what is audio visual presentation software

15 Best Video Presentation Software to Try in 2024

Ready to make an outstanding video presentation? Here are the best tools to help you learn how to make video presentations and create one in no time.

Victoria Greywing

11 minute read

With the rise in remote work, online classes, and virtual events, video presentations have become a crucial aspect of effective communication.

In fact, having a video in a presentation already shows that 32% more people will interact with your content .

Making a video presentation takes time, so having a reliable tool is more important than ever. That's why we've compiled a list of the best video presentation software to try this year.

Whether you're a marketer, educator, or business owner, these tools offer a range of features to help you create engaging and memorable presentations.

Factors to consider when choosing video presentation software

1. ease of use.

The worst thing you need to avoid is spending hours learning how to use tools, not getting any work done, and then giving up in frustration. The software should be easy to use, even for those with limited technical skills. This will ensure that you can create presentations quickly and efficiently.

2. Customizability

Customization is the part that adds a creative look to your presentations. Such tools should allow you to customize your presentations to suit your needs and the preferences of your customers.

This includes the ability to add your branding elements like logo, banner, etc., choose from a range of templates, and add multimedia.

3. Interactive features

Although not essential, interactive elements help engage your audience. Adding quizzes and polls, allowing users to comment on slides, and even embedding videos or other content makes your presentations more memorable.

4. Advanced editing tools

There is no good video presentation without editing. You need tools like an image editor that offer important features like transitions, filters, captions, pitcure upscaling , etc. This will help you create more professional-looking presentations that can grab the viewers’ attention.

5. Compatibility & sharing options

The best video presentations are those that can easily be shared with others. The tool should offer quick export options and compatibility with different devices.

Whether it’s through email or social media, you should be able to easily share the presentations with other users.

Our top 15 video presentation software

Jump ahead to page section.

Powtoon is a cloud-based animation tool that is ideal for displaying data visually . It's an excellent option for HR teams, educators, and marketers who want to create eye-catching materials for their presentations.

The tool offers a range of templates, characters, and backgrounds that you can customize as you like.

Powtoon’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create videos even if you have no prior experience.

You can add text, images, and other visual elements to quickly compose captivating animated videos that share your ideas and stories.

Plus, you can upload audio clips or background music to accompany your visuals and further enhance the impact of your message.

Powtoon is compatible with both Windows and Mac and offers a range of subscription options, making it accessible to everyone.

This versatility further cements its reputation one of the best ai video editing software apps available.

Source: Powtoon

• Great for creative video content
• Drag-and-drop interface
• Wide range of templates
• Quick share to social media and other platforms
• Offers team collaboration
• Slow loading speed for some users
• Watermark in the free plan

Pricing: 3-month free trial, $15/month for Lite, $60/month for Professional, $100/month for Agency

Movavi Video Editor

Movavi Video Editor helps you learn how to make effective presentations with its intuitive tools. It's user-friendly and offers plenty of features for both beginners and professionals alike.

Do you need a specific transition or title effect? This tool offers a wide selection of them. You’ll also find a library of sounds, music, backgrounds, and text editing options.

Furthermore, you can record your voice and add it to your video as a separate audio track.

Movavi Video Editor has many filters and special effects that will fit any occasion. From retro filters to artistic effects, you can add unique touches to your presentation to impress your audience.

More advanced features include AI background removal , denoizer, and upscaling feature as well as audio editing tools, color correction, and more.

Source: Movavi

• Intuitive interface
• Supports all popular video and audio formats
• Great editing features
• Massive media library
• Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD hardware acceleration
• Free trial limits the audio length and adds a watermark on the output video

Pricing: 7-day free trial, $54.95/year, $74.95 for a lifetime license

A video maker for presentation videos, Lumen5 has everything from business and marketing to educational or training materials, suitable for all types of presenters.

The uniqueness of this platform is its AI-driven text-to-video feature. You can simply enter your text, and Lumen’s video maker will automatically create a video based on your content.

The tool offers a library of images, videos, and music, which you can use to create professional-looking video presentations. You can also upload your images, videos, and audio to customize your video.

Source: Lumen5

• Easy to use
• AI-powered video maker
• Millions of images, videos, and music
• Real-time collaboration feature
• Fewer animation options
• Slow render speed

Pricing: Community (free), $79/month for Basic, $199/month for Starter, $29/month for Professional, Enterprise (custom price)

Storydoc is a revolutionary interactive platform for efficient content creation. It combines templates and a powerful drag-and-drop builder to help you create stories, reports, presentations, and other content quickly.

This online tool provides an intuitive visual editing experience, allowing you to add text, images, GIFs, videos, music, and more.

This tool turns static documents into immersive content experiences that boost engagement, encourage conversion, and stay memorable in readers’ minds.

Storydoc also comes with comprehensive content analytics that lets you see how readers interact with your content and optimize based on what you find.

• Ready-made business templates
• Interactive elements
• Integrations with CRM tools and other apps
• Limited customization
• Few editing options

Pricing: 14-day free trial, $30/month for Starter, $45/month for Pro, Team plans (contact for details)

With Canva, you can easily make professional-looking visuals for websites, social media posts, presentations, posters, and more, without needing any design experience.

Just drag and drop elements onto the slides, add your own images, videos, or audio, or pick one from Canva's library. You can even customize the fonts, colors, and other details for each design. Canva also provides a vast library of event templates like invitation templates , poster templates, flyer templates, and many more.

The best thing is that by using the “Present and record” feature you can transform your presentation into a video format. Select your microphone and webcam and quickly record yourself talking as you show your slides.

Source: Canva

• Variety of templates
• Highly customizable
• Quick share
• Free version limitations
• Can't mix different designs

Pricing: Canva Free, 1-month free trial or $119.99/month for Canva Pro, $149.90/month for Canva for Teams

Biteable is a simple and powerful online video maker that anyone can use. There are many animations, videos & images, soundtracks, and recordings you can add to your project as well as upload your own content.

With a script mode, you can entirely avoid complex editing and use Biteable’s built-in text editor to write out your script. Once you’ve finished, the platform automatically creates an animation based on the script.

All the media is stored in different categories, making it easy to find what you need. You can also measure the performance of your video using Biteable’s analytics feature.

Source: TechCrunch

• Various tools and media are available
• Simple sharing by email, Slack, WhatsApp, and even SMS
• Online collaboration
• Limited editing options
• Can't download video files directly from the platform

Pricing: 7-day free trial, $99/month for Pro, $199/month for Teams

Synthesia is an AI-driven tool for any content creator who loves storytelling and presenting information. It's ideal for creating short animated explainer videos, tutorials, and product demos, as well as for crafting impactful marketing stories.

The platform helps you create a video in minutes with its AI-powered technology. You simply type the text you need to create a video, choose your desired avatar and voice style, and Synthesia does the rest.

You can also customize your video by adding text, shapes, images, and music, and even recording your presentation .

Source: Synthesia

• Intuitive user interface
• Simple video creation process
• Ready-made avatars, voices, and scenes
• Few features in a personal plan
• No collaboration options

Pricing: Free demo (200 words limit), $30/month for Personal, custom price for Corporate

Animoto is an incredibly versatile platform that’s made for various kinds of videos, including video presentations, slideshows, social media content, and more.

Featuring advanced tools like automatic video production and an array of aesthetic templates, it's easy to create eye-catching presentations in minutes.

Animoto offers a library of royalty-free stock footage so you can find the perfect scene to fit your project.

Best of all, users can make their work stand out by adding custom branding and logos, music, transitions, captions, and graphics.

Source: Animoto

• AI-powered smart video creator
• Customizable templates and themes
• Limited customization options
• No advanced audio editing tools are available

Pricing: Free, $8/month for Basic, $15/month for Professional, $39/month for Professional Plus

Animaker is a DIY tool that offers a wide selection of animated styles like 2D and 3D objects, whiteboards, and infographics as well as vibrant backgrounds and scenes.

You can customize the content with text, voiceover, and music options and drag and drop them into your project.

The interesting part is you can build a character representing you to enliven your presentation. Animaker also offers 100M+ stock images and videos and 1000+ templates to choose from.

Source: Animaker

• User-friendly & intuitive interface
• Drag & drop editing
• Versatile animations
• Character builder for personalization
• Limited music library
• Few scene templates

Pricing: Free trial, $10/mo for Basic, $19/mo for Starter, $49/mo for Pro, Enterprise (contact for details)

Wideo is a web-based video maker for industries like marketing, education, and e-commerce.

You can create explainer videos, promotional videos, product demos, and more. With a rich library of cartoon elements, you can build a video from scratch or take advantage of the professional templates that come with the platform.

In Wideo player automatically generates a transcript based on the video’s text and you can switch between video and presentation modes to get a better idea of how the video will look.

Video saves in MP4 format and you can share it on YouTube and other social media.

Source: Wideo

• Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
• Text-to-speech feature
• Pre-made templates for quick creation
• Low-quality templates compared to other tools

Vimeo is a well-known video hosting platform where you can upload and share videos. But it also has an easy-to-use video maker, allowing you to create attention-grabbing videos.

The platform offers a large music library where you can find the perfect tune for your video. With Vimeo’s portfolio feature, you can organize your videos into collections and even create a custom URL for your portfolio.

For making video presentations, Vimeo has many templates you can customize and add your own visuals. Change the scale, opacity, and style of text and graphics, and add layouts, transitions, stickers, narration, and more.

Source: Vimeo

• Built-in sharing options
• Customizable templates
• Integration with multiple popular tools, such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Slack.
• Few advanced video editing options
• Very limited access to features in a free plan

Pricing: Free plan, $12/month for Starter, $20/month for Standard, $65/month for Advanced, Enterprise (contact sales)

Vyond provides cartoon animations and videos with customizable characters, scenes, and text effects. This easy-to-use software helps bring your stories and brand presentation messages to life.

The platform comes with many templates based on job roles, categories, and styles.

You can mix them up or start from scratch with a blank canvas and add your own visuals. You can also record your voice directly from the microphone or use text-to-speech .

Source: Vyond

• Big library of characters, props, and backgrounds
• Wide range of styles to choose from
• Version history for collaboration
• Few character and scene customization options
• Hard to manage multiple scenes and characters
• No closed captioning

Pricing: 14-day free trial, $49/month for Essential, $89/month for Premium, $179/month for Professional, Enterprise (custom pricing)

Moovly is an online video maker for presentations with many visual styles like doodles, cartoons, motion graphics, and more. You can quickly add voiceovers using built-in AI voices, generate subtitles, and even translate them to any language you need.

The tool offers great animations and effects for your videos and allows work collaboration. There is also a library of images, videos, music, and sound effects to choose from.

Source: Moovly

• Straightforward interface
• Easy management
• Integrations with YouTube, Google Drive, Dropbox, and other tools
• Free trial limitations
• Lack of variety in designs
• No advanced animation capabilities

Pricing: Free, $99 per month for Pro, $199 per month for Max, Enterprise (custom pricing)

Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is the go-to presentation-building tool for countless businesses and professionals. It's a staple of creating stunning visuals and helpful resources for any type of presentation.

Combined with a creative mind, creating presentations no longer remains complicated or time-consuming. With everything from templates to animations, PowerPoint provides all the necessary tools for designing exceptional video presentations.

Customize your slides with whatever images and videos you need to represent your ideas. Then, just export the presentation as a video. You can also upload a voice-over narration or add sound effects.

Source: Microsoft

• All-in-one presentation solution
• Familiar with many users
• Limited advanced design capabilities
• Not good for complex animations
• Large file size when exporting as a video

Pricing: 1-month free trial, $6.99/month with Microsoft 365 or $159.99 one-time payment

Prezi is cloud-based presentation software that allows users to create dynamic and engaging presentations using a range of templates and multimedia elements. It's a great option for industries like education, marketing, and business.

One of the standout features of the tool is its zooming presentation interface, which allows presenters to create a more immersive and interactive experience for viewers.

With Prezi, you can easily create and customize templates, add animations and transitions, and collaborate with others in real time, making it ideal for remote teams and learners.

The basic plan is limited in features, while the advanced plans offer more opportunities like offline access, PowerPoint presentation converter, voiceover, custom branding, analytics, and more.

Source: Prezi

• Easy-to-use interface
• Feature-rich
• Wide range of templates and multimedia elements
• Limited free trial features
• Animations can distract viewers
• The zooming interface can be overwhelming for some viewers

Pricing: 14-day free trial, $7/mo for Standard, $12/mo for Plus, $16/mo for Premium

Enhance the impact of your messages with video presentations

Here they are, video presentation software options available this year, each with its own unique features and capabilities.

By considering the factors outlined in this article, you can select the right software option for your needs and create engaging and memorable presentations that leave a lasting impression on your audience.

And don't forget to check some great presentation examples for inspiration.

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Victoria is a content manager with 4+ years of experience and has formerly worked in marketing and blogging niches. She likes writing texts and researching new complicated topics to share her expertise with trustworthy resources.

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What is the Best Visual Presentation Software?

Looking for the best visual presentation software on the market today?

Whatever your presentation needs, you’ve got plenty of options to work with. These range from free, cloud-based products designed for the office, to high-end professional-caliber tools designed for the most demanding production environments.

Should you just settle for a free office-oriented presentation app? Or is something more robust the smarter move?

The answer depends on what you need and what you’re looking to accomplish.

In this guide, we’ll show you exactly what you need to know so you can land on the right visual presentation software for your organization or business.

Advancements in Visual Presentation Software

If you haven’t shopped around for visual presentation software in a while, you might be surprised by everything that’s new. The same is true if you’ve never explored beyond basic office apps like PowerPoint or Keynote .

Tech advancements have powered all sorts of innovations and new capabilities within pro-grade visual presentation software, including features like these:

• Multiple inputs and outputs: receiving content (including live video) from multiple sources, and outputting in unique configurations to multiple displays.
• Support for professional formats: inputs and outputs using SDI with internal and external keying, and NDI.
• Modern slide architecture: Some solutions, including ProPresenter, have reinvented the concept of a slide to be more than a flat box where users place graphics and images. A multi-layered slide architecture allows you to do more within a single slide.

Of course, not every presentation software solution on the market today includes all of these features, so it’s crucial to find the best visual presentation software for your own unique situation and needs.

How to Find the Best Visual Presentation Software for Your Needs

Not everyone has the same needs or is looking to do the same things with their presentation tools. That’s a reason the market has so many choices, and those choices are as varied as they are.

If you’re not sure where to start in determining which presentation apps will meet your needs and which might not, work through the following three questions:

• Outline your needs: what are you trying to achieve?
• What is the maximum feature set you will need, e.g. for special events?
• Do the usual suspects provide the features you need?

Let’s dive into each of these.

1. Outline your needs: what are you trying to achieve?

First up, list your use cases, then the needs for each use case, and create a list of needs and nice-to-haves.

• Are you looking for a simple way to create presentations, maybe even something with a free version?
• Do you need to create high-impact business presentations? Drag and drop editor?
• Are you a video creator (or a broadcast or production pro) looking primarily for high-quality video presentation software that can take in your existing video content and video clips, then add graphics overlays?
• Are you using screen recording to create videos, but then you want to embed those into a slide deck (or overlay slide/graphics content onto the videos you’ve created)?
• Are you creating worship presentations that need to be displayed in multiple views and configurations throughout your facility or campus?

Once you’ve established exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, make another list of the high-level features you need, plus those that would be nice to have or would greatly speed up your workflow as you create presentations.

Then it’s time to ask question #2.

2. Do you need more robust features?

As you look at your list of the features you need, consider whether you’ve included anything in those categories that would be considered robust or niche.

Features like multiple video outputs, the ability to handle all your real-time livestream needs from within your visual presentation software, or even automatically handling copyrights and lyrics for worship services—these require specialized solutions that aren’t common.

If you already know based on your initial feature list that you’re going to need something more robust, you can skip the next question. If you’re not sure or you’re on the fence, it’s time for question #3.

3. Do the usual suspects provide the features you need?

Next, investigate whether the usual suspects offer all the features you’re looking for.

The Usual Suspects

PowerPoint is the elder statesman of the business presentation world. It’s widespread, and just about everyone has encountered it at some point.

As far as presentation goes, it’s fine. It isn’t terrible, though nobody gets excited about it, either. You’ll have no trouble designing basic slides that can handle text, photos, some video, and recent versions have improved things with better templates. There’s even an AI design assistant that can analyze the text and photo content on a slide and suggest multiple slide designs.

But make no mistake: PowerPoint is a business-oriented product. It’s designed to shoot a presentation up on the wall, and that’s it. No multiple outputs, no live integrations, no support for true live video. It’s just PowerPoint.

PowerPoint doesn’t have a free version or free trial, but many organizations are already paying for a broader Microsoft license that includes this presentation app.

Keynote is Apple’s alternative to PowerPoint. It generally does all the same things, but in an Apple-centric design language. Depending on who you ask, it’s sleeker and easier to use, and you tend to get more beautiful results. But if you’ve already got experience in another app, you might find the Keynote interface confusing or strangely limited.

Keynote has all the same limitations as PowerPoint, plus one more big one: the compatibility issue. It’s an Apple-only product, and that’s not likely to ever change. Unless you’re using a pro-grade third-party tool, you won’t get your Keynote files playing on a PC.

Google Slides

Google Slides is a cloud-based lightweight alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote. It’s platform-agnostic since it runs in your web browser. Because it’s a web app, it’s even more limited in terms of processing power and I/O. It’s synchronization abilities can be particularly useful with other Google products, like Sheets, but it overall has less options than PowerPoint or Keynote for creating presentations. It also goes lightweight on audio and video, nevermind live video.

Prezi is a new-school approach that adds some 3D elements to the presentation game. Where PowerPoint looks like content sitting on a flat rectangle, Prezi uses zoom and rotate to do lots of fun stuff, and has become a popular option with students who want their presentation to look more interesting. Prezi’s cloud-based offering includes both free and paid plans, and since Covid-19, it’s focused on the online market, such as integrating into Zoom.

ProPresenter: The Best Audio / Visual Presentation Software on the Market

If the usual suspects aren’t offering what you need, then it’s time to step up to a professional solution. ProPresenter is the best audio / visual presentation software on the market, for anyone needing something more robust. It’s used by everyone from NASA, Congress, and the Olympics, to universities, churches, and concerts.

Below are several of it’s key features:

Unique Visual features

• Multi-layered slide architecture lets you choose which outputs get what content.
• Incredibly rich video support, including looping background video, live video content, and playback of video clips from an unprecedented range of file formats.
• Support for Resi , the industry-leading resilient streaming protocol.
• Advanced professional slide editor gives you access to more design tools.
• Access to numerous media libraries for quality slide design.
• Wide compatibility and integrations, including SDI and NDI outputs, display masks, alpha keyer, and more.

Unique Audio features

• Discrete audio layer.
• Support for audio playlists.
• Customize audio and video settings per video clip.
• Advanced audio routing (up to 16 audio channels).

Trust ProPresenter, the Best Visual Presentation Software on the Market

Ready to upgrade to the best visual presentation software on the market today? The ProPresenter team is ready to get you started. Download your free trial today!

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Ranking the Best Presentation Software Heading into 2024

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.

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 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, 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.

You can sign up to Microsoft 365 here .

The best presentation software of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

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 .

Our Microsoft discount codes can help you save on your next purchase.

• ^ Back to the top

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 .

Other presentation software to consider

Google Slides  is part of the Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) office platform intended as an online alternative to Microsoft Office. It may seem a little limited by comparison to PowerPoint, but as it's browser-based that means cross-platform compatibility. Additionally, it allows for collaborative work, and Google Slides really works well here. On top of the fact that it integrates with the rest of the Google Workspace apps, not least Google Drive, and you have a contender. 

Zoho Show  is another of the many, many tools and apps that Zoho has made available for business use. It also operates in the cloud so it's accessible to any device with a browser, and it also allows for collaborative work. You can also easily share the link for users to download, or provide a live presentation online. The updated version has a simpler and easier to use interface and comes with a free version and a paid-for one with expanded features.

Evernote  is normally thought of as just note-taking software, but it does provide the option to create a presentation you can share online or with an audience. In that regard, it's a little more limited than the other options in not being dedicated presentation software. However, as an easy and handy way to pull together a presentation quickly, it could serve as a backup or last-minute option, especially if Evernote is already being commonly used by you.

