Choosing the best presentation software is a big decision no matter what kind of a presentation you’d like to create. When making a presentation to present business ideas or a creative project, every minor detail of your slide’s design matters. A poorly designed presentation will hardly appeal to your audience. If you want your ideas to stick to people’s minds, then an effective presentation style is exactly what you need to achieve the maximum efficiency of your project.
By means of a presentation software, you can create professional slide presentations that will stick to the users’ minds and present your data in an easy-to-follow style. A slide presentation allows you to present more than just images and words. Many current software packages also include the possibility to add audio and video files to your slides, alongside with impressive animations and transition effects. Moreover, there are lots of ready-made designs that are intended to be compatible with the leading presentation apps. For example, you can pick best PowerPoint templates or ready-made solutions for Google Slides to edit their designs and upload your content effortlessly.
So, what’s the best software that will help you create stunning presentations? Let’s compare the industry leaders - PowerPoint vs. Keynote vs. Google Slides.
PowerPoint
PowerPoint is the most popular presentation software that we discovered at school and continue using at work and for personal purposes. The app is part of the Microsoft Office suite. The software is not free. You need to pay for subscription in order to use it for the creation of your presentations. However, there is a free online version available. So, if you still haven’t tried how it works, then you can check out all its major features at no cost.
You can create PowerPoint presentations on both desktop devices and your smartphone or tablet. The software is compatible with Windows, Android, and iOS.
PowerPoint has been on the market since 1987. This is a well-established software for creating remarkable presentations that is preferred for its major advantages, like:
Easy to use. PowerPoint has an intuitive dashboard that is familiar to everyone who uses Microsoft. If you need any kind of assistance for getting started, then you can make use of the basic PowerPoint tutorial or address Microsoft tech support.
There is a large community of users providing plenty of articles and tools that can help you work with the software more effectively.
You can download free iOS and Android apps on your smart devices and bring all necessary changes to your PowerPoint presentation on the go.
There are plenty of useful customization options and effects that you can use in your presentations.
There is also a wide choice of free and paid top PowerPoint template that differ in their designs and purposes of use. While choosing any pre-designed template, you can save your time on the creation of your PowerPoint slides from scratch.
You can integrate your PowerPoint presentation with Microsoft Excel and other Office apps.
Like there are always two sides of a coin, PowerPoint presentation software also has certain disadvantages, like:
PowerPoint has a web-based version, but it’s not as fully-featured as its desktop version or competitor software, like Google Slides.
PowerPoint is part of the Microsoft Office package. So, you need to pay for the full pack of apps in order to start using the presentation software.
PowerPoint still lags behind other presentation software in terms of the real-time collaboration with other users.
Keynote
Keynote is part of Apple’s iWord productivity suite. It was designed especially for Mac and iPhone/iPad users. It lets you create memorable presentations of any Apple device. You can even create diagrams and illustrations on your iPad using Apple Pencil.
Pros:
One of the major advantages of using Keynote is that it lets you collaborate with other users and edit one document in real-time.
It also lets you display slideshows directly from your iPhone/iPad using Keynote Live.
Keynote transition effects and animations can be compared to what you see in movies.
You can synch your Keynote presentation through the cloud, which makes it possible to work with the same file on multiple devices.
Keynote files are easy to be exported to PowerPoint. It also integrates well with other iWork apps.
Cons:
Keynote is intended to be used only with Mac and iOS devices.
Some users may assume that Keynote help files are less extensive than what Microsoft offers, still the software is rather easy to understand even for beginners.
Google Slides
Google Slides is part of Google’s software office suite. It’s free to use for all Google Drive users. The presentation software is available for both personal and business use. Google Slides is a relatively new software that delivers rather innovative presentation features that you can use on your slides.
You need to be connected to the web in order to create and edit your presentations in Google Slides. While many think this is a strong feature of Google Slides, some other may assume this is a disadvantage of this software. Some other pros of using Google Slides include:
It’s web-based. You can easily embed any document into a web page.
It lets you collaborate with your colleagues while editing the same document in real time.
Google Slides features interactive and innovative features. For example, there is a Q&A feature that lets the audience interact with a speaker.
As per the major disadvantages of Google Slides, let’s highlight the following:
Google Slides is a ‘young’ presentation software that has fewer features and effects than other solutions on the web.
The software is intended to be used only by the owners of Gmail accounts.
PowerPoint vs. Keynote vs. Google Slides - Final Words
What the winner of this presentation software battle? The answer depends on your own expectations and needs. If you need to make a presentation for your colleagues in the office, then using the basic set of features delivered by Google Slides may be enough. If you are going to speak at a large public event and you want to create a long-lasting effect on your audience or you need to collaborate on the same file with your team, then Keynote can provide you with everything you need.
With that said, let’s compare the basic characteristics of the top presentation software in a table.
