see is because it is so comprehensive, the average user could get lost and the user still has to make plenty of design choices, so no AI like slidebean has.

There are a full array of output and sharing options :

Check it out here : https://visme.co

7. Beautiful.ai

Beautiful Screen Shot

Wow. This software has a simple elegance to it. It has the right balance of just getting out of your way and then lending a helpful hand to make sure your slides are as beautiful as possible.

I don’t want to be Powerpoint bashing here, but if you’re designing slides in Powerpoint and using the defaults all the time, your slides are not going to look their best (I’m being kind here!)

Beautiful, is like having an experienced designer sat beside you as you enter your content. Here’s one example (and there are many), I changed the background colour of a slide to a dark colour, Beautiful then automatically adjust the text to a lighter colour so that it was legible. This is a simple thing but I can’t tell you how many slides I’ve seen where there is just not enough contrast between the background and foreground text. Beautiful makes those subtle design decisions for you so you can spend more time on your content.

Check it out here https://beautiful.ai

8. Pitch

First of all, let me start by saying congratulations, www.pitch.com, on a fantastically engaging home page! Pitch is not yet available which is a real shame because it promises to be a fantastic tool and, given the people who are investing in the company, I’m sure it will be worth the wait.

You can tell a lot about a company by the way it presents itself. The care and attention given to their brand look and feel is superb. This makes the anticipation of getting our hands on the product even more intense.

You can sign up for early access here.

9. Biteable

Biteable Screen Shot

So, Biteable, is different from most of the presentation tools mentioned above. It’s actually a video presentation creator, i.e. the final result will be a video that you can download, link to or embed on a web page.

What is great about Biteable are the fantastic templates that are available. The tool starts by asking you basic questions about what you are doing, for example. creating a presentation to pitch, or creating a video to promote a product. From there it suggests a number of templates.

Biteable uses the concept of scenes to build up your presentation, so in that sense, it lends itself to storytelling very well.

The software is fantastically intuitive and has hundreds of pre-made elements that are of very high quality including video, motion graphics, infographics, visual effects, photos.

Let your creativity run wild. https://biteable.com

10. Videoscribe

Video Scribe Screen Shot

This again falls into the category of video presentation software, however, this is a whiteboard creator. If you haven’t heard the term before, the basic concept is to add text and graphics to a digital canvas, then, the software automatically animates the elements being drawn onscreen, usually with a hand holding a pen/pencil.

The software itself is in the form of an app you download (Mac or PC) that you can download when you have signed up for a trial or purchased one of their plans.

Once downloaded and installed, you can start creating your whiteboard presentations. It’s as easy as drag and drop and then entering your text. You can also record your own voice over. Once you’re done, either share online our download your presentation. You can even download your presentation as a Powerpoint (ppt) file.

Check out Video Scribe here.

Author:

Co-founded The Story Mill in 2013. Working at the intersection of creativity and technology. Straight talking, fair, curious, always learning.

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