LibreOffice Impress  is part of the open-source suite offered as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and comes with a powerful array of tools and editing options for your presentation, not least working with 3D images. It's supported by a large community, so it's easy to find an array of additional templates. If there is a limitation it's that it's software you download and install rather than web-based, but any presentations created should be easily portable to the web if needed.

Adobe Spark  does things a bit differently, as rather than just use images it's geared toward video as well. This makes for potentially more powerful multimedia presentations, especially as Adobe also has a big selection of photos and images available for its users. There is a free tier for core features but requires a subscription for custom branding, personalized themes, and support.

Slides  comes with a lot of features in an easy-to-use interface, and involves setting up presentations using drag and drop into an existing grid. It's also internet-based so there's no software to download, and it only requires a browser to use and access. 

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!

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9 Best Video Presentation Software to Try in 2024 (Reviews & Rankings)

Published on: 05/06/2024

By Scott Winstead

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Do you need to create a video presentation? The good news is that creating video presentations doesn’t have to be difficult. And you don’t need to be an experienced video editor or someone with a lot of technical know-how.

You just need the best video presentation software.

Here’s the truth: the platform you choose will determine the quality and effectiveness of your video presentation. Use the wrong program and your presentation might not turn out the way you want, turning your project into a failure. But with the right video presentation maker and screen recording software, you can create a video that’s engaging and effective at getting your message across.

As an instructional designer who’s tested just about every tool out there, I’ve ranked and reviewed the best video presentations software platforms available in 2024 based on numerous factors, including ease of use, editing capabilities, pricing, support, and more ( click here to learn about our entire Editorial Process & Methodology for product reviews ).

What are the Best Video Presentation Software Platforms?

Here are my picks for the best video presenter software options to try in 2024:

Quickly produce animated videos for any job role or industry—achieve results 10 times faster than traditional video production methods.

Vyond  allows you to easily create your own animated videos for training, eLearning, or even marketing.

Vyond includes libraries with numerous backgrounds, characters, props, royalty-free music tracks, and sound and video effects with uses across hundreds of industries and topics.

The customer support from Vyond is also exceptional. The team is very proactive in making sure you have all the info and training you need to quickly start creating great videos, and they’re great at answering any questions that might come up along the way.

Key Features

• Wealth of capabilities for tweaking and customization.  Add characters, change the background, match your content with a specific style – all with an intuitive interface.
• Nifty character builder . Vyond lets you recreate learners, customers, or yourself using an easy character creator in their video presentation software. It’s fun!
• Publish content in a single click . Share your videos across multiple hosting sites, authoring tools, and social media. Alternatively, download your video presentation as a high-quality MP4 file.
• Automatic lip-sync.  You can allocate a voice track to specific characters and watch them lip-sync to the track.
• Animated infographics.  A great combination of animated video clips and infographics.
• Media import . Use import to upload images, music, voice tracks, video clips, and screen recordings.
• Advanced AI features.  Vyond Go offers course creators the ability to jump from drafting a script to making a video in literally seconds.  Just type a prompt into Vyond Go and watch a well-crafted script appears in moments.
• Easy to use, easy to publish
• Hassle-free voice recording
• Super quick way to create high quality videos
• Advanced AI features to streamline video production
• Occasionally slow to load
• No free/freemium version

There is a 14-day free trial available . Vyond offers several paid plans from $49-$179 a year.

2. iSpring Suite

iSpring Suite is a comprehensive authoring toolkit that works right in PowerPoint and allows you to create high-quality videos with no special skills.

With iSpring Suite , you can easily create video lectures and tutorials in PowerPoint using your screen, webcam, or both.

The tool has all the features to make them look professional. For instance, you can easily delete unwanted portions, remove noise, and set up smooth transitions.

To highlight key concepts, you can add titles, captions, and shapes, or insert images.

iSpring Suite also enables you to combine video narration with a PowerPoint presentation. You can upload a ready-made video or record new narration with your webcam right in the toolkit. To maintain eye contact with the audience and sound confident, you can put your script into slide notes and read along. After recording, you can sync your video narration with slides and animation effects with ease.

However, iSpring Suite can do more than just video production. It allows you to create engaging online courses, smart quizzes, role-plays, and interactions effortlessly.

• Edit your videos easily. You can change speed, add intro slides, and insert images, audio recordings, and infographics.
• Record high-quality screencasts. You can choose the recording area, add voice narration or your webcam video, and automatically add visual hints when you click, enter, or use hotkeys.
• Shift between speaker and slides. When creating video narration for slides, you can select the player layout for each slide and show both the speaker video and slide simultaneously, or switch between them as needed.
• Create online courses. iSpring Suite allows you to turn PowerPoint slides into engaging online courses with branching scenarios and simply upload them to an LMS or share on the Web.
• Doesn’t require any tech skills
• Supports all PowerPoint effects and animations
• Easy publishing to YouTube or in an LMS
• Output in MP4 or HTML5 format
• Works in PowerPoint, not a standalone solution
• Doesn’t work on MacOS

You can choose from three subscription options: iSpring Suite, iSpring Suite Max, and iSpring Suite Premium, which comes with a content library and an online collaboration tool.

• iSpring Suite — $770 per user/year
• iSpring Suite Max — $970 per user/year
• iSpring Suite Premium — $1,970 per user/year

The vendor provides special discounts for freelancers and academics: they can get iSpring Suite for $490 and $470 per user/year, respectively.

A free 14-day trial is available.

Loom is a free video presentation software that makes it super easy to create, edit, and share your videos with your audience.

With Loom, you can add audio to your Google Slides , PowerPoint , or other presentation, including voiceovers, speaker bubbles, and other touches by recording your screen and narration.

Whether you’re making a video presentation for marketing, sales, employee training , online courses, or any other purpose, Loom makes it super easy to do with just the click of a button.

You can make videos on your computer, web browser, or even mobile device.

Record your video presentations with Loom’s browser extension (on Chrome only right now), or use their desktop and mobile apps, and then share them with a single click.

• Quickly create great video presentations
• Works on PC, Mac, and mobile devices
• Chrome users don’t have to download anything if they use the browser extension
• Securely share your videos with your audience and track metrics
• Totally free to use
• Create video presentations by recording your screen and adding voiceovers to Google Slides, PowerPoint presentations, and other presentations
• Make instantly shareable video
• Track views of your videos easily
• Edit your video to create a great final product
• Lacks some advanced video creation features
• Could use more editing tools

Loom pricing includes an excellent free plan as well as some very affordable paid plans that have additional features.

Click here to try Loom for free .

4 . Camtasia

Camtasia is a fantastic all-in-one screen recorder and video presentation software. This tool makes it super simple to create and edit videos on Windows and Mac.

Camtasia is one of the most popular video presentation makers with a huge user base.

Ease of use is the huge selling point here, and it’s the reason it’s ranked so high on our list of best video presentation software. This program is super quick to learn and doesn’t require a lot of technical know-how.

Camtasia’s screen recording software makes it easy to capture specific windows or your entire desktop. You can also easily upload your media files and place them in the order you want on the timeline.

Adding intros, outros, text overlays, whiteboard animations , voiceovers, and music is also incredibly easy and requires basically no technical skills.

The editing capabilities of Camtastia’s video presentations software are also extensive and simple to understand. Easily crop your videos, cut parts you don’t want, and adjust the audio to create the final product you envisioned.

• Edit audio and video with ease. When the recording is over, Camtasia will pigeonhole the output so you can edit system audio, video, cursor, and mic separately.
• Use your webcam. Just activate your webcam when screencasting, and Camtasia will save your live recording as a separate track.
• Add as many tracks as you want. Camtasia offers an expandable multi-track timeline that may include screen content, several audio tracks, effects, callouts, etc.
• Easy trimming and cropping of video clips . Cut and join video fragments in just a couple clicks.
• Noise removal and leveling. Make the sound better by removing background noises or adjusting the levels.
• Closed Captioning. Camtasia provides both open and closed captioning abilities. Plus, you can easily export captions for translation.
• Rich video effects. Keep your audience focused and entertained by adding callouts, quizzing, zooming, etc.
• No time limits whatsoever. Camtasia really stands out from the crowd in this respect. Lengthy videos are no problem at all since both scalability and performance are up to standard. It’s great for those who need to create presentations that are longer than average.
• Great editing options. Camtasia is a bundle of screen recorder and video editing software. There is a diversity of editing options inside, from manipulating visual properties to adding transitions, captions, and quizzes. Camtasia has it all.
• High compatibility. Camtasia file formats are interoperable between Mac and PC, and you can always save the project in good old .avi.
• Good support for PowerPoint presentations. Just integrate the Camtasia toolbar into PowerPoint and start recording presentations in a familiar format. This is a great way to enhance your presentation and then share a PowerPoint slide show with your audience.
• Easy to publish and share. You can share the output on YouTube, Google Docs, MyPlaces, and others – right from the program dashboard.
• No web-based option. Unlike many online video presenter solutions, Camtasia is a heavy piece of software that requires installation and some space on your HDD.
• No support for a digital camera. Camtasia was designed to work with USB webcams, not digital cameras, so TechSmith makes no promises here. Some DV cameras were reported to cooperate smoothly with Camtasia but it’s still a matter of chance.

Camtasia Studio is free to try . A one-year subscription will cost you $179.88. Check out our Camtasia pricing guide for more info.

With Wideo, you can easily create professional animated videos and presentations in just minutes. You don't need any video editing skills or experience. This is a great choice for beginners looking for an easy video presentation app.

With Wideo (free trial) , you can easily create animated videos in just minutes. This video presentation software might be the quickest to use to create a finished product.

The way it works is Wideo has a number of templates you can use and fit to your project, allowing you to more quickly make your videos for everything from quick lessons to marketing videos to social media clips and more.

Just choose the template, drag and drop your graphics (use your own or choose from their huge stock library), and then publish and share your videos with one click.

If you’re looking to make animated videos quickly and without spending a lot of money, this is a great choice. Of course, if you’re looking for something that allows for much more customization, Wideo might not be your ideal video presentation maker as it does really heavily on its templates.

• Quickly create high-quality animated videos
• Choose from pre-made templates and tweak to your desire
• Easy-to-use interface compared to other video presentation software
• Big graphics library
• Very intuitive interface.  Create your videos with no previous video editing software experience required.
• Great templates to choose from.  Make your video quicker by using Wideo’s templates.
• Create a video in as little as 5 minutes.
• Add your own video files or choose from a huge library of stock footage. The choice is yours.
• Use of templates makes this video presentations software less customizable than some other options
• Lower subscription packages have pretty strict limitations, include video length

Limited free version available. Basic plan is $19/month ($228 billed annually), Pro is $39/month ($468 billed annually), and Pro+ is $79/month ($948 billed annually). Paying month-to-month will have higher rates than those above. Click here to try Wideo free .

PowToon is freemium intuitive video presentation software that helps create animated slides combined with audio, narration, and embedded videos.

If you’re looking to turn written materials into quick explainer videos, PowToon’s video presentation software offers an intuitive, easy way to deliver a nice-looking message to your audience.

There’s no experience needed to create videos with PowToon. The whole process is pretty simple and straightforward, and the results are professional. However, some features on this video maker are a bit limited depending on which plan you use.

• Easy interface. It somewhat resembles PowerPoint but turns out much simpler. The user just has to pick a template, go through the editing screen, add items from the image library (figures, backgrounds, speech bubbles, etc.) – and voila!
• Timeline. This feature matches the animation panel in PowerPoint, with a number of obvious limitations. For instance, slides can only be 20 seconds long. Also, the selection of animations is pretty poor — just 12 options. Nothing to write home about.
• Sounds. PowToon allows you to use one sound per presentation. You have to pick whether to go with a background theme or a voice narration.
• Transitions. PowToon’s dynamic transitions are fun to deal with. Transitions make the presentation flow smooth and the outcome more engaging.
• Usability. PowToon is really great for somebody who lacks skills in designing slides. Developing a deck in PowToon is as easy as dragging and dropping items on the screen and tweaking the timeline. No frills, no resource-hungry extras.
• Free and easy to use video presentation software
• A bunch of ready-made templates
• Easy content sharing
• Very sparse functionality compared to some other video makers
• There is no auto-save feature or the ability to save an offline version
• Loading someone else’s content may take a while.

PowToon offers 3 different plans:

• Lite: $15 per month billed annually or $50 month-to-month
• Pro: $40 per month billed annually or $190 month-to-month
• Business: $125 per month billed annually (no monthly option available)

7. iSpring Presenter

iSpring Presenter is a handy alternative to Adobe’s product, offering an easy solution for transforming a PowerPoint deck into a video presentation. This is important because over 90% of presentations are made in PowerPoint!

With the iSpring Presenter, you can add a narrator/talking head to your video, quizzes, and more.

This is a great video creator for educators and business training professionals and one of the best PowerPoint add-ins available.

It’s worth noting, however, that the iSpring Presenter video presentation maker does come at a pretty high cost ($470/year)  in comparison to some competitors.

• Create courses in PowerPoint. iSpring saves all PowerPoint effects, including animations, transitions, and embedded objects in the output.
• Build quizzes and surveys. Test your students’ knowledge and receive feedback on your course right away. Plus, you can collect results and view statistics of the learners’ progress.
• Narrate and sync with slides. Film your live presentation with a webcam or embed a pre-recorded video and synchronize it with slides and effects.
• Add YouTube videos. Choose a video from the web and insert it into your content effortlessly.
• Record voiceovers. Use the built-in Narration Editor to record a voice-over or import audio files from your hard drive.
• Add navigable web pages, files, and links. Any web pages, links, or documents including XLS, PDF, or DOCX – toss any content into the pot!
• Customize a presentation player.  iSpring offers a customizable presentation player so you can play the course back in a native environment.
• Publish with a single click. Convert your presentation into HTML5, MP4, or an LMS-compliant format and reach a global audience.
• Upload to YouTube. Place a video version of your slide deck on YouTube right from the iSpring Presenter interface.
• Lossless PowerPoint to HTML5 conversion
• Full support of PowerPoint effects, transitions, animations, etc.
• Extended LMS support
• Granular reporting for assessments and courses
• Easy publishing to video, easy sharing on YouTube
• Requires MS PowerPoint to use
• Lack of advanced editing features compared to other video presentation software
• No screen recording feature

A one-year subscription is available at $470 per author for academic purposes (business plans are more expensive).

Moovly is yet another online video creator tool you can use to create lessons, tutorials, and professional presentations.

Like the other reviewed programs, this web-based video creator makes it pretty easy to create short clips and videos.

There are plenty of editing tools, free graphics you can incorporate in your videos, music and sounds, and other features to help you create a quality video with minimal fuss.

The interface is pretty straightforward and doesn’t take much time to learn. Even if you’re not an experienced video creator, you should be able to use this without having to learn too much.

Moovly is also a web-based video presentations creator that needs no software installation.

• Flipped classroom with Moovly. The solution enables you to develop Khan Academy-style courses and animated videos. Moovly can be used by instructors and students alike to create explainers, project overviews and other visual content.
• Rich standard libraries. Get a quick start by employing ready-made items: animated graphics and templates, or personal assets such as images, sounds or video clips. There is a bunch of animation effects including hand drawing, dragging, move and zoom effect, etc.
• Advanced features. The paid version broadens teachers’ and learners’ horizons in terms of data sharing, uploading of personal assets, using extra content libraries and downloading videos in HD quality.
• Publisher extensions. Instructional designers can customize Moovly to add special object libraries that comply with school-certified publisher materials.
• Nice effects library
• Easy to use compared to some video presentation software apps
• Fairly inexpensive
• Web-based, no installation required
• A standalone solution that falls behind content authoring suites
• Limited free functionality for those wanting to create presentations that stand out
• Limited publishing options.

Moovly is available in Free, Pay As You Go ($20/video), and Subscription ($49.92/month) editions. Educators can access the software at reduced costs of $20.75 per month along with limited free plan options. The extended plans encompass greater storage capabilities, video quality and export features, and remove the length limitations of the free version.

Animoto is a popular video creator that has both free and paid plans available for users.

The free version is actually pretty good for what it is. You can easily create pretty good animated videos in a short amount of time, but there are some drawbacks. Free videos have the Animoto watermark on them, fewer customization options, and only come in standard definition (720p).

The paid version of Animoto has more customization options available, including access to over 3,000 music tracks, over a million licensed stock photos and videos, tons of fonts to choose from, and more.

Animoto’s video presentation maker doesn’t require a ton of technical know-how to use, but it definitely works best when you have a clear vision for what you want your video to look like.

• Tons of licensed music, photos, and videos to choose from
• Dozens of professional fonts for text overlays
• Easy to use
• Available on desktop and iOS
• Drag-and-drop functionality
• Easy to use with no experience required
• Excellent library of music and images to enhance your video
• Affordable plans, including a free level
• Video editing software features can feel limited for those trying to make more involved videos
• Not as much customization as some other competitors

Animoto pricing is as follows: there’s a free edition, a Basic plan for $8/month, Professional plan for $15/month, and Professional Plus for $39/month, billed annually. If you wish to pay month-to-month for the paid plans, the cost will be a bit higher.

A Final Word

As this roundup reveals, video presentation software is, indeed, a thriving segment in the modern content authoring ecosystem.

It’s not easy to make a choice, yet the criteria are rather simple. Make sure the solution fits your everyday needs and doesn’t exceed a reasonable budget.

Otherwise, it’s all about the content and making sure you have the public speaking skills to deliver that content effectively when you create a video presentation.

Want to share your video presentation on a live conference with your audience? Check out our guide to the best virtual conference platforms .

Have any questions about finding the right video presentation software for your project? Comment below to let us know.

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Encyclopedia

Writing with artificial intelligence, audiovisual presentations made easy(-ier): tips for creating an effective powerpoint, prezi, or keynote.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by E . Jonathan Arnett

At some point in your academic or professional life, you’ll have to stand in front of people and give a talk about a subject, and quite often, you’ll be asked to prepare visual materials to accompany your talk. You might prepare handouts, but odds are, you’ll be asked to prepare materials that you can project on a video screen.

The classic version of these projected materials is the overhead transparency, a thin sheet of clear plastic that you can run through a laser printer or write on with special markers; this medium is slowly disappearing, but it’s still around. Sometimes, you might be able to prepare paper documents and project them to a screen via a document camera, but doc cams aren’t entirely common, and they can only present static images. Instead, you’ll usually be asked to create a dynamic presentation using software such as PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote. Many other programs exist, including what Google has to offer, but these are the three most common presentation programs.

Each program has its own special abilities and strengths, but they all share common basic principles that you can manipulate to create memorable, effective, and interesting presentations. Here, you’ll learn basic principles to

• select an effective presentation format
• choose readable typefaces
• place visual elements onscreen
• choose colors
• select appropriate backgrounds
• choose visual and audio effects
• deliver a memorable, effective presentation 

Three Major Presentation Formats

You can choose from three basic type of format for a presentation based on PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote:

• bullet points
• illustrated points
• speaker’s prop

The format you choose should fit your audience and your presentation’s subject.

Bullet Points. The bullet point format is the default layout that most PowerPoint users and viewers are familiar with. Slides created in this format commonly include a title across the top and a cascading series of bulleted lines of text inside a slide’s main text box. An example of this kind of slide appears below, in Figure 1.

 Figure 1: PPT slide using bullet point format

Bullet point-format presentations have several benefits:

• They are easy to prepare. Just type, press Enter for a new line, and press Tab to create a smaller bullet or Shift+Tab to make a larger bullet.
• They are useful for highlighting important words or naming concepts that an audience needs to learn.
• They project a serious tone.

However, bullet-point format presentations also can be boring, and an overload of words will make your audience cringe. You have probably endured at least one bad PowerPoint in your life, and odds are, that bad presentation used the bullet point format.

Illustrated Points. The illustrated points format is similar, but slides created in this type of presentation focus on pictures, and text appears in a supporting role. An example of this kind of slide appears in Figure 2.

 Figure 2: PPT slide using illustrated points format

Illustrated points-format slides have several benefits: 

• They are excellent for showing conceptual relationships or demonstrating physical relationships between objects.
• People often respond positively to pictures, so illustrated points-format slides also tend to capture viewers’ interest more than all-text presentations do. 

These slides require more detailed preparation, though, and they tend to be more visually “busy,” so if your audience has problems concentrating, or if it’s vital that you highlight important words, you may want a more text-based approach.

 Illustrated points-format slides can also be combined with bullet point-format slides inside the same presentation. See Figure 3 for an example of a PowerPoint that includes both types of slide. 

Figure 3: Combination of bullet points (top) and illustrated points (bottom) slides in one PowerPoint

Speaker’s Prop. The speaker’s prop format is similar to the illustrated points format, but a speaker’s prop almost entirely consists of simple pictures that flash onscreen in rapid sequence. Any text that appears is usually very short, uses a large font, and only appears for a moment.

A speaker’s prop is appropriate for abstract subjects (e.g, the nature of free will), and if it is done well, it can be fascinating and will engage an audience.

However, this type of presentation is often more complex and time-consuming to prepare than a presentation in the other formats, and you run the risk of making it so entertaining that the audience may remember the presentation but forget what you said.

A well-done example of a speaker’s prop presentation appears in this video:

Figure 4: Screen capture of speaker’s prop presentation 

Whichever format you choose, remember that the presentation software is your servant; don’t let it tell you what to do. Always modify a template to suit your needs.

As an excellent example of what not to do, consider Peter Norvig’s classic Gettysburg PowerPoint: http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/ . It’s a satirical example of how an excellent speech—in this case, Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, widely considered one of the classic speeches in the English language—can be ruined by using presentation software default settings and following a built-in template without modifying it.

How to Choose a Typeface

When you create a presentation, make sure that the fonts you choose are 

• appropriate for the subject and audience
• readable from anywhere in the room
• compatible with the computer you’ll be using for the presentation 

Appropriateness. Each typeface projects a visual “personality” of some sort, and you should match the font with the audience and subject you’re addressing. For example, Comic Sans is a cheerful, happy-looking font and projects a somewhat childlike ethos; it’s a good match for an upbeat subject for a younger audience. In contrast, Times New Roman is a much more serious-looking font and would be appropriate for an older audience discussing a serious subject.

Readability. Not all fonts are equally readable, and you need to pick typefaces that allow your audience to read what’s onscreen from the back of the room. You should choose fonts that 

• have relatively tall lower-case letters
• don’t use extra-thick or extremely thin lines
• have large, open spaces inside the loops, and
• (for a serif font) have large, blunt serifs. 

See Figure 5 for examples of typefaces available in PowerPoint, and consider which fonts are most and least readable onscreen.

Figure 5: Examples of readable and unreadable font choices

Of these twelve fonts, the fonts that are most readable onscreen are Tahoma, Georgia, Trebuchet, and Verdana. In fact, Georgia and Verdana were designed for use onscreen. Of the rest, only Book Antiqua is workable, but the letters’ thin parts can be hard to see onscreen, particularly if the background isn’t a single flat color.

Sans-serif fonts are usually easier to read onscreen than serif fonts are, so consider using a serif font for headings and a sans-serif font for slides’ main text. Also, limit yourself to two fonts. If you use more, the screen will look very busy, and the visual clutter may distract your audience.

Most programs have built-in lists of fonts that you can use. For example, PowerPoint 2013 includes the list of combinations that appears in Figure 6.

 Figure 6: List of built-in font combinations in PowerPoint 2013

Here is a link to a brief YouTube video that demonstrates how to access PowerPoint’s built-in list of font combinations: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/812erramvb8lvjk/AADwNcH2rqBrl_FjJgcxL3gsa/PowerPoint%20built-in%20font%20combinations.mp4?dl=0 .

Feel free to use one of these combinations, but remember that just because they’re built-in doesn’t mean they’re well-chosen or appropriate for your needs. You should always consider changing the default settings.

Compatibility. Not every typeface is available on every operating system, so find out what kind of computer you’ll use while delivering the presentation and choose fonts that will work on that computer.

For example, Helvetica is available on Mac, but it is not available on Windows-based systems; the Windows equivalent to Helvetica is Arial. Thus, if you create a PowerPoint presentation on a PC and then open the file on a Mac, or vice versa, the fonts may not transfer over, and your PowerPoint’s appearance will change, often for the worse.

Here’s a link to a list of fonts shared by Mac and PC versions of Microsoft Office: .

How to Think about Layout

When you place text or pictures onscreen, make sure you 

• apply the CRAP design principles
• avoid clutter
• avoid text overload  

CRAP Principles. The CRAP design principles are Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. In brief, they work like this:

Contrast: If things aren’t in the same category, make them look very different (e.g., use different fonts for slide headings and main text).

Repetition: Make visual elements consistent throughout every slide (e.g., use consistent colors, callout shapes, font sizes, picture and text box locations, background images).

Alignment: Place things on the screen with a purpose. Don’t just plop images and text in random locations (e.g., equalize spaces between multiple pictures, consistently center or left-align text, line up bullets and numbers).

Proximity: Place related items close to each other (e.g., use a narrow space between a name and job title, a picture and its caption, a main bullet item and its related sub-bullet items).

(The CRAP acronym was invented by a graphic designer named Robin Williams [no, not that Robin Williams] and explained in her book The Non-Designer’s Design Book. If you’re interested in visual design, you might find it fascinating.)

When you design your PowerPoint, you should consider using the built-in Master Slide tool to make sure the visual design elements (e.g., fonts, colors, backgrounds, bulleted items’ alignment) follow the Repetition principle. Here is a link to a YouTube video demonstrating how this powerful function works:

Clutter. Keep your presentation’s design and contents relatively simple. 

• Include spaces between lines of text.
• Include spaces between images or other visual elements.
• Make sure that the text is readable.
• Use simple graphics.  

If you overload the screen, your audience will feel overwhelmed, and they won’t be able to follow your ideas.

For example, Figure 7 demonstrates a cluttered information graphic full of “chartjunk.” Its 3-D design is unnecessary, the forced perspective prevents the audience from seeing the towers’ actual heights, the callouts overlap, the towers’ transparency doesn’t provide any information for the viewer, and the beveled edges and shadows are distracting.

Figure 7: Cluttered infographic

Figure 8 shows the same data in a simple, clean infographic that an audience can follow.

 Figure 8: Uncluttered infographic

Similarly, avoid stuffing slides full of text and creating a “wall o’ words” like in Figure 9. Too much text makes a slide difficult to read and will intimidate your audience.

Figure 9: Wall o’ Words

Try to limit a bullet point-format slide to no more than seven bullets, with relatively short entries under each bullet. Of course, you can actually use as many bullets as you want, but only if you follow the CRAP principles very well. (See Figure 10 for an example of a slide that contains ten bulleted points but is still readable.)

Figure 10: Almost but not quite a “wall o’ words”

How to Choose Good Colors

Black-on-white presentations are easy to read, but they’re often very stark-looking, and your audience may not wish to stare at a bright white screen. Thus, you probably will want to use color in your presentation, and you need to choose your presentation’s colors carefully.

Contrast. Pick colors with high luminance contrast—in other words, one color should be much brighter than the other—so that your viewers will be able to read text quickly and with minimal eyestrain. Avoid extremely high color contrast, though, because extremes in color contrast can make text very hard to read. See Figure 11 for examples.

Figure 11: Examples of color and luminance combinations

Similarly, you probably want to avoid pure white text on a black screen; it’s OK for special cases, but for an entire presentation, it’s overwhelming. See Figure 12.

Figure 12: White-on-black slide design

Emotional Impact. Also consider the emotional effect of colors that you choose. The “cool” colors (darker green, blue-green, light blue, dark blue, blue-violet, purple) are calm and soothing, while the “warm” colors (red-violet, red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green) are stimulating. Choose colors that are appropriate for the subject and emotional impact of your presentation. See Figure 13 for an example.

Figure 13: Emotional effects of colors

How to Choose Appropriate Backgrounds

Always make your presentation’s background relate to its topic. PowerPoint, Prezi, and Keynote all allow you to choose from built-in or downloadable background “theme” templates; insert and customize solid colors, gradients, or patterns; or import your own image to use as a background for your presentation. You can use any of these options, but whatever option you choose, the background absolutely must mesh with the topic.

For example, if you are speaking about a computer-related subject, the “Organic” PowerPoint theme template would be a very poor choice. (See Figure 14.) It looks like a sheet of paper attached to a piece of wood by a ribbon, and its text uses a serif body font; there’s nothing about the template that suggests “computer technology.” The same theme template would look entirely appropriate for a food-related subject, though.

 Figure 14: Inappropriate and appropriate backgrounds

Also, consider whether the audience has seen the background before. There are only so many built-in theme templates, and chances are that your audience has seen the same background used for a different presentation or has used that same template themselves. In fact, if an event features multiple speakers, sometimes more than one presenter will use the same template, and the audience may get confused and not remember who said what. It is always a good idea to import your own image as a background or to customize templates to fit your needs. See Figure 15 for an example.

 Figure 15: Customized “Apex” template from MS PowerPoint 2010

This brief YouTube video demonstrates PowerPoint’s built-in slide designs and how to access and use its Format Background tool: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/812erramvb8lvjk/AADoikR7jSjHHObIwOKX1qCOa/PowerPoint%20built-in%20backgrounds.mp4?dl=0  

(As noted in the “How to Think About Layout” section, it would be a good idea to use the Master Slide tool when you customize backgrounds in order to make all the slides look uniform.)

Visual and Audio Effects

You can and should use between-slides transitions, within-slide animations, and sound effects, but don’t go overboard. Instead, use subtle effects, use them sparingly, and only use them to support your points.

Visual Effects. Transitions and animations can help you emphasize points, show connections between ideas, or simply capture your audience’s attention and prevent their eyes from glazing over. (See Figure 16 for a screenshot of the animations menu in PowerPoint 2013.)

Figure 16: Expanded list of animations available in PowerPoint 2013

However, if you overload your slideshow with visual effects, or if you choose splashy effects, you will likely encounter several problems:

• Your audience will pay more attention to the moving images than to the subject you’re talking about.
• Your audience won’t be able to tell if an effect means they should pay special attention or if it’s just another effect.
• Effects will take longer than you expect to finish running, or you’ll forget to cue them. You’ll then go silent as you wait for the animations to finish, and your audience will realize you screwed up.
• Effects will introduce a lighthearted note into your presentation and detract from your professional ethos or undermine a serious subject. 

Here is a link to a video that demonstrates how to use PowerPoint’s built-in Animation tool and Animation Pane:

These same cautions apply to Prezi, but Prezi has its own special problems. Instead of switching between slides, you set up a flat “canvas” on which you place text and images, and when you present your talk, Prezi’s camera traces a path between those elements and zooms in on them. (See Figure 17 for an example of paths in Prezi.) Thus, transitions and animations are part and parcel of Prezi, which means it’s doubly important that you control their intensity. 

• Prezi will let you place elements at peculiar angles and then “rotate” the camera to emphasize them. If you rotate the camera too frequently, you’ll make your audience seasick.
• You can locate text or images anywhere on the canvas and set up arbitrary motion paths between them. If you make the camera move long distances between elements, you’ll disorient your audience members.

Here is a link to a brief YouTube video demonstrating motion paths in Prezi:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/812erramvb8lvjk/AAC9SRhZy9v-CxNmAvQQtlf7a/Prezi%20sample.mp4?dl=0

Figure 17: Numbered sequence indicating a “path” in Prezi

Sound Effects. Audio cues have the same potential benefits and drawbacks as transitions and animations, but they also have several unique problems of their own: 

• Audio clips will sound distorted or tinny unless the computer you are using to present is connected to a good-quality sound system.
• If the audio clip is more than a few seconds long, you’ll need to shout to be heard over it.
• It’s almost impossible to talk over rock or hip-hop. Your voice just can’t compete with the backbeat.
• Music samples longer than a few seconds consume massive amounts of memory, and your file size will be huge.
• Song snippets may be so short that they’re unrecognizable.
• Nobody else likes your taste in music. 

In short, no matter what program you use, keep your presentation’s visual and audio effects relatively simple and use them to support your message. The effects should enhance the presentation; they shouldn’t be the presentation. 

Delivery Techniques

Your slideshow shouldn’t be the main focus of your talk. Instead, YOU and your message are the main focus, and the presentation should support your talk. Don’t hide behind the presentation or use it as a crutch.

Prepare Notes. Write down key phrases on notecards or, if you will have access to a speaker’s computer while you’re talking, the program’s Notes view. It’s not a good idea to write out a line-for-line script because if you read from a script, the presentation will sound stilted. The best presentations are thoroughly prepared but sound ad-libbed.

Whatever you do, DO NOT read every single word on the screen. Your audience members can read, and you’ll only annoy them. See Figure 18 for an example.

Figure 18: Example of Presenter View in PowerPoint

Practice. Run through your talk and slideshow before you stand in front of an audience. Start up the presentation, say what you intend to say out loud, advance the presentation to match your speech, and time yourself. If you don’t practice, your audience will know.

Face Your Audience. Turn your face toward the audience and make eye contact with them when you speak. If you do, the audience will be able to hear you, and they will be more likely to believe what you say.

When you create a PowerPoint, Prezi, or Keynote presentation, be sure to consider the principles discussed in this webtext. You now know how to

• choose an effective presentation format
• identify readable typefaces
• position visual elements onscreen
• pick appropriate colors
• choose relevant, useful backgrounds
• choose effective visual and audio effects
• present memorable, effective audiovisual materials

and you can create a successful presentation that will both capture your audience’s attention and provide the audience with clearly presented, easily-extracted information.

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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The Ultimate Guide to Presentation Software

Presentation software is a technology that helps users create and deliver visual presentations. These programs allow users to create slideshows, which can include text, images, videos, and animations, and can be displayed at a meeting or conference or shared online.

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective communication is essential for success. Presentation software enables businesses to showcase their ideas and products in an engaging and visually appealing way, which can help to capture the attention of potential clients or investors. It also allows businesses to convey information in a clear and concise manner, making it easier for audiences to understand and remember key points.

As we move towards the future of work, the use of presentation software is likely to become even more important for businesses. With the rise of remote work and virtual meetings, it's vital for businesses to be able to present their ideas and products digitally. Additionally, as competition continues to increase across industries, businesses need to find new ways to stand out and make an impact. Presentation software can help them achieve this by creating dynamic and memorable visual presentations that leave a lasting impression on their audience.

Because of its ever growing importance, we’re seeing more and more presentation software companies popping up. So, where do you start in choosing the right software for your business needs? 

Consider this your ultimate guide to the different types of presentation softwares . 

Traditional presentation software

Traditional software refers to computer applications or programs that are typically used to create and deliver visual presentations. These programs are designed to allow users to create slideshows containing text, images, charts, graphs, and other visual aids. Some examples of traditional presentation software include Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Apple Keynote.

These software programs often feature a linear structure where one slide follows another in a predetermined order. The user can customize each slide with their desired content and then present them live or share them digitally.

While traditional presentation software has been widely used for many years and remains popular, there are alternative options available that offer more advanced features and customization options.

Web-based or SaaS presentation software

Web-based or SaaS (Software as a Service) presentation software refers to programs that are accessed through a web browser and do not need to be installed on a user's device. These programs are hosted on the cloud and can be accessed from any internet-connected device.

Web-based or SaaS presentation software typically offers more flexibility and convenience than traditional presentation software like PowerPoint. They often include a wide range of customizable templates, as well as interactive features such as animations, videos, and audio. They also allow for easy collaboration between team members, as changes and updates can be made in real-time and accessed from any device.

Some popular examples of web-based or SaaS presentation software include Visme, Canva, and Beautiful.ai. These programs have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their ease of use, accessibility, and collaborative features, making them a preferred choice for many businesses and individuals.

Examples of SaaS presentation software

Visme’s PowerPoint-alternative presentation software helps users design slide decks, infographics, interactive charts and other visual content. The easy-to-use cloud-based tool allows users to move elements around the workspace, and new content can be added by dragging and dropping it into place. Visme users can build presentations from scratch by starting with a blank canvas, or they can customize a variety of templates. The presentation software also features a collection of thousands of icons, images and data visualizations, and users can even choose to boost engagement by adding elements like video, audio and GIF files.

• Canva Presentations

Canva offers much more than an alternative to PowerPoint. Users can rely on the visual design platform to create social media graphics, posters, invitations, business cards and all sorts of other documents along with presentations. Canva features thousands of professional templates, images and other content elements, as well as features to help teams collaborate with ease. The software tool’s drag-and-drop interface makes it simple for non-designers to customize templates and even edit photos with little experience.

• Beautiful.ai

We’re biased, but our presentation software is one of the best to help you work faster and smarter. By choosing advanced presentation software like Beautiful.ai, users are handing over the bulk of the design work to artificial intelligence. With powerful features like DesignerBot and Smart Slides, Beautiful.ai automates a lot of the presentation design process for you so you can create something brilliant in half the time. The design guardrails ensure teams stay on-brand , while allowing them to collaborate in the same deck at the same time.  

AI presentation software

AI presentation software is a type of presentation software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to help users create and design presentations. AI presentation software typically includes features such as automated design suggestions, layout recommendations and image recognition to streamline the presentation creation process.

Many AI presentation softwares will leverage generative AI to create fully customizable slides and decks from a text single prompt making the design process ridiculously fast. Other capabilities include image generation baked into the software, and content assistance to rewrite or adjust text. 

Examples of AI presentation software include Beautiful.ai, Tome, and Slidesgo. These programs use AI technology to automate and streamline the presentation creation process, making it faster and more efficient for users to develop engaging and visually appealing presentations.

Examples of AI presentation software

With the recent buzz around AI, you’ve likely heard of Tome. Tome is a presentation app that generates your presentation for you with the help of AI. Simply type in a prompt and get a basic presentation to work with, edit, and customize in return. Tome also offers a few select templates for users to choose from if they don’t want to enter a prompt, which acts as a good jumping off point to get the bones of a presentation. While Tome leans heavily on technology and AI, users will still need some design skills to customize their decks once it’s generated. 

Slidesgo is a Spanish-based company that provides high-quality presentation templates for individuals and businesses. The company offers a wide variety of templates, including business plans, marketing presentations, and educational materials. Slidesgo's templates are available for both Google Slides and PowerPoint, and can be easily customized to suit the user's needs. The company is known for its modern and creative designs, which help users create engaging and visually appealing presentations. 

Beautiful.ai’s new DesignerBot makes it easier than ever for non-designers to create a new presentation from scratch, regardless of the content. Users can opt to create a new deck with DesignerBot by entering a short description (or prompt) based on what they need. Teams have the liberty to add as many keywords as they see fit to generate a fully built, totally customized presentation draft populated with appropriate text, layouts, photos, icons and design. Then, our powerful Smart Slides technology can be used to quickly edit slides by adding or removing content and automatically adapting, resizing and laying out the slides, all while maintaining corporate brand guidelines. With Beautiful.ai, businesses can generate entire decks in one click while Smart Slides and Team controls work together to preserve the integrity of the brand. It’s truly an automated zero-to-finish experience.

Video presentation software

Video presentation software is a type of software that allows users to create and deliver video presentations. These presentations can include a combination of video footage, images, text, and audio. Video presentation software typically includes features such as editing tools, visual effects, and transitions to help users create engaging and professional-looking presentations.

Examples of video presentation software include Powtoon and Lumen5. These programs allow users to record or import videos and then edit them with a variety of tools and effects. Video presentation software also enables users to add voice overs, music, and sound effects to their presentations.

Video presentation software is often used for business presentations, educational materials, and marketing campaigns. The use of video presentations has become increasingly popular in recent years due to the rise of remote work and virtual events, as well as the growing trend of online video content consumption. Video presentation software provides an effective way for users to communicate their ideas and messages in an engaging and dynamic way.

Examples of video presentation software

Powtoon— a British company that got their name by combining “PowerPoint” and “cartoon”— launched in 2012 as a more animated approach to otherwise stale presentations. They offer a wide variety of visual communication features like videos, doodles, presentations, animations, and screen recordings. However they’re most known for their ability to turn slides into video animations in an effort to make them more engaging and interactive for audiences. 

Lumen5 is a Canadian-based technology company that provides an AI-powered video creation platform for businesses and individuals. The platform allows users to easily create engaging video content from articles, blog posts, or other written content without requiring any previous experience or special training. Lumen5's platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to automatically generate video content, including images, animations, and text overlays. 

Nonlinear presentation software

A nonlinear presentation is a type of presentation where the viewer can navigate the content in a non-sequential order, rather than proceeding from one slide to the next in a linear fashion. In a nonlinear presentation, the content is organized using hyperlinks or other interactive elements that allow the viewer to jump back and forth between different parts of the presentation, depending on their interests and needs.

Nonlinear presentations are often used when presenting complex or interconnected information, or when the audience may have varying levels of interest or expertise in different areas. They can be created using specialized software, such as Prezi, or by manually creating hyperlinks within traditional presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Nonlinear presentations can be more engaging and interactive than traditional linear presentations, as they allow the viewer to take control of their own learning experience and explore the content in a way that suits them best. They can be particularly effective for educational and training purposes, as well as for sales and marketing presentations.

Examples of traditional presentation software

Prezi’s presentation software is a true alternative to PowerPoint. Rather than design standard slide decks, Prezi users create animated, non-sequential presentations that highlight topics and uncover subtopics with an engaging zoom feature. The PowerPoint-alternative software is an enticing alternative for creating visual presentations, but it’s probably better suited for experienced presentation designers thanks to its unique design. Still, Prezi is a perfect choice for presenters seeking a more creative way to capture an audience's attention.

Comparisons and considerations

Key differences between presentation software types.

The key differences between presentation software types are accessibility and technology. While most businesses are well versed in Microsoft and Google, other web-based (SaaS) softwares offer newer technologies and more flexible features. Each platform comes with its own pros and cons, and will vary based on the use case of the business.

Factors to consider when choosing presentation software

When choosing the right presentation software for your business, you first have to define what your goal is. Is it collaboration for your teams, design guardrails, leveraging AI to work faster, or accessibility and the ability to work in the cloud? Do you prefer linear or non-sequential presentations? What is your budget? These all play a major role in deciding which solution is the best fit for your workflow.

For more on presentation softwares, check out our recommendations for the top 2023 PowerPoint alternatives .

Jordan Turner

Jordan is a Bay Area writer, social media manager, and content strategist.

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Blog Graphic Design 12 Best Presentation Software for 2024

12 Best Presentation Software for 2024

Written by: Krystle Wong Jan 12, 2024

Whether you’re a student, professional or entrepreneur, having access to the right presentation tools can make all the difference.

When you craft a well-executed presentation , your message becomes more memorable. You’re not just sharing information; you’re weaving a story, painting a picture and leaving a lasting impact on your audience’s minds. 

We’re living in the age of information overload, where attention spans are shorter than ever. A good presentation slide takes this into account, breaking down complex information into bite-sized chunks. It guides your audience through a logical flow, allowing them to digest information effortlessly and retain key points without feeling overwhelmed.

To help you stay ahead of the game, I’ve compiled a list of the 12 best software for presentations. These PowerPoint alternatives offer a combination of user-friendly interfaces, stunning visuals, collaboration features and innovative functionalities that will take your presentations to the next level. 

Let’s dive in and explore these top presentation software picks!

1. Venngage 

Allow me to be a little bit biased here but my top pick is none other than, you guessed it — Venngage! Venngage goes beyond just presentations to focus on data visualization and transforming complex information into visually appealing and engaging visuals. 

One of the standout features of Venngage as a presentation software is the extensive library of infographic elements. Gain access to a wide range of pre-designed elements such as icons, charts, maps as well as illustrations to simplify the process of creating data-driven and visually appealing presentations.

You don’t have to be a pro when designing with Venngage. Venngage’s drag-and-drop interface allows you to customize your presentations by simply dragging and dropping elements onto the canvas. You can tweak sizes, colors and layouts with ease, making your presentations visually cohesive and personalized, even if you’re not a design wizard. 

Just so you know, some of our features and templates are free to use and some require a small monthly fee. Sign-up is completely free, as is access to Venngage’s online drag-and-drop editor. Here’s how Venngage’s presentation maker can become your secret weapon in the quest for presentation success.

Vast selection of templates

Venngage boasts an extensive library of professionally designed templates, catering to a wide range of industries and presentation purposes. Whether you’re creating a marketing report, educational presentation or business pitch, Venngage’s presentation tool offers templates that provide a solid foundation for your designs. 

Save 20+ hours of designing with Venngage’s fully customizable, pre-designed infographic templates. Thes e presentation templates provide a good foundation with well-structured layouts and visually appealing aesthetics. 

Data visualization made easy

Venngage simplifies the process of data visualization, making it accessible to users of all backgrounds. With a few clicks, you can transform dull statistics into visually engaging charts and graphs that tell a compelling story.

Seamless real-time in-editor collaboration tools

Venngage brings teamwork to the next level with our seamless collaboration tools designed to foster collaboration across teams, departments and the entire organization. Whether you’re in the same room or across the globe, Venngage enables real-time collaboration that makes working together becomes a breeze. 

Consistently brand your designs with smart Autobrand features

Effortlessly infuse your presentation slides with your brand’s colors, fonts and logos with Venngage’s My Brand Kit . Upload your brand assets and create engaging presentations by applying your branding to any template you create on Venngage.

Who is it for

Marketers, designers, educators and businesses that require data-driven and visually appealing presentations.

Key features 

Infographic elements, data visualization tools, collaboration options, customizable templates.

Create your first 5 designs with Venngage for free and upgrade to a premium or business plan for $10 USD/month per user and $24 USD/month per user to enjoy premium features. For larger teams who need extra support, controls and security, the enterprise plan starts from $499 USD/month for 10+ seats.

Additionally, there are also plans available for classrooms priced at $99 USD/year for up to 35 students per instructor. Non profit organizations can also apply for a nonprofit discount to any Venngage plan.

2. Microsoft PowerPoint

Source: Screenshot from Microsoft PowerPoint

Even with dozens of presentation software and tools out there, PowerPoint presentations have stood the test of time as one of the best presentation software. In fact, 89% of people still use PowerPoint presentations over competitor services . 

Whether you’re a student, teacher, business professional or just a creative soul, PowerPoint’s user-friendly interface allows both beginners and experienced users to create presentations with ease.

PowerPoint delivers captivating and engaging presentations through its advanced animation and transition effects. You can create interactive PowerPoint presentations by captivating your audience and guiding them through your content with seamless transitions and eye-catching animations. 

Seamless integration with other Microsoft Office tools is another significant advantage of PowerPoint as a presentation software. As part of the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint effortlessly integrates with other familiar applications such as Word and Excel. This integration allows you to incorporate charts, graphs and written content from these tools directly into your presentation. 

However, collaboration features in PowerPoint can be somewhat limited compared to dedicated collaboration platforms. While you can share and co-edit presentations with others, the collaboration options may not be as robust as those offered by specialized presentation tools.

Suitable for individuals, students, educators and businesses of all sizes.

Customizable templates, multimedia support, extensive slide editing options, robust animations and transitions.

You can subscribe to PowerPoint as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription with various plans tailored for businesses, ranging from $6 to $22 USD/month. Additionally, there is also the option to purchase an unbundled PowerPoint account separately, priced at $159.99 USD.

3. Google Slides

Source: Screenshot from Google Slides

Unlike PowerPoint which requires file sharing and manual syncing for teamwork, Google Slides enables real-time collaboration and easy access from any device with an internet connection. 

Google Slides shines in its seamless collaboration capabilities. Multiple users can work on the same presentation simultaneously, enabling real-time editing and fostering efficient teamwork. The integrated commenting feature on Google Slides allows for shared feedback and discussions, enhancing collaboration even further.

Google Slides’ cloud-based storage and auto-saving feature ensures that your work is constantly saved, minimizing the risk of losing progress or important changes. No more panicking over unsaved slides and changes. 

But that also means that Google Slides heavily relies on an internet connection for full functionality and access is more limited compared to desktop-based software. Although an offline mode is available, Google Slides has certain limitations and may not provide the same level of functionality as when connected to the internet.

Templates and customization features-wise, Google Slides also have fewer design options compared to other presentation tools. This may limit the level of visual creativity and flexibility for those seeking intricate designs or specialized effects.

Ideal for remote teams, educators, students and anyone looking for easy collaboration and access from any device.

Real-time collaboration, shared commenting, offline mode and built-in sharing options.

Google Slides is accessible to all individuals with a Google account at no cost, providing all users with access to its full range of features. However, for businesses and teams looking for additional organizational capabilities, there are subscription plans available ranging from $6 to $18 USD/month.

4. Keynote (for Mac users)

Source: Screenshot from Keynote

For Apple users, Keynote is a presentation tool designed exclusively for your Apple devices and is available on macOS, iOS and iPadOS. Keynote is known for its sleek and intuitive interface, reflecting Apple’s design aesthetics. 

It offers visually appealing templates, animations, and transitions, allowing users to create polished and modern-looking presentations. Keynote users can seamlessly incorporate images, videos, audio files and interactive elements into their presentations. The presentation software also includes a wide range of animations and transitions, enabling smooth and cinematic effects that bring slides to life.

Keynote presentations is known for its seamless integration within the Apple ecosystem. It works effortlessly with other Apple applications, allowing users to combine different elements and data from various sources. Presentations created in Keynote can be easily shared and accessed across Apple devices, ensuring a consistent experience for both the presenter and the audience.

Additionally, Keynote as a presentation software offers collaborative editing capabilities, enabling multiple users to work on the same presentation simultaneously. Users can share their presentations with others, who can then provide feedback, make edits and contribute to the project in real-time.

That said, since Keynote is exclusively designed for Apple devices, it may not be accessible or fully compatible with non-Apple platforms. Hence, sharing presentations created in Keynote with users on different platforms may require exporting or converting the files to a compatible format, which can lead to potential formatting issues or loss of certain features.

Mac users, creatives, professionals, educators and anyone who wants visually stunning presentations.

Elegant templates, advanced multimedia options, cinematic transitions and collaborative editing.

Keynote is available for free on Apple devices, including macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. As it comes pre-installed with these devices, users can access and use Keynote without any additional cost.

Source: Screenshot from Prezi

Known for its distinctive zooming presentation style, Prezi revolutionizes the way you create presentations by offering a visually engaging and non-linear approach. 

One of Prezi’s renowned features is its unique zooming and transition effects, allowing presenters to navigate through a virtual canvas seamlessly. This dynamic presentation style enhances engagement by creating a sense of movement and spatial relationship between ideas.

Moreover, Prezi offers cloud-based collaboration, making it easy for multiple users to collaborate on a presentation in real-time. This feature facilitates seamless teamwork, enabling users to collectively develop and refine their presentations regardless of their physical locations.

Prezi presentations also include interactive elements, such as embedded videos, images and hyperlinks. Utilizing these elements would allow presenters to create interactive presentations and engage their audience on a deeper level.

However, Prezi has a steeper learning curve compared to more traditional presentation tools. Users may require some time and practice to become proficient in navigating the canvas, creating smooth transitions and effectively utilizing all of Prezi’s features.

Creative professionals, educators and individuals who want to create visually captivating and non-linear presentations.

Zooming presentation style, interactive elements, cloud-based collaboration and reusable templates.

For individuals & business professionals

Basics: Create and share up to 5 visual projects for free

Standard: Starting at $5 USD/month

Plus: Starting at $12 USD/month

Premium: Starting at $16 USD/month

Teams: Starting at $19 USD/month per user (billed annually)

For Students & Educators

EDU Plus: Starting at $3/month

EDU Pro: Starting at $4/month

EDU Teams: Enquiry required with Prezi sales team

Source: Screenshot from Canva

One of the great things about Canva as a presentation tool is its user-friendly interface, which makes it super easy to use even if you’re not a design pro. You can simply drag and drop elements to create your presentation slides without breaking a sweat.

Canva’s vast collection of pre-designed templates caters to various purposes and occasions. The availability of these templates allows users to jumpstart their design projects with professional-looking layouts, saving valuable time and effort.

For businesses or educational institutions working on group projects or marketing campaigns, Canva also offers collaboration features that enhance teamwork and co-creation. Users can invite team members or clients to collaborate on a design project, enabling real-time feedback and efficient design processes. 

While Canva does offer some basic slide transition effects, the range and customization options for transitions may be limited compared to dedicated presentation software like Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote. 

Individuals, students, small businesses and startups seeking professional-looking marketing materials and presentations.

Extensive template options, intuitive drag-and-drop interface, ability to share presentations as downloadable files or online links and built-in multimedia support for adding videos , images, and audio to slides.

The free version of Canva provides a wide range of features and resources, with the only limitations being the use of premium resources that can be acquired either through separate purchases or by subscribing to the Canva Pro plan. The Canva Pro plan is available for $12.99 USD per month or $119.99 USD per year.

For collaborative purposes, Canva Teams is available at a price of $14.99 USD per month, with an additional charge of $14.99 USD per month for every team member beyond the initial five.

7. Adobe Express

Source: Screenshot from Adobe Express

As part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, Adobe Express is a presentation software that offers a simplified and user-friendly interface. With its intuitive interface, Adobe Express allows users to create visually stunning presentations with ease. Users can access both design professionals and individuals without extensive design experience.

One of the notable advantages of Adobe Express is its seamless integration with other Adobe products, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. This integration enables users to leverage the power of these industry-standard design tools within their presentations, providing access to advanced design features and a vast library of high-quality assets. 

Adobe Express is also great for creating interactive presentations. Its extensive multimedia support, allowing users to incorporate videos, audio files and interactive elements to keep your audience engaged.

That being said,  some of its advanced features may require familiarity with other Adobe tools, which can be challenging for beginners who are not already familiar with the Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem.

Designers, creative professionals, individuals and businesses seeking professional-grade presentation design.

Professional design options, multimedia support, easy integration with other Adobe products and cloud-based collaboration.

While the free version for Adobe Express includes all the core features, users can gain access to premium templates and features when they upgrade to the Premium subscription for $9.99 USD/month. 

For businesses and teams, Adobe provides tailored plans that include additional features like collaboration tools, centralized license management and enterprise-level support. The pricing for these plans depends on the number of licenses and the specific needs of the organization. It’s best to consult with Adobe or their authorized resellers to get accurate pricing information for business plans.

8. Haiku Deck

Source: Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is all about visual storytelling, offering a simple and minimalist approach to designing presentations. With its clean and minimalist templates, Haiku Deck makes it a breeze to create presentations that focus on eye-catching images.

Haiku Deck is a user-friendly presentation software that offers a straightforward and intuitive interface. It’s designed to be easily accessible on both computers and mobile devices, giving you the flexibility to create quick and practical presentations on the go.

Plus, the presentation tool seamlessly integrates with image search engines, making it a piece of cake to find and add high-quality visuals that enhance the overall look and feel of your presentation.

However,if you’re looking for advanced features like complex animations or interactive elements, you might not find them here. While the clean and minimalist templates are gorgeous, they don’t offer as much flexibility for customization.

Educators, individuals and professionals who appreciate the power of visual storytelling and minimalist design.

Image-focused templates, easy-to-use interface, cloud-based collaboration and seamless image search integration.

Haiku Deck offers a free trial that allows you to experience the software with one presentation. If you decide to upgrade, they have different pricing plans available. Additionally, Haiku Deck also offers special pricing to qualifying nonprofit organizations, students and educators.

The Pro plans are available at $9.99 per month with annual billing or $19.99 per month with monthly billing. For those seeking advanced features, the Premium plans are priced at $29.99 per month.

Source: Screenshot from Ludus

Ludus brings together the best of both worlds by offering the traditional slide deck format along with interactive and multimedia elements that take presentations to a whole new level.

The presentation software is rich in multimedia capabilities, allowing users to seamlessly integrate videos, audio and elements to create interactive presentations that captivate the audience.

Ludus offers unique presentation tools that enable users to incorporate interactive elements like clickable buttons, hover effects and embedded web content, enabling a more dynamic and engaging presentation experience. 

This makes Ludus a great choice for designers, creatives, marketing professionals, and anyone who wants to create interactive and visually appealing presentations that leave a lasting impression. Collaboration is another area where Ludus excels. The software offers collaborative editing, allowing multiple users to edit presentations simultaneously. 

However, it’s worth mentioning that Ludus has relatively limited templates compared to some other presentation software options. While the customization options are vast, users might find themselves starting from scratch or investing more time in creating the initial design. Additionally, for individuals new to the platform, there might be a learning curve involved in fully harnessing all of Ludus’ features and capabilities.

Designers, creatives, marketing professionals and anyone looking for interactive and visually appealing presentations.

Interactive and multimedia elements, collaborative editing, extensive design customization, real-time comments and feedback.

Ludus offers a starting price of $14.99 USD/month per user for teams consisting of 1-15 members with all features included. For larger teams requiring additional licenses, Ludus encourages reaching out for more information on pricing. It’s worth noting that Ludus provides a 30-day free trial, allowing users to explore the platform and its features before committing to a subscription.

10. Slidebean

Source: Screenshot from Slidebean

Slidebean offers a unique approach to slide design by automating the process and simplifying the creation of well-designed presentations. With its automation features, Slidebean streamlines the design process, saving users valuable time and effort.

The highlight of Slidebean is its automated slide design functionality. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the software generates visually appealing slide layouts based on the content provided. Slidebean also offers collaboration options, allowing multiple team members to work on a presentation simultaneously. 

Another advantage of Slidebean is its AI-powered content suggestions. The software intelligently analyzes the presentation content and provides helpful suggestions for improving the messaging and overall flow. This feature ensures that users can effectively communicate their ideas and engage their audience. 

Unlike Ludus, Slidebean may not cater to users who prefer extensive customization and control over their slide layouts. Certain advanced features are only available in premium plans, which may require an upgrade for those seeking more advanced functionality.

Startups, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and individuals who want to create polished presentations quickly.

Automated design, content suggestions, collaboration tools and pitch deck-specific templates.

The free version offers limited functionalities, but it provides a sufficient opportunity to experience Slidebean’s capabilities and understand its workflow. However, to export your presentation and access advanced features, upgrading to a higher plan is necessary. 

The all-access plan is available at $228 USD/year, while additional services such as startup expert consultations and pitch deck and financial model services are available for separate purchase. 

11. Beautiful.ai

Source: Screenshot from Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai aims to simplify the process of creating visually stunning and professional-looking slides with minimal effort. One of the notable strengths of the presentation software is its collection of smart templates and design suggestions. 

Their templates are intelligently designed to provide visually appealing layouts, saving users valuable time and effort in creating presentations. Unlike other types of presentation software, the platform leverages AI-powered technology to offer layout optimization, ensuring that slide elements are positioned optimally for maximum impact.

Beautiful.ai also offers time-saving features that streamline the presentation creation process. The software automatically adjusts the layout and formatting as users add or modify content, eliminating the need for manual adjustments. 

As the software provides smart templates and design suggestions, customization options may be somewhat limited. Users may find that certain design elements or layout adjustments are not as flexible as they would like. 

Individuals, startups and professionals who want visually impressive presentations without extensive design skills.

Smart templates, automated design suggestions, AI-powered layout optimization and easy slide customization.

Beautiful.ai provides two subscription options for users. The Pro plan is available at a monthly cost of $12 USD /month, while the Team plan is priced at $40 USD/month. Both plans are billed annually. You can also subscribe to the monthly subscription for ad hoc projects and gain access to all pro features for $45 USD/month (billed monthly). 

There is a 14-day free trial period that allows users to thoroughly test and explore the features and capabilities of the tool before committing to a subscription.

Source: Screenshot from Pitch

Pitch is a modern video presentation maker that stands out with its collaborative and iterative approach to presentation creation.

One of the key strengths of Pitch lies in its collaborative features. The presentation software provides robust collaboration tools that allow team members to work together in real-time. This makes it easy for users to collaborate on presentation content, provide feedback and make revisions collectively.

Pitch boasts an extensive slide library, offering a wide range of professionally designed templates to choose from. These templates serve as a foundation for creating visually stunning presentations while providing a starting point that saves time and ensures a polished look.

The availability of diverse templates caters to different industries, topics and presentation styles, allowing users to create presentations for their needs.

Seamless integration with project management tools is another advantage of Pitch. The software integrates well with popular project management platforms, enabling users to streamline their workflow by syncing tasks, deadlines and other project-related information with their presentations. 

For teams, startups and businesses that value collaboration, feedback and the ability to iterate on their presentations

Collaboration tools, version control, project management integration and template library.

Users can create unlimited presentations and enjoy the starter plan for free or upgrade to Pro for $8 USD/month, billed annually. 

There you have it — the top 12 best presentation tools for the year! Whether you value simplicity, collaboration, automation, design versatility or data visualization, these presentation software examples have a solution out there for your future presentations.

Got your mind set on your to-go presentation software? Great! Now it’s time to start creating your slides and ace that presentation. 

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The 11 Best Presentation Software to Use in 2024

The ability to effectively share ideas, illustrate a concept, and convince an audience is invaluable whether you’re a student or a C-level executive. These days, the presentation software you use to create presentations is just as important as your public-speaking skills.

On top of that, most companies have transitioned to remote work recently due to the current coronavirus situation, and now need to share their stories online through a virtual conference room with their distributed teams and external audience members.

That’s why we’ve come up with a list of some of the best presentation software available right now, so you can choose a compatible and innovative presentation maker that includes the best presentation tools to suit your specific needs.

Choose the best presentation software by weighing the pros and cons

You’ll see some of the most popular presentation apps: from free to paid subscription platforms, and slideshow applications to full-blown visual design presentation software with interactive features and more.

Each presentation software has its pros and cons, so it’s up to you to figure out which suits your needs best; consider the software learning curve, whether your company is made up of Mac users or Windows users and the software compatibility, if you need an enterprise account or free account, etc.

Let’s dive in!

1. Piktochart

Piktochart is a presentation software that can create a variety of design visuals, from infographics to social media stories.

An area in which Piktochart shines is crafting unique presentations. 

On Piktochart, users can choose from a wide range of professionally-designed presentation templates .

These custom templates include everything from monthly marketing reports to employee onboarding templates.

This broad selection of customizable templates is especially useful for those who don’t have much design experience or know-how but need to create a visually stunning unique presentation in a pinch. 

Piktochart’s presentation maker also makes it easy to edit presentations and include design elements such as lists, timelines, comparisons, graphs, and different types of charts through drag-and-drop tools.

You can even make visual maps and interactive charts to keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation. 

And if your company uses a Piktochart TEAM plan , you can enjoy the platform’s ability to store brand assets , color schemes, and bespoke templates. Here, replicating company-branded visuals is a breeze. 

Piktochart comes with a free version but with certain limitations. Active visuals are capped at five per month and published visuals have a Piktochart watermark.

If you want features such as team template collaboration, project sharing, and annotated commenting, you’ll have to get a Team account. To sum it up:

• Lots of professionally-designed templates 
• Good for both design professionals and non-professionals 
• Easy to store brand assets and bespoke templates for future presentations
• Access presentation tools from anywhere via a web browser
• Free presentation app version available
• Might take some getting used to if you’re used to PowerPoint presentations

2. Microsoft PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is often the first presentation software that comes to mind.

Once considered the “O.G.” and best presentation software available, it is still widely used and has a familiar interface—which means most users are comfortable with it. 

This presentation app has everything you need to create a presentation: from animated transitions for interactive presentations to pre-installed fonts and graphic elements.

Users can also upload their own fonts, graphics, and images into their finished presentation.

Lastly, it’s available as part of the Microsoft Office software package; and you can work on your presentations via the web and mobile devices, for offline viewing as well as online. 

However, PowerPoint is no longer considered the best presentation software, as it has very few templates to choose from, and these tend to fall quite flat compared to modern apps and software.

It’s easy to fall back into boring slideshow PowerPoint files if you don’t know what you’re doing.

And because most people use PowerPoint, you’re likely using the same template as the next guy. 

As standalone presentation software, PowerPoint is pricey at US$139.99—and accessible through only one device unless you upgrade your package.

And while PowerPoint is primarily a slideshow application and presentation maker, its strengths are limited to this category. 

So if you’re looking for the best presentation software, and bang for your buck for a robust presentation tool, you might want to look elsewhere. 

• Market leader in slideshow applications to create slides
• Widely used and familiar interface for the presentation process
• Reliable and usable on most devices as well as being a desktop app
• Flat templates
• Limitations with its standalone-presentation software price

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a slideshow application that is very similar to PowerPoint.  But there are three main differences: it’s fully online (while also allowing for offline viewing), collaborative, and free. 

The great thing about Google Slides (besides the fact that it’s completely free for anyone with a Google account) is that you can log on via your browser or through its official app. 

You can access all Google Slides presentations from any device (mobile, tablet, and desktop), and share them with other people so you can collaborate in real-time. 

Google Drive allows all your presentations to live on the cloud, accessible to all marketing and sales teams, with unparalleled ease of use.

And there’s no need to worry about disruptions as all changes are saved as they happen, as long as you have an active internet connection. 

Additionally, anyone familiar with PowerPoint will be comfortable using Google’s iteration and likely be delighted by Google Drive and the slide library available. 

It’s also a lot simpler, so even those new to presentation-making will find it easy to navigate. 

However, some might find Google Slides too simple as it lacks the wealth of features available on PowerPoint. 

These include embedding videos from sources other than YouTube, plus adding audio tracks and sound effects, limiting the ability to create unique interactive presentations. 

Some users also encounter issues with downloading and exporting to different formats, including PowerPoint. 

Some slides may even turn out completely different from the original version. 

All in all, Google Slides is a great option for those who are looking for a free application and only need to create simple presentations. 

• The free plan supports professional presentations
• Web-based and collaborative to create presentations
• Simple and familiar interface for an online presentation software
• Too simple for advanced presentation making
• Difficult to export to other formats
• Limited templates and customization options for interactive content

You could say Keynote is Apple’s version of PowerPoint. It’s also a slideshow application—but in typical Apple fashion, it comes with a sleek, minimalist interface and is considered one of the best presentation apps on the market. 

There are 30 different themes to choose from, which serve as templates for those who need a quick fix. And it can do most of what PowerPoint can. 

Keynote’s main perk is that it’s part of the Apple ecosystem. 

That means it has built-in iCloud and Apple Watch support so users can control their presentation from their mobile device or even their wrists with just a click. 

This presentation app comes pre-installed on most Mac devices. Otherwise, you can purchase it from the Apple store for just US$9.99 for mobile and US$19.99 for OS X. 

The big downside is that Keynote is exclusive to Mac OS. 

Non-Apple users can create, upload, and sync their own Keynote presentations through their iCloud Drive, but this presentation app is only truly helpful only for those who use multiple Apple devices. 

And if you’re used to working on PowerPoint, you might find Keynote a bit confusing in the beginning, especially when editing presentations. 

• Sleek, minimalist interface 
• Free with most Apple devices
• No access for PC and Android devices except through iCloud

5. SlideDog

Sliding away from straightforward slideshow applications and other presentation apps, SlideDog is a web-based multimedia presentation tool that lets users combine different types of media to create and edit presentations. 

This includes everything from PowerPoint decks to videos and even PDFs that can all be played side by side without any awkward transitions. 

It’s also extremely easy to customize a SlideDog presentation. 

You just need to upload the files into the SlideDog web browser application, and then drag and drop them according to the order in which you want them to play. 

You can control your presentations and playlists from another device, and audience members can view your slideshow on their devices by clicking a link. 

SlideDog has a free presentation app version that provides all of the basic features. 

However, live sharing and premium support are only available with a Pro account that costs US$99 per year, and not via the free version alone.

While SlideDog is technically considered presentation software, you can’t actually create presentations on it. 

You can simply stitch together different pre-made presentations in various formats into what is essentially a playlist. 

Lastly, SlideDog supports only Windows devices, so Apple and Linux users can’t use it. 

• Supports a lot of different media
• Provides live-sharing
• More dynamic compared to the usual slideshow presentation
• Only collates media; doesn’t create them

6. Haiku Deck 

Ever come across presentations with size-eight fonts and blocks of indecipherable paragraphs on each slide? 

You can avoid such an unfortunate scenario with Haiku Deck. 

HaikuDeck is a web and mobile application that favors images over text. 

It works by limiting the number of words users can put on each slide, and allowing them to search for images on their platform related to the slide’s main idea. 

This makes it ideal for those who want to simplify their thoughts and let the images do all the talking. 

Users have over 40 million royalty-free photos to choose from, plus dozens of simple slide layouts on the platform itself. 

While this certainly simplifies the process of creating a visually rich presentation, it can be limiting for those who need to include more information into their slides. 

It’s a great option for someone giving a TED Talk, for example.

But for others who need to pass on more facts and figures, having a built-in word limit might be too restrictive.  

• Simple and easy to use 
• Access to millions of royalty-free stock images
• May be too simple for some
• No Android support
• Limited features

7. Prezi Business

Among the other presentation software on this list, Prezi Business might be one of the most unique presentation tools. 

Rather than offering a regular slideshow format, Prezi looks more like a 3D interactive mind map where viewers jump dynamically from one idea to the next. 

You can zoom in on one “slide” and then zoom out for the next. 

Prezi has over 100 templates to choose from and comes with a very simple interface and a drag-and-drop style of editing. 

It’s compatible with both Mac and PC desktops as well as smartphones. 

It’s also similar to a regular PowerPoint deck in that you can jump back and forth from one “slide” to the next. 

And like SlideDog, you can send viewers the link to the presentation as you’re presenting. 

Also, up to 10 people can work on a Prezi presentation at the same time, one of its main selling points. 

This is great for collaboration, but having so many hands-on deck at once can get messy. 

• Dynamic and immersive presentations
• Highly visual
• Easy to use
• May not be appropriate for all types of presentations

In a world of slides and presentations, standing out is the key. Ludus brings the flair of graphic design into the world of presentations.

At its core, Ludus is the bridge between presentation tools and design software. It enables users to infuse their slides with the kind of design elements you’d typically find in advanced design platforms.

Not only can you import assets from design giants like Adobe, but its seamless integration with tools like Unsplash and Giphy makes sourcing visuals a breeze.

It’s a fairly affordable tool for all its features compared to the other paid options in this list, as users pay 12.49 euros monthly (if billed annually).

However, while Ludus’ robust design capabilities can elevate the look of your presentation, those unfamiliar with design tools might find there’s a learning curve.

• Merges presentation creation with advanced design tools.
• Seamless integration with popular design platforms and visual databases.
• Offers a unique edge in presentation aesthetics.
• Might be a tad overwhelming for non-designers
• Can have a steeper learning curve for those used to more straightforward platforms

9. Slidebean

Crafting a compelling presentation demands not only compelling content but also a design that can captivate your audience. Enter Slidebean.

Slidebean offers an intelligent design solution, using AI to transform raw content into professionally styled presentations. This platform streamlines the design process, allowing you to focus on the message rather than fretting over aesthetics.

The basic plan is free and allows you to create a presentation. But if you want to share or download your presentations, as well as unlock the full suite of features, you’ll need to sign up for the All-Access plan priced at $199 per year.

While it provides a quick and efficient method to produce polished slides, it also offers features for sharing, collaboration, and viewer analytics, adding an edge to your presentation strategy.

However, for professionals who prioritize granular design control, the automated design might feel limiting at times.

• AI-driven design ensures visually appealing presentations.
• Features for collaboration and viewer insights.
• Efficient design process reduces time and effort.
• Might not offer the detailed design customization some users desire.
• Automated choices may not always align with specific branding or style preferences.

10. ClearSlide

Having great visuals to drive your point home can be the difference between getting a sale across the line or customers walking away. ClearSlide stands out in this area as a presentation tool for businesses laser-focused on boosting their sales and marketing game.

At its core, ClearSlide is all about leveling up business presentations. Whether you’re marketing a new product or tracking client engagement, it’s got tools that cater to every need.

Whether it’s a PowerPoint, a PDF, or something from Google Drive or Dropbox, ClearSlide makes it simple to upload and work with these files.

The unique edge? ClearSlide’s virtual meeting space pops open with just a click. It’s all about seamless, professional presentations without the hassle.

Beyond just slides, the platform dives deep into metrics and analytics, ensuring every presentation is backed by data-driven insights. And the tool is available for $35 per month, which isn’t too pricey for medium-sized businesses.

However, its complexity isn’t for everyone. For some, the variety of features might seem a tad overwhelming, and its focus on metrics might be a bit much for those just wanting a basic presentation tool.

• Seamless virtual meetings and presentations
• Integrates with popular platforms
• Offers insightful analytics for sales and marketing
• Might feel complex for some users
• Limited transition and design effects
• Mobile experience could be better

Stepping into the world of animation, Vyond, once known as GoAnimate, allows users to turn their narratives into professional animated videos. For those looking to elevate their content without diving deep into animation complexities, Vyond can be the go-to tool.

This platform is more than just drag-and-drop animations. It integrates AI capabilities with Vyond Go, which transforms text prompts into rough-cut videos.

Fancy a quick draft for your upcoming project? This AI assistant is up for the task. And if perfection is your game, take it to Vyond Studio, filled with an array of characters, templates, and backgrounds.

The Essential Plan at $25 per month is suitable for individuals on a budget. However, if you want to export videos at 1080p and above, have collaboration tools, or different export options, you’ll need to sign up for the Professional Plan at $92 per month.

As robust as the tool is, there are still some kinks to iron out. AI voiceovers might still need some tweaks, and detailed color customizations can be a bit tricky, but the tool’s strengths, especially for businesses, are undeniable.

• Hassle-free video creation for beginners to experts
• Generous library of pre-made assets
• AI-powered video and script creation with Vyond Go
• AI voiceovers might feel a bit robotic
• Some customization limitations for specific props and scenes

The best presentation software is…

 …completely up to you! 

When it comes to presentation software, the world is your oyster. 

Each of these tools either has a free or trial version for you to check out, so you don’t have to commit just yet. 

When it’s time to choose, consider the following aspects to find the right presentation software for you: 

• Ease of use. Is it easy for you to understand or will it require lots of training before you can start creating presentations? 
• Accessibility. Can you access your presentation software from any device or are you limited to carrying your laptop to every presentation? 
• Real-time collaboration. Can multiple people work on the same project or do you have to keep downloading and emailing drafts? 
• Create design tools. Can you create presentations with dynamic design elements or are you stuck with the same kind of slide each time? 
• Template availability. Is this tool only accessible to a design professional or can anyone create stunning presentations through pre-designed and updated templates? 

Piktochart , for example, would be a fantastic presentation software choice among the long list of PowerPoint alternatives for teams looking for a variety of eye-catching designs without requiring much technical know-how. Meanwhile, Microsoft PowerPoint might be the best presentation software for those who are just looking to play it safe. 

Hopefully, this best presentation software list sheds some light on the tools at your disposal. Choose wisely! 

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Make Your Presentations Exciting With Audio-Visual Elements

By  Lindsay Oden

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Lindsay Oden recently graduated with an MA in History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. You can listen to his podcast and read his website , or follow him on Twitter .

You no longer need a video editing suite to make professional videos.

Bad presentations can alienate an audience and undermine your credibility. I’ve written before about some of the mistakes grad students make when giving conference presentations, and one of them is not utilizing audiovisual materials to enhance presentations. Whether it’s teaching, presenting at a conference, presenting in the classroom, or sharing research online, audiovisual tools can bring an extra dimension of excitement and intrigue to your work. Fellow GradHackers Heather VanMouwerik and Natascha Chtena have both written about using videos, audio recordings, and music in the classroom to augment lectures, so I’m going to show you some tools to improve conference and classroom presentations.

As the summer gets underway, you have an opportunity to learn a new skill or familiarize yourself with new software. Many computers come equipped with some audio and video editing software already installed, but there are many free and cheap options available to download as well. The technology available to us allows us to bring a vibrancy to presentations. As a historian of the 20th century, I’d argue that there are so many primary sources available that it is negligent to exclude them from presentations. And many disciplines—including history, sociology, journalism, musicology, and cultural studies—rely on audio and visual resources as evidence, so they should be fundamental elements in research presentations.

In total, I love letting my subjects speak for themselves, either in audio clips or video segments. These people often have moving and emotional narratives, and the audience for your presentation may be deeply affected by the materials you include. Make your presentation memorable and exciting, and ditch the PowerPoint slides that are walls of text.

Video editing software

Videos are the most striking medium because they combine the potency of seeing actual people on screen with the filmmaking techniques that keep people emotionally engaged, like editing, background music, and visual effects. You don’t have to be the next Michael Bay to realize the power of film. And better yet, many of the available video editing programs are simple and intuitive, so you don’t need to go to film school to learn how to use them.

Most computers—either Mac or PC—come with some video editing software pre-installed, like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker . These are basic programs that provide minimal functionality, but they are easy to use and free. They allow you to splice together film clips and add music or narration, all at minimal cost.

I prefer to use a program called Sony Vegas . Previous versions of the program are available for purchase, so it can be relatively cheap (I got my 2014 version for only $15.00). Sony Vegas is more robust and gives you more features, like multiple video tracks, a large effects suite, plugins, and export options. Other programs like Apple’s Final Cut or Adobe’s Premiere are also available.

More importantly, you can find thousands of online tutorials for each of these programs. They can quickly show you how to make your videos look professional and they can teach you how to use the thousands of features. Free tutorials make these programs easy to learn.

Audio editing software

If you want to give your presentation a soundtrack, then you’ll need audio editing software to piece together the various bits of music or sounds you want to use. Software like Audacity (free!), GarageBand , and Reaper allow you to import audio clips, trim them to the length you want, and export full, edited tracks. Rather than playing an entire song or manually skipping to a specific place in an audio track, editing the sounds you want can help you present the best possible or most representative audio clips to your audience. You might find this helpful if you want to play great lines from an oral history, interview, video, or song.

There are also programs online that allow you to download audio clips from videos online if you don’t want to use the video portion. Using a site like youtube-mp3.org lets you download the audio files from videos, edit them as you want, and use them in your presentations.

If you are feeling very creative, you can use audio editing software to combine audio clips, such as adding emotional music to a powerful speech, like filmmakers do in movies. You can also use audio editing software to record your own music to be used as background filler for your presentation. Make those years of piano lessons pay off.

That’s a wrap!

Audio and video editing software offer export options, meaning you can choose which file type you want to export when you’re finished. Sony Vegas has numerous high-definition formats to choose from, and Reaper lets you determine the sound quality of the files you export. Then you can upload your files to YouTube, Dropbox, Google Drive, SoundCloud, or other sharing sites so that they are easily accessible during your presentations.

Then, use the embed function in PowerPoint, Google Slides, Prezi, or Keynote to put your audiovisual files directly into your presentation. One of the reasons why Google Slides has become so popular is that you can embed videos from YouTube straight into Google Slides, and then set the video to play automatically at a specific time or with a click. By placing your videos or sounds directly into your presentation program, you can seamlessly integrate them into your speech.

Your audiovisual elements should come naturally in your presentation. They can serve as attention-grabbers, evidence, examples, or memorable takeaways for the audience. Let them enhance your research and keep the audience engaged.

How have you used audiovisual materials in presentations? What other programs might be helpful for researchers to present these kinds of materials? Let us know in the comments.

[Image from Wikimedia Commons , used under Creative Commons license]

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How to do Audio-Visual Presentation

Male audio engineer using sound mixer in recording studio

Creating an effective audio-visual presentation involves combining audio, visual, and multimedia elements to deliver engaging and impactful content to your audience. Whether you are presenting in a corporate setting, educational environment, or public event, incorporating audio-visual elements can enhance understanding, retention, and engagement. Here is a comprehensive guide on how to do an audio-visual presentation:

Define Your Objectives and Audience

Before creating your presentation, clearly define your objectives and identify your target audience. Determine the key messages you want to convey and the action you want your audience to take after viewing the presentation. Tailor your content and visuals to resonate with your audience’s interests, preferences, and level of understanding.

Plan Your Content and Structure

Outline the structure of your presentation, including the main points, supporting details, and transitions between sections. Organize your content in a logical sequence to guide the audience through the information effectively. Use headings, bullet points, and visuals to break up text and improve readability.

Select Appropriate Visuals and Media

Choose visuals and media that complement your message and enhance understanding. Incorporate a variety of visual elements such as photographs, diagrams, charts, infographics, and videos to convey information visually. Ensure that visuals are high-quality, relevant, and support your key points effectively.

Create Engaging Slides or Visuals

Design visually appealing slides or visuals that are easy to read and understand. Use a consistent color scheme, font style, and layout throughout the presentation to maintain coherence. Limit the amount of text on each slide and focus on conveying key points concisely. Incorporate visuals that evoke emotion and capture the audience’s attention.

Add Audio Elements

Enhance your presentation with audio elements such as background music, sound effects, or voiceovers. Use audio strategically to create atmosphere, emphasize key points, or add depth to visual content. Ensure that audio levels are balanced and contribute to the overall impact of the presentation.

Practice Delivery and Timing

Rehearse your presentation multiple times to familiarize yourself with the content and ensure smooth delivery. Pay attention to pacing, timing, and transitions between slides or visuals. Practice speaking clearly and confidently, and adjust your delivery based on audience feedback and engagement.

Use Technology Effectively

Familiarize yourself with the audio-visual equipment and technology you’ll be using during the presentation. Test your equipment in advance to ensure compatibility and functionality. Be prepared to troubleshoot any technical issues that may arise during the presentation.

Engage the Audience

Encourage audience participation and engagement by asking questions, soliciting feedback, or incorporating interactive elements into your presentation. Use polling tools, Q&A sessions, or group discussions to foster interaction and dialogue. Tailor your video production in San Francisco to address audience interests and address questions or concerns in real-time.

Seek Feedback and Evaluate Performance

Solicit feedback from audience members or colleagues after the presentation to gauge its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Evaluate your performance, content, and visuals objectively to identify strengths and weaknesses. Use feedback and insights to refine future presentations and enhance your skills as a presenter.

Consider Hiring an Audio-Visual Company

If you require professional assistance with audio visual company in San Francisco , consider hiring an audio-visual company or video production team. These professionals can help you create high-quality presentations, provide technical support, and ensure a seamless experience for both presenters and audience members.

Create an Effective Audio-Visual Presentation

Whether you are presenting in a professional setting, or public event, mastering the art of audio-visual presentations can help you communicate your message effectively and achieve your goals. At Argus HD , we provide premium Audio/Video services. Contact us today to learn more about our AV production in SF.

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23 open source audio-visual production tools

Internet Archive Book Images. Modified by Opensource.com. CC BY-SA 4.0

Open source is well established in cloud infrastructure, web hosting, embedded devices, and many other areas. Fewer people know that open source is a great option for producing professional-level audio-visual materials.

As a product owner and sometimes marketing support person, I produce a lot of content for end users: documentation, web articles, video tutorials, event booth materials, white papers, interviews, and more. I have found plenty of great open source software that helps me do my job producing audio, video, print, and screen graphics. There are a lot of reasons that people choose open source over proprietary options, and I've compiled this list of open source audio and video tools for people who:

• want to switch to GNU/Linux, but need to start slowly with cross-platform software on their regular operating system;
• are already open source enthusiasts, but are new to open source A/V software and want to know which options to trust;
• want to discover new tools to fuel their creativity and don't want to use the same approaches or software everyone else uses; or
• have some other reason to use open source A/V solutions (if this is you, share your reason in the comments).

Fortunately, there is a lot of open source software available for A/V creators, as well as hardware that supports those applications. All of the software on this list meets the following criteria:

• cross-platform
• open source (for software and drivers)
• actively maintained
• well documented and supported

I've divided this list into graphics, audio, video, and animation solutions. Note that the software applications in this article are not exact equivalents of well-known proprietary software, they'll require you to learn new applications, and you may need to modify your workflow, but learning new tools enables you to create differently.

I create a lot of graphics for print and web, including logos, banners, video titles, and mockups. Here are some of the open source applications I use, as well as the hardware I use with them.

1.  Inkscape (vector graphics) Inkscape is a good vector graphics editor for creating SVG and PDF files in the RGB color space. (It can create CMYK images, but that's not the main aim.) It's a lifesaver for manipulating SVG maps and charts for web applications; not only can you open files with the integrated XML editor, you can also see all of an object's parameters. One drawback: it is not well optimized on Mac. For examples, see Inkscape's gallery .

2.  GIMP (picture editor) GIMP is my favorite application to edit images, including manipulating color, cropping and resizing, and (especially) optimizing file size for the web (many of my Photoshop-using colleagues ask me to do that last step for them). You can also create and draw images from scratch, but GIMP is not my favorite tool for that. See GIMP Artists on DeviantArt for examples.

3.  Krita (digital painting) So you have this beautiful Wacom drawing tablet on your desk, and you want to try a true digital painting application? Krita is what you need to create beautiful drawings and paintings. See Krita's Gallery to see what I mean.

4.  Scribus (desktop publishing) You can use Scribus to create a complete document, or just to convert a PDF from Inkscape or Libre Office from RGB to CMYK. One feature I really like: You can simulate and check what people with visual disabilities will experience with a Scribus document. I count on Scribus when I send PDF files to a commercial printer. While printing companies may be used to files created with proprietary solutions like InDesign, if your Scribus file is done correctly, your printer won't have any issues. Free trick: The first time you send a file, don't tell the printer the name of the software you used to create it. See Made with Scribus for examples of documents created with this software.

5.  RawTherapee (RAW image photo development) RawTherapee is the only completely cross-platform alternative to Lightroom I know of. You can use your camera in RAW mode, and then use RawTherapee to "develop" your picture. It provides a very powerful engine and a non-destructive editor. For examples, see RawTherapee screenshots .

6.  LibreOffice Draw (desktop publishing) Although you may not think of LibreOffice Draw as a professional desktop publishing solution, it can save you in many situations; for example, if you are creating whitepapers, diagrams, or posters that other people (even those who don't know graphics software) can update later. Not only is it easy to use, it's also a great alternative to Impress or PowerPoint for creating interesting documents.

Graphics hardware

Graphics tablets Wacom tablets (and compatibles) are usually well supported on all operating systems.

Color calibration Color calibration products are available on all operating systems, including GNU/Linux. The Spyder products by Datacolor are well supported with applications for all platforms.

Scanners and printers Graphic artists need the colors they output (whether print or electronic) to be accurate. But devices that are truly cross-platform, with easy-to-install drivers for all platform, are not as common as you'd think. Your best choices are scanners that are compatible with TWAIN and printers that are compatible with Postscript. In my experience, professional-range printers and scanners from Epson and Xerox are less likely to have driver issues, and they always work out of the box, with beautiful and accurate colors.

There are plenty of open source audio software options for musicians, video makers, game makers, music publishers, and others. Here are the ones that I've used for content creation and audio recording.

7.  Ardour   (digital audio recording) For recording and editing audio, the best alternative to the professional Pro Tools music-creation software is, hands down, Ardour. It sounds great, the mixer section is complete and flexible, it supports your favorite plugins, and it makes it very easy to edit, listen, and compare your modifications. I use it a lot for audio recording or mixing sound on videos. It's not easy to find music recorded with Ardour, because musicians rarely credit the software they use. However, you can get an idea of its capabilities by looking at its features and screenshots .

(If you are looking for an "analog feeling" in term of sound and workflow, you can try Harrison Mixbus , which is not an open source project, but is heavily based on Ardour, with Harrison's analog console emulator. I really like to work with it and my customers like the sound. Mixbus is cross platform.)

8.  Audacity  (audio editing) Audacity is the "Swiss Army knife" of audio software. It's not perfect, but you can do almost everything with it. Plus it's very easy to use, and anyone can learn it in a few minutes. Like Ardour, it's hard to find work credited to Audacity, but you can find ways to use it on these screenshots .

9.  LMMS  (music production) LMMS, designed as an alternative to FL Studio, might not be as popular, but it is very complete and easy to use. You can use your favorite plugins, edit instruments using "piano roll" sequencing, play drum samples with a step sequencer, mix your tracks ... almost anything is possible. I use it to create audio loops for videos when I don't have the time to record musicians. See The Best of LMMS playlists for examples.

10.  Mixxx (DJ, music mixing) If you need powerful software to mix music and play DJ, Mixx is the one to use. It's compatible with most MIDI controllers, timecoded discs, and dedicated sound cards. You can manage your music library, add effects, and have fun. Take a look at the features to see how it works.

Audio interface hardware

While you can record audio with any computer's sound card, to record well , you need an audio interface—a specialized type of external sound card that records high-quality audio input. For cross-platform compatibility, most "USB Class Compliant" or "compatible with iOS" audio interface devices should work for MIDI or other audio. Below is a list of cross-platform devices I use and know well.

Behringer U-PHORIA UMC22 The UMC22 is the cheapest option you should consider. With less expensive options, the preamps are too noisy and the quality of the box is very low.

Presonus AudioBox USB The AudioBox USB is one of the first USB Class Compliant (and thereby cross-platform) recording systems out there. It is very robust and available on the second-hand market.

Focusrite Scarlett The Scarlett range is, in my opinion, the highest quality cross-platform sound card available. The various options range from devices with two to 18 input/outputs. You can find first-version models on the second-hand market, and the new second version offers better preamps and specs. I've worked a lot with the 2i2 model.

Arturia AudioFuse The AudioFuse allows you to plug in nearly anything, from a microphone to a vinyl disc player to various digital inputs. It provides both great sound and great design, and it's what I'm using the most now. It is cross-platform, but the configuration software is not yet available for GNU/Linux. It remembers my configuration even after I unplug it from my Windows PC, but really, Arturia, please be serious and make the software available for GNU/Linux.

MIDI controllers

A MIDI controller is a musical instrument—e.g., keyboards, drum pads, etc.—that allow you to control music software and hardware. Most of the recent USB MIDI controllers are cross-platform and compatible with the main software used to record and edit audio. Web-based tutorials will help you configure them for different software; although it may be harder to find info on GNU/Linux configurations, they will work. I've used many Akai and M-Audio devices without any issues. It's best to try a musical instrument before you buy, at least to listen to the sound quality or to touch the buttons.

Audio codecs

Audio codecs compress and decompress digital audio to deliver the best-quality audio at the smallest possible file size. Fortunately, the best codec for listening and streaming happens to be open source: FLAC . Ogg Vorbis is another open source audio codec worth checking out; it's far better than MP3 at the same bitrate. If you need to export audio in different file formats, I recommend always exporting and archiving audio at the best possible quality, then compressing a specific version if it's needed.

The impact of video in brand communications is significant. Even if you are not a video specialist, it's smart to learn the basics.

11.  VLC (video player and converter) Originally developed for media streaming, VLC is now known for its ability to read all video formats on all devices. It's very useful; for example, you can also use it to convert a video into another codec or container or to recover a broken video.

12.  OpenShot  (video editor) OpenShot is simple software that produces great results, especially for short videos. (It is a bit limited in terms of editing or improving the sound of a video, but it will do the job.) I especially like the tool to move, resize, or crop a clip; it's perfect to create intros and outros that you can export, then use in a more complex editor. You can see examples (and get more information) on OpenShot's website.

13.  Shotcut  (video editor) I think Shotcut is a bit more complete than OpenShot—it's a very good competitor to the basic editors in your operating system, and it supports 4K and professional codecs. Give it a try, I think you will love it. You can see examples in these video tutorials .

14.  Blender Velvets  (vdeo editing, compositing, effects) While the learning curve is not the lightest on this list, Blender Velvets is one of the most powerful solutions you will find. It is a collection of extensions and scripts, created by movie makers, that transform the Blender 3D creation software into a 2D video editor. While it's complexity means it's not my top choice for video editing, you can find plenty of tutorials on YouTube and other sites, and once you learn it, you can do everything with this software. Watch this tutorial video to see its functions and how it works.

15.  Natron (compositing) I don't use Natron, but I've gotten great feedback from people who do. It's an alternative to Adobe's After Effects, but works differently. To learn more, watch a few video tutorials, like these on  Natron's YouTube channel.

16.  OBS  (live editing, recording, and streaming) Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is the leading solution for recording or livestreaming e-sports and video games on YouTube or Twitch. I use it a lot to record users' screens, conferences, meetups, etc. For more information, see the tutorial I wrote for Opensource.com about recording live presentations, Part 1: Choosing your equipment and Part 2: Software setup .

Video hardware

First things first: You will need a powerful workstation with a fast hard drive and updated software and drivers.

Graphics processing unit (GPU) Some software on this list, including Blender and Shotcut, use OpenGL and hardware acceleration, which have high GPU demands. I recommend the most powerful GPU you can afford. I've had good experience with AMD and Nvidia, depending on the platform. Don't forget to install the latest drivers.

Hard drives In general, the faster and bigger the hard drive, the better it is for video. Don't forget to configure your software to use the right path.

Video capture hardware

• Blackmagic Design : Blackmagic provides very good, professional-grade video capture and playback hardware. Drivers are available for Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux (but not all distributions).
• Epiphan : Among Epiphan's professional USB video capture devices is a new USB Class Compliant model for HDMI and high screen resolutions. However, you can find the older VGA devices on the secondhand market, for which they continue to provide dedicated drivers for GNU/Linux and Windows.

Video codecs

Unfortunately, it is still difficult to work with open source codecs. For example, many cameras use proprietary codecs to record videos in H.264 and sound in AC3, in a format called AVCHD. Therefore, we have to be pragmatic and use what is available.

The good news is that the content industry is moving to open source codecs to avoid fees and to use open standards. For distribution and streaming, Google' s WebM is a good open source codec, and most video editors can export in that format. Also, GoPro's Cineform codec for very high resolution and 360° video is now open source. Hopefully more devices and vendors will use it soon.

2D and 3D animation

Animation is not my field of expertise, so I've asked my friends who are working on animated content, including movies and series for kids, for their recommendations to compile this list.

17.  Blender   (3D modeling and rendering) Blender is the top open source and cross-platform software for 3D modeling and rendering. You can do your entire project directly in Blender, or use it to create 3D effects for a movie or video. You will find a lot of video tutorials on the web, so even though it isn't simple software, it's very easy to get started. Blender is a very active project and regularly produces short movies to showcase the technology. You can see some of them on Blender Open Movies .

18.  Synfig Studio  (2D animation) The first time I used Synfig, it reminded me of the good, old Macromedia Flash editor. Since then, it has grown into a full-featured 2D animation studio. You can use it to produce promotional stories, commercials, presentations, or original intros, outros, and transitions for your videos, or even to work on full animated movies. See Synfig's portfolio for some examples.

19.  TupiTube (stop-motion, 2D animation) TupiTube is an excellent way to learn the basics of 2D animation. You can transform a set of drawings or other pictures into a video or create an animated GIF or small loops. It's quite simple software, but very complete. Check out TupiTube's YouTube channel for some tutorials and examples.

Animation uses the same hardware as graphic design, so look at the hardware list in the first section of this article for recommendations.

One additional note: You will need a powerful GPU for 3D modeling and rendering. The choices can be limited, depending on your platform or PC maker, but don't forget to install the latest drivers. Carefully choose your graphics card: they are expensive and critical for big 3D projects, particularly in the rendering step.

Linux options

If you are a GNU/Linux user, I have some more good options for you. They aren't fully cross-platform, but some of them have a Windows installer, and some can be installed on Mac with Macports.

20.  Kdenlive (video editor) With its last release (a few months ago), Kdenlive became my favorite video editor, especially when I work on a long video on my Linux machine. If you are a regular user of popular non-linear video editors, Kdenlive (which stands for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor) will be easy for you to use. It has good video and audio effects, is great when you need to work on details, and works on BSD and MacOS (although it's aimed at GNU/Linux) and is being ported to Windows.

21.  Darktable (RAW development) Darktable is a very complete alternative to DxO that is made by photographers for photographers. Some research projects are using it as a platform for development and testing of new image processing algorithms. It is a very active project, and I can't wait until it becomes truly cross-platform.

22.  MyPaint (digital painting) MyPaint is like a light table for digital painting. It works well with Wacom devices, and its brush engine is particularly appreciated, so GIMP developers are looking closely at it.

23.  Shutter (desktop screenshots) When I create tutorials, I use a lot of screenshots to illustrate them. My favorite screenshot tool for GNU/Linux is Shutter; actually, I can't find an equivalent in terms of features for Windows or Mac. One missing piece: I would like to see Shutter add a feature to create animated GIF screenshots over a few seconds.

I hope this has convinced you that open source software is an excellent, viable solution for A/V content producers. If you are using other open source software—or have advice about using cross-platform software and hardware—for audio and video projects, please share your ideas in the comments.

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Tips to Consider for Effective Audio Visual Presentations

There are a number of considerations to take into account in order to get the best out of your audio visual presentations..

July 23, 2018 Victor Paan 5 Comments

Presentations have gone far beyond the traditional setting we’re very accustomed to. Technology is quickly being adopted in many forms for the purpose of reaching a much broader audience. Whether you are webcasting, hosting a webinar or videoconferencing, you are connecting with a virtual audience. As streaming technology advances, becoming much simpler and cost-effective, we’ve put together some tips to consider so your messaging is on-point.

Sound Quality

It is imperative to ensure that the quality of sound is top notch. Having muddled or a weak sound is not only annoying to those present, but far worse for remote attendees. Engagement is key to the success of your event, and poor audio quality will largely decrease the amount of people interested. Not only is it important the presenter is heard, but remote attendees and those sitting in the back of the room need to be able to hear audience members when a question is being asked. Ensuring a microphone is available is paramount!

Internet Bandwidth

Internet bandwidth is easily something that gets overlooked; purchasing enough bandwidth to cover the entirety and scale of your event is crucial. Internet bandwidth determines how much data can be transmitted and at what speed. Having shaking or freezing video streams will be frustrating for your live virtual audience. Be sure to check that you are getting what you are paying for and demand time for testing, as you don’t want to be scrambling on the day of.

Types of Cameras

To figure out how many cameras you’ll need, begin by determining which sessions you plan on live streaming. Streaming events need at least one fixed camera, and multiple cameras can be helpful if you have the budget for it, as they allow different angles and shots to be taken, keeping things engaging.

Victor Paan is Director of Digital Services for Freeman Audio Visual Canada . Since joining Freeman in 2002, Victor has worked diligently for his clients, advancing his career from a delivery technician role to his current position as the Director of Digital Services. In this capacity, he draws on his technical and sales experience to support Freeman’s teams and clients in integrating state-of-the-art event solutions that will transform, grow, and extend the world of live engagements.

Mobile Friendly

Mobile and tablets are increasingly popular with everyone using them to do all of their tasks. Having scalable streaming capabilities that are available on iOS and Android will make a huge difference in your event. Your remote audience will be able to tune in from wherever they are, and you’ll reach a larger group of people regardless of the device they’re using.

Virtual Audience

It’s easy to forget about those streaming in once your event is up and running. Making sure you engage your virtual audience is very important. Speakers should greet them at the beginning, use their name and where they are from when a question comes in, and remember to look into the camera when speaking, as the speaker will most likely be trained to look only at the local audience.

A mediator or MC is a great way to engage the audience, help them develop some conversation and allow them to feel part of the event, and as latency (delay) of streaming services becomes more immediate, also look to add engagement tools like polling and live Q&A for both your local and virtual audiences.

Following these tips for an effective audio visual presentation will help your event thrive and give your audience something to remember.

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Reader Interactions

August 6, 2018 at 7:47 pm

My sister will be presenting to a potential client of their company. It was explained here that in order to make sure that the presentation will go well, she should consider the sound quality and her virtual audience. Moreover, it’s advisable to consult professionals when planning to use audio-visual for a presentation.

October 12, 2018 at 4:29 am

Thank you Victor Paan to share help full blog. With the technical era we should use the best quality cameras, sound systems and ready to face any unnecessary in problem in technique of this services and should also have the replacement of these equipment. Virtual Audience, type of camera and sound quality is main things that should be under focused. Really helpful blog i will share this with my friends.

January 10, 2019 at 11:43 am

One of my friends is getting a degree in business, so he may want to learn how to use audiovisual solutions to help him move up. It makes sense that one should make sure that their event is mobile friendly, as more people have access to phones and tablets. Thanks for the great audiovisual event tips.

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13+ Best Presentation Software to Bid Farewell to PowerPoint

Renderforest Staff

07 Dec 2023

11 min read  

Attention, all presenters, innovators, and knowledge sharers! Brace yourselves, because the era of boring and forgettable presentations is officially over. 

We all know that presentations are the beating heart of every business, work endeavor, and educational pursuit. And let’s face it, captivating your audience is an art form that can make or break your success.

Plain slides filled with text and bullet points will no longer do the job! To grab your audience’s attention, you need to shake things up a little.  

Luckily, we’ve done the legwork and compiled the ultimate list of the best presentation software in one place to help you make creative and captivating presentations.

No more dull slides. No more snooze-fest presentations.

By the time you’ll have finished reading this article, you’ll have discovered: 

• The 13 best online presentation tools to upgrade your presentations – their advantages and disadvantages. 
• How does each software compare to PowerPoint, and what are their unique features? 
• How to use each software to convert your ideas into strong narratives and keep your audience hooked. 

Consider these presentation software gems as your trusty sidekicks, ready to transform your ideas into captivating narratives that will leave your audience begging for more.

So buckle up and join us as we explore each presentation software individually, unveiling the best presentation software for your unique needs. Let’s dive right in!

The Finest Online Presentation Tools to Try Now!

Imagine you have an important project coming up, and you need to create a cool presentation to share your ideas with others within a short amount of time. Instead of just plain slides, you can make your presentation awesome by using some really impressive online presentation tools – tools you may not have heard of before. 

These tools make it easy to add pictures and videos and make your slides look super interesting as they take your regular presentation and turn it into something that will make everyone go, “Wow!” 

So, let’s check out some of the best presentation software you can try right now to make your presentations stand out!

1. Renderforest

You can use Renderforest’s slideshow video maker online and completely free of charge to create videos, branding, presentations, and graphics. 

If you upgrade to the lite version, you can enjoy an early-stage growth boost plan for promotional and explainer videos, powerful presentations, and graphics.

Now, if you choose to have the Pro plan, you can make use of advanced growth tools, the highest quality videos, outstanding designs, and a professional website.

For much larger projects, the Business plan gives you advanced-level solutions for teams and businesses to deliver high-end results for your campaigns.

The presentation software goes beyond the ordinary by providing you with a treasure trove of ready-made presentation templates that cater to every occasion, from personal projects to business endeavors. With just a few clicks, you can unlock a realm of visually stunning designs that are guaranteed to captivate your audience from the very first slide.

Extended Template Library

Whether you’re seeking to dazzle clients, engage students, or simply impress your peers, Renderforest has your back with an extensive library of slideshow video templates . From mesmerizing 3D animations to sleek corporate slideshows and whiteboard animations, the possibilities are limitless.

EXPLORE MORE!

Pre-Made Color Palettes

Give yourself a break from doing all the work of finding the perfect font and color palette for your presentation. Renderforest provides you with a large selection of ready-to-use, pre-designed sets that give your presentation a modern and professional look. 

All color palettes align with the main design principles, so you can rest assured that your presentation is aligned. 

Go to the left-side editor in your presentation template, open the color and font sections and click on your favorite mix.

GIFs, Stickers, Icons, and So Much More

Renderforest presentations are like a magic toolbox for making your presentations extra awesome. With it, you can do way more than just stick to regular pictures and words. 

One of the best presentation software out there, Renderforest lets you sprinkle some fun into your slides by adding GIFs, which are short, moving pictures that can make your points pop! Not just that, you can throw in stickers and icons to make things more lively and interesting. 

All of these elements help you show your ideas without even saying a word. 

Renderforest gives you all these tools to help you turn your presentation into a masterpiece that everyone will remember!

Premium Images

With Renderforest, you can access a treasure trove of amazing pictures through a royalty-free premium stock images library.

These are high-quality images that you can use in your presentations without worrying about any copyright stuff. It’s like having a secret stash of amazing pictures at your fingertips.

But here’s the exciting part – you can also bring pictures to the party! So, if you have some awesome photos you took on a family trip or nice shots you found on the internet. You can toss them into your presentation as well.

Ultimately, you have your gallery of pictures that makes your presentation uniquely yours. With Renderforest, you’re not just limited to what it provides – you can mix and match to create a presentation that tells your story in your style!

Prezi is offered in three different subscription tiers, including access to all three main parts of the suite – Prezi Video, Prezi Design, and Prezi Present.

Prezi’s Standard plan costs just $5 per month, the Plus plan costs $15 per month, and the Premium plan costs $19 per month.

The presentation software is built from the ground up to remove as many of the traditional limitations imposed by web applications as possible and enable users to create stunning, rich presentations with minimal effort and design skills.

It doesn’t take long to get used to how Prezi works and where everything is located, including some of the more advanced features of the application.

Its price is quite attractive compared to most of its competition, too, making Prezi a great offer for you in general!

General Overview

Prezi is a feature-rich online presentation suite that aims to enable anyone to create stunning presentations, including those without any in-depth knowledge of design and related practices.

It comes with various advanced tools that can help you do pretty much anything you want with your presentation, and it doesn’t take a lot of time to get used to how everything works.

It’s important to note that Prezi does have some minor flaws in its UI, but those are mostly limited to features that aren’t used that often to begin with.

There are three main tiers to Canva subscriptions. You can use it completely free to design anything, on your own or in collaboration with others, and you can choose from 250,000+ templates.

However, there are a lot of wonderful templates that are labeled as premium, as well as the option to integrate your own Brand Kit, which can only be accessed when you upgrade to the Pro plan at $12.99 USD/month.

Canva for Teams includes all the features of Canva Pro but also allows large teams to collaborate easily and efficiently together, and it is priced at $29.99 USD/month. 

The key selling point of Canva is how easy it is to use, even for people with no design background. It offers a range of design options, from social media posts to presentations, all in one place.

You can create professional-looking presentations at the tip of your fingers, especially with the newly released Magic Media™ apps that use AI to help you create consistent imagery.

Instead of wasting precious time scrolling through image libraries,you can try some of the AI image generator apps in the Canva Apps Marketplace. Simply type what you’d like to see, and watch it come to life.

Canva works as a web-based tool, so you don’t have to download it. It offers many ready-to-use templates and design elements like fonts, images, and illustrations.

You can either start from scratch or use these templates to create various designs, including social media graphics, presentations, flyers, and more. It also allows for collaboration, enabling multiple people to work on a project simultaneously.

Once you sign up, you can create designs by selecting a template or starting from scratch. You can then customize your design using the drag-and-drop editor, where you can easily add and adjust text, images, shapes, and other elements.

So, whether you’re one of the many small business owners, marketers, bloggers, or creative freelancers—Canva has something for everyone!

4. Google Slides

There are free trials available. For Personal and Free Business Starter plans, it is priced at $6 USD/month per user, for Business Standard, it is priced at $12 USD/month per user, while for Business Plus, it is priced at $18 USD/month.

Enterprises can contact Google to find out about pricing details for their needs.

Google Slides is very handy if many slideshows are required for certain projects. The presentation software acts as an easier alternative to PowerPoint because you don’t need to download anything in order to use Slides.

It’s as easy as going online and opening the program, while with PowerPoint, you need to download the program to start using it.

Google Slides is a cloud-based office suite that helps create, edit, and collaborate on presentations. It has features like themes and fonts, embedded videos, animations, and transitions.

The presentation software lets users create personalized presentations using ready-to-use templates with custom fonts and styles, color schemes, animations, transitions, and background images. If you’re a larget team, you can also upload files from Google Drive or Dropbox.

5. Microsoft Sway

Microsoft Sway is free to use for anyone with a Microsoft Account (Hotmail, Live, or Outlook.com).

This presentation tool dynamically adapts online to any screen and can be shared or co-edited with a URL.

It is best for people who are too occupied with work to spend time creating presentations, as it literally helps produce interactive reports, newsletters, presentations, and other personal stories in a matter of minutes, thanks to the help of AI.

Sway helps create presentations and other documentation in minutes by adding photos, videos, and other multimedia.

It’s connected to the Microsoft account, so the users can easily add files from OneDrive, or turn their Word or OneNote documents into a dynamic Sway.

6. Beautiful.ai

The Pro plan is for individuals and is priced at $12 USD/month. The Team plan is for team collaborations and starts at $40 USD/month, while the Enterprise plan boasts advanced security, support and control and require you to contact the sales team to get a quote.

Beautiful.ai saves you time and provides everything necessary for making great presentations.

You can use the right colors, font, and logo every time with its foolproof features, and when you sign up, the presentation software unlocks millions of modern images and icons that reflect your own brand guidelines. What else could you ask for?

With the Team Plan, you can also control your brand from one account and scale productivity across all departments of your organization.

Beautiful.ai is an AI presentation maker you can use to visualize your ideas easily. It offers 50+ beautifully designed customizable templates that are enhanced with presentation design best practices to keep your projects professional and clean. Besides, you can find and add stock images and icons from the image library.

7. Keynote (for Mac users)

The software comes free with most Apple devices.

This interactive business presentation software allows you to create engaging and dynamic slides, add charts and graphs to them, edit photos, and add effects to sharpen your project.

Now, you can remove backgrounds from supported images a lot more easily. You can even remove live videos or adjust them accordingly.

The software also lets you know when people join, edit, or comment on your collaborative presentations and lets you get in touch with your team using Messages and FaceTime.

Apple Keynote is the most successful competitor of PowerPoint among other Mac free presentation software solutions.

Access your presentations either online with iCloud, with a mobile app, or download a desktop version for Mac.

8. Haiku Deck

The Edu plan starts at $5 USD/month, Pro at $10 USD/month, and the Volume plan is at $100 USD/month.

Haiku Deck helps you focus on one idea at a time, letting you choose a powerful image from a library of 40M+ royalty-free photos and applying consistent formatting across your presentation in just one click.

All presentations you create with this software are hosted online and allow for easy audio narration recording and the ability to save as videos or export to PowerPoint/Keynote format for offline viewing and editing.

Haiku Deck is labeled as the “Instagram for pitch decks” by Mashable, for a good reason!

Even if you’re not a designer, the software helps you deliver presentations that connect with your listeners, spice up your social media feed, illustrate your blog, promote your product, inspire a movement, and more. It is centered around the best practices that presentation experts are after.

You can quickly design slides that don’t look like PowerPoint, and you can find related pictures to your keywords.

You can even view what other designs people have done on the same topic and use it as inspiration for your own presentation.

Recommended Reading

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• 40+ Ready-to-Use Instagram Templates to Set Your Own Trends!
• Lights, Camera, Renderforest! Animation Movie Maker 101 Guide

9. Slidebean

The Slidebean All-Access Advanced plan for founders starts at $149 USD/year, and this includes features such as pitch deck templates, unlimited fundraising kit, sharing and exporting decks, and tracking presentation views.

There is also the Slidebean Incorporation plan at $649 USD/year, which includes everything in the All-Access Advanced plan but allows businesses to incorporate their company in the US.

Slidebean offers everything you need for a successful creation process – images, icons, fonts, to name a few.

It is very easy to use and has beautiful graphic design elements. Even if you’re not a graphic designer, Slidebean makes your presentations look great.

It also helps you create pitch decks. Through its advanced analytics section, individuals can see which investors viewed their decks and how long they viewed each slide or whether the investor finished the deck, which is very helpful information to have on hand.

Slidebean is an easy-to-use and simple presentation software that provides professional templates to present your ideas with simple styling features.

Its target market includes startups, marketers, and small and medium-sized businesses that are trying to get their powerful ideas across to professional thinkers.

Streamline the process with the help of integrated automation features. Choose the templates depending on your field to simplify the creation even more. You can see insights into how users interact with the slides.

Visme is an all-in-one online presentation maker that offers custom, high-quality templates. Pick a template and customize it according to your needs, or create a presentation from scratch.

The tool offers 50+ charts and other data visualization tools, 120+ custom fonts, stock images, and vector icons. You can add website links, emails, and pop-ups. When your presentation is ready, share it online, embed it on your website, or download it.

11. SlideDog

There are 3 plans available. The first is $19/month per 2 seats, billed monthly, and you can cancel anytime. You also have a yearly plan at $99/month (1st year) per 2 seats, $79 2nd year with a 20% renewal discount. The last option is a lifetime purchase of $299 per 2 seats, where you only pay once and can access it forever.

SlideDog is a presentation software that lets its users create playlists from presentation files and easily switch between them.

The features include real-time sharing, interactive elements, and remote control with various devices to streamline the presentation process.

12. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is completely free for individuals, while larger teams and organizations are billed $2.70 USD/month.

The tool can be used by those who need to tell a story, such as educators, authors, and business owners, helping them create and publish presentations with stunning visuals in a short period.

Choose from a variety of integrated themes designed to fit all kinds of needs. Make your slides more interactive by adding transitions and animation, using charts, tables, images, videos, and more.

Zoho Show is a dedicated online presentation tool, simplistic and easily customizable. From creating and collaborating to broadcasting and publishing, you will surely find solutions to your every need.

The tool is also available on mobile devices. To access your presentations remotely on your smartphone, simply download the app and log in.

It also lets you import your existing PPTX, PPT, ODP, PPSX, and PPS files and edit them without any formatting issues.

Gamma offers three pricing plans. Upon signing up, you get 400 credits to test the Free plan with various features and create a few documents.

The Plus plan starts at $8/month, and you get to gain access to additional features like PDF export.

The Pro plan starts at $16/month, and you receive unlimited AI creation and advanced AI models.

Gamma takes just one prompt and a bit of refining to produce a beautiful presentation.

It uses the chatbot to improve existing slides, and you can incorporate live websites and applications into your presentations. It’s a great way to demonstrate your ideas in real time.

This is an opportunity to monitor how your creations perform and if they have the ability to engage your audience.

Gamma is an AI-powered tool that lets you create impressive and engaging presentations for anyone.

Besides creating your presentations, it also offers a great editing experience where you can improve your work simply by interacting with an AI chatbot.

There is a free trial available. The Personal plan for teams of up to 15 people starts at $14.99 USD/month, and the Enterprise plan for teams of 16 people and over requires you to contact Ludus directly for a quote.

Other than being incredibly easy to use, this tool is very intuitive, and presentations can be customized as you play around with unique fonts, drawings, code, interesting transitions, and much more.

Ludus combines creativity with simplicity. Ludus is more than a presentation tool; it is also a tool for communicating, collaborating, learning, and playing.

The presentation software has many features that designers are already familiar with. You can create anything without limitations, from fonts and graphics to blending modes.

It also allows you to integrate with Unsplash, GIPHY, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., so you can add anything you want.

Ludus is a tool that allows you to create presentations with unlimited creative possibilities.

This presentation software will solve your problems regarding sharing, compatibility, collaboration, creativity, and more.

It is recommended for everyone to use, especially for creatives and designers. Everyone can use it, too, but it has a bit of a learning curve that is worth the time if you want to use it properly.

This app might be the solution to the problems that our presentation tools have nowadays. It is not restrictive, so you can let your imagination run wild and express your creativity.

This presentation tool is affordable, especially for big teams. With remote work on the rise, Ludus is a great presentation assistant to have nearby.

Still Looking for the Best Presentation Software?

And there you have it. The 13+ best presentation software that you should bear in mind if you’re thinking of trying something a little bit different to the software you’re used to hearing about all the time – PowerPoint.

Each software has its benefits, but if you’re aiming for presentation software that offers a blend of creativity, versatility, and user-friendly features, Renderforest stands out as your go-to choice.

With a vast library of templates and the ability to add GIFs, stickers, icons, and even your own images, Renderforest empowers users to create visually stunning and uniquely personalized presentations.

Renderforest also provides different pricing plans, including a free option, making it accessible regardless of your need and budget.

So, stop wasting hours of your life trying to create your presentations manually and with predictable designs, and start taking your presentations to the next level with Renderforest, your ultimate presentation companion that goes beyond the ordinary!

Dive into our Forestblog of exclusive interviews, handy tutorials and interesting articles published every week!

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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 used 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 25 of the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

The best presentation software

What makes the best presentation app, how we evaluate and test apps.

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 interface. 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).

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.

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, and interactive content. 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

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Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

The AI tools aren't groundbreakingly useful

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.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $120/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

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Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

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 experience 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 more than 20 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 re-tested the generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) this year. 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 pull in relevant images.

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.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

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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's generative AI feature works ok, but it's more useful as a wireframe. When I asked it to create a presentation about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, for example, the resulting content read a lot like a student writing a term paper in the broadest strokes possible to avoid doing any actual research.

The best presentation app for video presentations

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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.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

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Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Excellent generative AI feature

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 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.

Pitch also offers one of the most impressive generative AI features on this list. It still struggles to pull in relevant images, but I found the AI-generated written content and design to be top-notch.

The best presentation app for conversational AI

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Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Conversational 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 conversational AI 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 produces a very useful jumping-off point. (Last year, it was by far the best, but this year, other apps are catching up.)

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.

The best presentation app for audience engagement

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Mentimeter pros:

Tons of audience engagement features

Simple for participants to interact

Mentimeter cons:

Less granular customizability

Bit of a learning curve

If you need to engage with an audience during your presentation, Mentimeter makes that easy. The app is designed around interactive elements like quizzes, surveys, Q&As, sliders, and more (even a Miro whiteboard!).

Each of these is included in a number of different, professional-looking templates, so you can build a fully interactive presentation super quickly.

When it's time to present, your audience members can scan the QR code with their phone cameras or type in the URL and access code to participate. There's one code per presentation (so they won't have to do this on every slide), which gives access to each slide as you move through the presentation.

There are two main drawbacks to this one, though. First, there's a bit of a learning curve and less familiar editing interface (but I found it pretty easy to learn with some practice). The other drawback is that you can't get as granular with the visual customization as you can with many other presentation tools.

The best presentation app for generative AI

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Top-tier generative AI features

Simple, customizable templates

Intuitive doc-style editor

There's definitely a learning curve

Tome is one of the new additions to this list that I'm most excited about. If you're looking for generative AI that just genuinely works , it's definitely worth a look. The editor is a bit more stripped down than most presentation apps but intuitive nonetheless—it's almost a cross between your standard deck editor and a Notion-style doc.

To generate an AI deck, click Generate with AI in the top right, and either write your own prompt or choose from the example prompts that cover a handful of common use cases, like sales enablement and company pitches. Edit or approve the suggested outline, then generate the full presentation.

From there, you can edit each slide as a doc via the right-hand menu—without limits on how much information you can include. During the presentation, you simply size down any slides that take up more than the standard amount of space. It's super simple but somehow feels revolutionary in a presentation app.

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.

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.

What about PowerPoint and Google Slides add-ons?

While I focused my testing on tools with full feature-sets—those that can serve as your sole presentation tool—there are a ton of add-on tools you can use atop big name tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Related reading:

This post was originally published in October 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez. The most recent update was in April 2024.

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Kiera’s a content writer who helps SaaS and eCommerce companies connect with customers and reach new audiences. Located in Boston, MA, she loves cinnamon coffee and a good baseball game. Catch up with her on Twitter @Kieraabbamonte.

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Tips to Consider for an Effective Audio Visual Presentation

Related posts.

3 Factors to Consider When Thinking About Audio for Your Next Conference

Presentations have gone far beyond the traditional setting we’re very accustomed to. Technology is quickly being adopted in many forms for the purpose of reaching a much broader audience. Whether you are webcasting, hosting a webinar or videoconferencing, you are connecting with a virtual audience.  As streaming technology advances, becoming much simpler and cost-effective, we’ve put together some tips to consider so your messaging is on-point.

Sound Quality

It is imperative to ensure that the quality of sound is top notch. Having muddled or a weak sound is not only annoying to those present, but far worse for remote attendees. Engagement is key to the success of your event, and poor audio quality will largely decrease the amount of people interested. Not only is it important the presenter is heard, but remote attendees and those sitting in the back of the room need to be able to hear audience members when a question is being asked. Ensuring a microphone is available is paramount!

Internet Bandwidth

Internet bandwidth is easily something that gets overlooked; purchasing enough bandwidth to cover the entirety and scale of your event is crucial. Internet bandwidth determines how much data can be transmitted and at what speed. Having shaking or freezing video streams will be frustrating for your live virtual audience. Be sure to check that you are getting what you are paying for and demand time for testing, as you don’t want to be scrambling on the day of.

Types of Cameras

To figure out how many cameras you’ll need, begin by determining which sessions you plan on live streaming. Streaming events need at least one fixed camera, and multiple cameras can be helpful if you have the budget for it, as they allow different angles and shots to be taken, keeping things engaging.

Mobile Friendly

Mobile and tablets are increasingly popular with everyone using them to do all of their tasks. Having scalable streaming capabilities that are available on iOS and Android will make a huge difference in your event. Your remote audience will be able to tune in from wherever they are, and you’ll reach a larger group of people regardless of the device they’re using.

Virtual Audience

It’s easy to forget about those streaming in once your event is up and running. Making sure you engage your virtual audience is very important. Speakers should greet them at the beginning, use their name and where they are from when a question comes in, and remember to look into the camera when speaking, as the speaker will most likely be trained to look only at the local audience.

A mediator or MC is a great way to engage the audience, help them develop some conversation and allow them to feel part of the event, and as latency (delay) of streaming services becomes more immediate, also look to add engagement tools like polling and live Q&A for both your local and virtual audiences.

Following these tips for an effective audio visual presentation will help your event thrive and give your audience something to remember. Contact us for more information.

Author Victor Paan Freeman Audio Visual Canada Director of Digital Services

Victor Paan is Director of Digital Services for  Freeman Audio Visual Canada . Since joining Freeman in 2002, Victor has worked diligently for his clients, advancing his career from a delivery technician role to his current position as the Director of Digital Services. In this capacity, he draws on his technical and sales experience to support Freeman’s teams and clients in integrating state-of-the-art event solutions that will transform, grow, and extend the world of live engagements.

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KB5042421: CrowdStrike issue impacting Windows endpoints causing an 0x50 or 0x7E error message on a blue screen

Microsoft has identified an issue impacting Windows endpoints that are running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent. These endpoints might encounter error messages 0x50 or 0x7E on a blue screen and experience a continual restarting state.

We have received reports of successful recovery from some customers attempting multiple restart operations on affected Windows endpoints.

We are working with CrowdStrike to provide the most up-to-date information available on this issue. Please check back for updates on this ongoing issue. 

Important:  We have released a USB tool to help automate this manual repair process. For more information, see  New recovery tool to help with CrowdStrike issue impacting Windows devices .

To resolve this issue, follow these instructions for your version of Windows.

Hold the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device and then press the power button again to turn on your device.

On the Windows sign-in screen, press and hold the  Shift key while you select  Power >  Restart .

Restart your device. Note  You may be asked to enter your  BitLocker recovery key . When the device restarts, continue pressing F4 and then it will log you in to safe mode. Please note, for some devices, you need to press F11 to log in through safe mode.

Once in safe mode, right-click Start , click  Run , type  cmd  in the Open box, and then click OK .

If your system drive is different than C:\, type C: and then press Enter . This will switch you to the C:\ drive.

Type the following command and then press Enter:

CD C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike

Note In this example, C is your system drive. This will change to the CrowdStrike directory.

Once in the CrowdStrike directory, locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”. To do this, type the following command and then press Enter :

dir C-00000291*.sys

Permanently delete the file(s) found. To do this, type the following command and then press Enter .

del C-00000291*.sys

Manually search for any files that match “C-00000291*.sys” and delete them.

Restart your device.

On the Windows sign-in screen, press and hold the  Shift  key while you select  Power   >  Restart .

Restart your device. Note  You may be asked to enter your  BitLocker recovery key .

When the device restarts, continue pressing F4 and then it will log you in to safe mode.

Once in safe mode, right-click Start , click  Run , type  cmd  in the Open box, and then click  OK .

Type in the following command and then press Enter :

Note  In this example C is your system drive. This will change to the CrowdStrike directory.

Recovery methods

If you receive the Windows Recovery screen, use one of the following methods to recover your device.

Method 1: Use Enable safe mode

Hold the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device and thenpress the power button again to turn on your device.

On the Windows sign-in screen, press and hold the  Shift  key while you select  Power >   Restart .

After your device restarts to the  Choose an option  screen, select  Troubleshoot  >  Advanced options  >  Startup Settings  >  Enable safe mode . Then, restart your device. Note  You might be asked to enter your  BitLocker recovery key . When the device restarts, continue pressing F4 and then it will log you in to safe mode. Please note, for some devices, you need to press F11 to log in through safe mode.

If the screen asks for a BitLocker recovery key, use your phone and log on to  https://aka.ms/aadrecoverykey . Log on with your Email ID and domain account password to find the BitLocker recovery key associated with your device. To locate your BitLocker recovery key, click Manage Devices > View Bitlocker Keys > Show recovery key .

If your system drive is different than C:\, type C: and then press  Enter . This will switch you to the C:\ drive.

Type the following command and then press Enter :

Tip:  CD C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike

Note  In this example, C is your system drive. This will change to the CrowdStrike directory.

After your device restarts to the  Choose an option  screen, select  Troubleshoot  >  Advanced options  >  Startup Settings  >  Enable safe mode .  Then restart your device again. Note  You might be asked to enter your  BitLocker recovery key . When the device restarts, continue pressing F4 and then it will log you into safe mode. Please note, for some devices, you need to press F11 to log in through safe mode.

If the screen asks for a BitLocker recovery key, then use your phone and log on to  https://aka.ms/aadrecoverykey . Log on with your Email ID and domain account password to find the bit locker recovery key associated with your device. To locate your BitLocker recovery key, click Manage Devices > View Bitlocker Keys > Show recovery key .

Select the name of the device where you see the BitLocker prompt. In the expanded window, select View BitLocker Keys . Go back to your device and input the BitLocker key that you see on your phone or secondary device.

Note  In this example, C is your system drive. This will change to the CrowdStrike directory.

Method 2: Use System Restore

After your device restarts to the  Choose an option  screen, select  Troubleshoot  >  Advanced options  >  System Restore .

If the screen asks for a BitLocker recovery key, use your phone and log on to  https://aka.ms/aadrecoverykey . Login with your email id and domain account password to find the bit locker recovery key associated with your device. To locate your BitLocker recovery key, click Manage Devices > View Bitlocker Keys > Show recovery key .

Click Next  on System Restore.

Select the Restore option in the list, click  Next , and then click  Finish .

Click Yes  to confirm the restore. Note  This will perform just the Windows system restore and personal data should not be impacted. This process might take up to 15 minutes to complete.

If the screen asks for a BitLocker recovery key, use your phone and log on to  https://aka.ms/aadrecoverykey . Log in with your Email ID and domain account password to find the bit locker recovery key associated with your device. To locate your BitLocker recovery key, click Manage Devices > View Bitlocker Keys > Show recovery key .

Select the Restore option in the list, click Next , and then click  Finish .​​​​​​​

Contact CrowdStrike

If after following the above steps, if you still experience issues logging into your device, please reach out to CrowdStrike for additional assistance.

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We provide third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. We do not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information.

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Trump assassination attempt: Graphics, maps show you what happened

Corrections and clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated the approximate distance between the rooftop and the stage. The distance is about 150 yards. The approximate location of the shooter's body has also been updated in the graphics .

An investigation continues into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Bulter, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, in which one attendee was shot and killed and two others seriously injured.

The gunman was shot and killed by Secret Service agents. The FBI later identified him as Thomas Matthew Crooks , 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles south of Butler. His motive is not yet known.

Details continue to emerge. Trump says a bullet pierced the upper part of his right ear before Secret Service agents hustled him off the stage and into a limousine. He was reported to be otherwise unharmed.

The gunman, who is believed to have acted alone, fired at the rally stage from a building rooftop about 150 yards away, outside the rally's security perimeter. Agents recovered an AR-style rifle from the scene.

Here is what we know at the moment. All times are Eastern:

Where was Trump?

1 p.m.: The Butler Farm Show, site of the rally, opens its doors to attendees. Trump is scheduled to speak at 5 p.m.

6:03 p.m.: Trump takes the stage and greets the crowd as the Lee Greenwood song “God Bless the USA” plays.

6:05 p.m.:  The song ends, and Trump begins speaking.

Unable to view our graphics? Click here to see them.

6:11 p.m.: While Trump is speaking, multiple shots are fired toward the stage. Videos show Trump grabbing his right ear, looking at his bloody hand and dropping to the ground behind the podium. People can be heard saying, "Shots, shots, shots."

6:12 p.m.: Secret Service agents jump on top of Trump and escort him off stage and into a vehicle. Trump gives a thumbs up as he leaves.

How many shots were fired?

6:14 p.m.: Trump's motorcade leaves the fairgrounds surrounded by law enforcement vehicles.

6:42 p.m.: The Secret Service  issues a statement confirming “an incident”  took place at the rally and that Trump “is safe.” Shortly after, the Trump campaign issues a statement saying Trump “is fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility."

7:24 p.m.: The Butler County district attorney says the suspected shooter is dead and one rally attendee has been killed, the Associated Press reports.

Where was the shooter?

7:49 p.m.: Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi  releases a statement  saying agents neutralized the shooter and that he was dead. The statement says one person was killed and two spectators have been seriously injured.

8:13 p.m.: In a short televised briefing, President Joe Biden says he was trying to call Trump  to speak with him as soon as possible.

8:42 p.m.: Trump posts on Truth Social confirming he was shot :

• “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!"

9:33 p.m.: The FBI's Pittsburgh office says it has assumed the lead in the shooting investigation.

11:52 p.m.: In a news conference, Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh FBI office, says the shooting was an attempted assassination of Trump and that investigators are working to determine a motive.

Who shot Trump? What gun was used?

Sunday: Law enforcement sealed off the home of Thomas Matthew Crooks for investigation.

Crooks used a legally-purchased "AR-style 556 rifle," said Kevin Rojek, a special agent in charge of the FBI's Pittsburgh field office, on a call with reporters. The agent likely refers to a rifle that fires 5.56 mm ammunition, though there are some firearm models with "556" in their name.

The weapon was located next to Crooks on the scene, Rojek said.

Rojek said law enforcement located "a suspicious device" when they searched the Crooks' vehicle. The device is being analyzed at the FBI crime lab in Quantico, Virginia.

Agents also obtained a court order to examine Crooks' cellphone in hopes its contents will provide clues into the shooting.

"At this time, the information that we have indicates that the shooter acted alone and that there are currently no public safety concerns," Rojek said. Another unidentified official on the call said the FBI believes the weapon was bought by the shooter's father. The family is cooperating with the investigation, officials said.

More coverage:

Trump rally shooting victims: Pennsylvania firefighter killed, 2 local residents wounded

Read more : Trump rally shooter Thomas Crooks appears to have acted alone, used 'AR-style 556' rifle: FBI

Nursing aide turned sniper : Thomas Crooks' mysterious plot to kill Trump

CONTRIBUTING Natalie Neysa Alund and Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY.

SOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters

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18 Best Presentation Tools for Beautiful Presentations [In 2023]

Written by: Chloe West

Looking for the best presentation tools to help you get your presentations to the next level? Powerpoint alternatives like Visme have tons of features and tools to amp up your presentation. In this guide, we will discuss how you can make the most of some of the tools like:

• Templates and themes
• Slide layouts
• Color themes

We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get into it.

18 Best Presentation Tools for Beautiful Presentations

Tool #1: templates and themes, tool #2: slide layouts, tool #3: fonts, tool #4: color themes, tool #5: icons, tool #6: shapes, tool #7: stock photos, tool #8: charts and graphs, tool #9: maps, tool #10: tables, tool #11: flowcharts, tool #12: icon charts, tool #13: radials, tool #14: progress bars, tool #15: animation, tool #16: transitions, tool #17: interactivity, tool #18: audio and video.

At Visme, we have two different options for users to get started with a new presentation.

The first option is presentation templates . There are over 100 editable presentation templates in Visme that range from 2 to 15 pre-designed slides for you to easily plug your content in.

Presentation Templates

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However, we also have three separate presentation themes – Modern , Simple and Creative .

Each theme has hundreds of slide layouts that you can mix and match, or pull into your presentation and customize with your own colors, fonts and content.

Regardless of if you choose a template or theme, you have full range customization options to make the presentation your own. We just give you a visually appealing starter kit to make your life easier.

If you choose between one of our presentation themes, you have hundreds of slide layouts to choose from to build out your presentation in the way that you see fit.

Whether you need a title slide, a timeline , a slide for your services or an ending contact us slide, our slide library has plenty of options for you.

When you’re in the presentation maker , click Add Slide to access the slide library. Choose one of the categories to view each of the slide layout options available.

This allows you to reuse the same theme over and over again for multiple presentations while maintaining a fresh look each time. Just choose the slide you want to edit, add it into your presentation and customize it with your own information.

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Another important tool for your presentations that you have access to in Visme is free fonts. There are over 100 fonts for users to choose from in the presentation design dashboard.

Stick to three fonts or less. Too many different font faces can make your slides appear cluttered. It’s best to incorporate one font for headers, one for body copy and a possible third for an accent font.

If you don’t find the font you want, you can also utilize Visme’s Brand Kit to upload and access your own preferred fonts. This can include your company’s brand fonts or simply a personal favorite or two.

While many of the presentation themes and templates come with an already established color scheme , absolutely nothing is set in stone. You can switch out the color of every item in your presentation to match your company or your topic.

One great presentation tool that Visme has is color themes. This allows you to change the color scheme of your entire presentation with a single click.

You can add your own brand color scheme into the Brand Kit section of your Visme dashboard so you can easily access them later. There is also a section to create your own color themes from scratch.

The color themes you create will appear at the top of the list and will switch the colors of your presentation for you without you having to pick and choose which individual elements are which color.

Using icons in your business presentation is a great way to visualize the text in your slides. You don’t want to include only text for your audience to follow along, so incorporating graphics as a visual aid is a great way to make your content more engaging.

In Visme, users have access to over 10,000 icons with four different styles to choose from.

Since you want to stick to a single icon style throughout your presentation, this gives you a way to differentiate each presentation you create while still having tons of icon options.

Access thousands of high-quality icons and graphics!

• Vector icons to spice up any Visme design or document
• Free to use , and great for print or web.
• Customize colors to fit your design needs.

Use these high-quality icons and graphics to help visualize the main points in your next presentation.

Another great way to add a few design touches to your presentation is by incorporating shapes. These can be used to emphasize photos and text by surrounding them or to create a design by themselves.

Check out the presentation slide template below. It's a great example of how using circular frames around photos can help draw attention to them.

Here's another presentation slide template that incorporates shapes into the design.

Incorporating different shapes can help to add depth to your presentation. It’s not all text, photos and icons. Instead, there’s an entire design aspect to your slides as well.

Here’s a video of how to format shapes and lines in Visme.

Visme partners with Unsplash to bring its users a massive library of free stock photos to incorporate into presentations, infographics , social media graphics and more.

While you may have your own photos of your team, business, products and services, there are still many other options for including stock photos in your presentation.

You can use the search bar to find exactly what you’re looking for in the photo library and easily drag and drop it onto your presentation slide.

If you have a preset slide with images you want to change out, click on the photo to have the option to replace it appear in the top bar.

There are many ways to use presentation images , so be sure you browse through the photo library to see what options are available for you to use in your own slides.

If you’re presenting financial data, charts and graphs are key presentation mediums . There are many different chart and graph options available, from bar charts to line graphs and pie charts to funnel charts and more.

Want to create your own charts and graphs?

• Upload an Excel file or sync with live data from Google sheets
• Choose from 16+ types of charts, from bar and line graphs to pyramid and Mekko charts
• Customize anything, from backgrounds and placement of labels to font style and color

The Graph Engine is the first option available to users when you open up the Data tab in the design dashboard, giving you 15 chart and graph options right off the bat.

You’re able to input your data manually or import an Excel or Google spreadsheet and your dynamic chart will automatically update to reflect it.

Change colors, name axes and customize the legend. All charts and graphs in Visme can also be animated to make your presentation look even more engaging and creative.

If you’re talking about demographics or sharing information that pertains to a location within your presentation, consider adding in a map to visualize the area.

Visme’s map maker allows you to insert a world map or pinpoint any location in the world, color coding areas and creating an engaging visualization for your audience.

Set a global color for your map and color code different areas based on your information. You can hide areas on the map or showcase just one specific country or continent in the world.

There are many reasons you may need to add a table to your presentation.

You can create a schedule for the event or presentation, create a pricing table or even include a table of data next to the chart that visually represents it.

It's very easy to add a table to your presentation in Visme. You can set the number of rows and columns your table has, change cell colors, customize fonts and more.

A flowchart can help you visualize business processes, chains of command and more. And Visme makes it extremely easy to customize a premade flowchart or create one entirely from scratch.

There are several slide layouts that include flowcharts you can edit to fit your content, but it’s actually quite fun to play with the shapes and lines to create your own flow.

The flowchart elements are fully customizable so that you can choose outlines or filled in shapes, corners or rounded edges in your lines, line width and more.

An icon chart or an array is a way to represent data with icons. You can use this to differentiate between the number of men and women, cats and dogs, etc., that fall under different categories.

While the array visualization automatically comes with two icons, you can add more, change colors, switch the icons with any options from our library and more.

A radial, or circular counter, is a more engaging way to represent numbers or percentages than having them stand alone on the slide.

The thing is, not many PowerPoint alternatives have this tool. However, there are many different styles to choose from in Visme's data widget sidebar.

You’re able to customize the colors, the number, the maximum and minimum values and even whether you’re visualizing a percentage or just a number.

You can even add icons to the center of your radial to better visualize what each percentage is referencing.

Want to let your audience know how much time there is left in the presentation? Add a progress bar to the bottom of each slide.

You can also use this to show how far along the company is with creating products or gathering funding.

In Visme, you can choose from many different styles of progress bars, creating a new look and feel in each presentation you add this feature to.

To make your presentation more engaging , consider adding animation to the elements in your slides. This makes them move on the screen and helps grab the attention of your audience.

In Visme, you have six animation options:

• Fly from left
• Fly from right
• Fly from top
• Fٖٖٖly from bottom

Just remember that you only want to stick to one animation type per presentation. Having elements fly in from all different directions is not a good look and can easily overwhelm your audience.

Create beautiful and animated presentations!

• Add your own text, images, colors and more
• Add interactive buttons, transitions and animations
• Customize anything to fit your design and content needs

Watch this video to learn how you can animate text, video, shapes and images in Visme.

Your transition is the way your slides appear and disappear, and it’s a great idea to give this a bit more flair than your typical slide interchange.

With Visme, you can create transitions that not only move your slide, but each of the elements simultaneously. Simply click on the gear at the right corner of the slides to access the transitions.

The Staggered Fade, Enter from Side, Enter from Bottom, Enter from Top and Zoom In transitions all include both slide and element transitions. However, if you want to animate your elements separately, you can choose the transition Simple Fade or Slide In.

Visme also offers several great ways to make your presentation interactive.

Have Q&As, bring props, have your audience raise their hands and more. You create hyperlinks between slides and even design elements to create a unique experience for your audience.

This is a great way to make your presentation stand out and get your audience involved, so be sure to keep some of these interactivity ideas in mind.

Adding an audio narrative, recording a voice-over for your slides, incorporating background music or even embedding a video can be a great way to increase engagement in your presentation.

You can record audio directly in Visme, embed video links or embed any other type of online content directly in your presentation slides.

This can also give you a break from presenting during longer sessions, breaking up the monotony of your audience listening to the same thing for the duration of the time.

Watch the video below to learn how to embed video into your presentation and capture your audience's attention.

Looking for the Best Presentation Software to Use These Tools?

There you have it. We’ve shared 18 valuable tools for beautifying your next presentation.

But here’s a caveat! When preparing your presentation, don’t throw in all of these tools. Match the presentation topic with the tool that will have the most impact on your audience.

While there is a lot of presentation software out there—like PowerPoint, Keynote, Beautiful.ai, Prezi, Canva, Visme and more—what tools do you use for your presentation? Visme comes preloaded with all of the best presentation tools we’ve mentioned and more. Use them to create a presentation that your potential customers and investors will fall in love with.

Sign up for a free Visme account today to get started, and check out all of our presentation templates to find something you love.

Create beautiful presentations faster with Visme.

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About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.