How to Create a Budget Presentation That Gets Approved
Static presentations have long been the norm, but why settle? Instead, consider creating animated presentations that have vibrant and eye-catching designs.
Using animated presentation software will help make your presentations shine and stand out from the crowd. The "Animations" menu or "Animation" tab in most software (such as Visme, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe After Effects, or Google Slides) provides options related to animation, such as adding motion effects to text, objects or scenes.
What is an animated presentation? It’s a presentation that has moving parts inside the slides and creative slide transitions. In some cases, you can even have your animations trigger as you click on the slide.
These effects can make your presentation much more engaging for your audience. Not only that, it gives you, as the presenter, cues to move forward with the information on the slides.
Sure, PowerPoint can be animated too, but there are many other, better options for animated presentation software that you should know about.
Ready to create a presentation that impresses your audience? Use our presentation software to create beautiful slide decks with customizable templates, smooth transitions, advanced animation, pre-animated assets and more.
Jump to:
| Software | Key Features | Pricing | Best for | Core Uses | G2 Rating |
| Visme | Animation tools, drag-and-drop editor, templates, data visualization, collaboration, Presenter Studio | Free; Paid from $12.25/month |
Businesses, educators, teams | Animated presentations, infographics, social media graphics | 4.6 |
| Prezi | Non-linear presentations, zooming animations, cloud-based, advanced image editing | Free; Paid from $12/month |
Students, educators, companies | Dynamic presentations, non-linear storytelling | 4.2 |
| PowerPoint | Animations, transitions, Smart Art, real-time collaboration, templates | Part of Microsoft 365 subscription; Standalone from $179.99 |
Students, educators, businesses | Professional presentations, animations, video creation | 4.6 |
| Genially | Interactive animations, templates, collaboration, multimedia content integration | Free; Paid from $7.49/month |
Educators, marketers, teams | Interactive presentations, animated infographics | 4.6 |
| Beautiful.ai | AI-powered animations, templates, analytics, privacy controls | Paid from $12/month | Professionals, teams | AI-powered presentations, animated slides | 4.7 |
| Keynote | Cinematic animations, interactive charts, collaboration, cloud-based | Free for Mac users | Mac users | Professional presentations, cinematic animations | 4.4 |
| Slides | Cloud-based, custom CSS animations, team collaboration, analytics | Paid from $5/month | Startups, educators, individuals | Collaborative presentations, animated web-based slides | 4.4 |
| Linearity Move | Advanced animations, timeline editing, vector-based designs | Paid from $9/month | Designers, professionals | High-quality animations, motion graphics | 4.6 |
| Vyond | Character animations, customizable templates, voiceover integration | Paid from $49/month | Marketers, educators, businesses | Animated videos, explainer videos | 4.7 |
| Moovly | Drag-and-drop editor, templates, multimedia library, animations | Free; Paid from $24.92/month |
Educators, marketers, businesses | Animated videos, presentations, promotional content | 4.5 |
Is Visme good for presentations? I'll let the features talk for themselves. This animated presentation software allows users to apply special effects to the transition between slides. Using a tool like Visme will turn your presentations into works of digital art.
The animation options are classy, easy to use and never over the top.
Visme's animated presentation templates include a staggered animation of elements right out of the box. So, even if you don’t add anything else to your slides, a finished Visme presentation will already be animated and ready to go!
If you don’t like the way this default transition works, you can change it inside the slide controls.
Below are the different animation controls available inside Visme.
As I mentioned before, Visme presentations come animated right out of the box.
But there are plenty of other options if you want to change that. Click on the gear icon in one of the slides and you’ll see the option for “slide transitions.”
You can choose between the following:
The last one only applies if you have added a video to your slide.
The default transition style is “enter from side” but you can also choose from the following:
All choices can be selected for one slide at a time, or for all slides. This is practical when some slides have media, like video or audio narration.
Pro-tip: Stick to one style or at the most two. If you mix and match too many styles your presentation will look confusing and the magic of animated transitions will be lost. Also, if you add animation to your elements, these have to work together with your slide transitions!
The animation controls in Visme are available for every single element on a slide. To access them, simply click on an element, click Actions and click Animate to open the animations menu.
Next, select if you want the animation as an element enters the stage or as it exits.
Then, set the timing for the animation and then pick the animation style.
You can choose from the styles below:
After you have added at least one animation, you’ll be able to see the animation timeline. Click on the arrow next to the timer that now appears at the bottom of your screen to look at the basic or advanced animation timeline.
To level up your presentations even more, add interactive elements to your slides. Some of the interactivity features that Visme boasts includes:
To add interactivity to your presentation, click on the element that you want to make interactive, click Actions then click Actions again from the menu that’s appeared. You can choose to link that element to an external web page, a slide or another element.
The last major animation feature that Visme has to offer is our vast library of animated illustrations, graphics and presenting cartoons. Add characters, illustrations, gestures, special effects, avatars and more that help your slides move and catch your audience’s attention.
If you want to know more detailed instructions on how to make presentations with Visme, watch our tutorial video on how to use the various features.
Aside from the animated illustrations and graphics, Visme also offers an easy-to-use character builder you can use to create 3D animated characters.
Add these 3D characters to your presentations to instantly grab attention and boost engagement. In fact, you can also create a custom 3D character to represent your brand. This lets you design hyper-personalized presentations that strengthen your brand identity.
Customize the appearance of your character—from facial hair to skin tone—so it fits your vision. Then, choose an animation style or pose that matches your content (or keep your character static.) You can even save your custom 3D animated characters to use in other projects and presentations.
Finally, transform boring statistics and numbers into visually engaging graphics that represent your data in the most engaging way possible. How? With Visme’s 3D Data Widgets.
Our 3D widgets are created by in-house professionals, which means you won’t find these graphics anywhere else. Show percentages, amounts and comparisons with 3D thermometers, batteries, clocks, stacks of coins and books and more unique graphics.
The best part? They’re all fully customizable. You can change the colors to fit your brand or design, and even rotate the objects in 3D.
This tool integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, Slack, YouTube, Dropbox, Google Analytics, and Livestorm to name a few. Learn more about Visme's integrations here.
It has a free plan that you can use for as long as you want. It's a great way to test out the tool and get a feel for all that it has to offer.
Note: Visme offers discounted pricing plans for students, educators and nonprofits.
Prezi has been the animated presentation software of choice for educators for a long time. The zoom in and zoom out effects are always a delight with students of any age.
Let’s take a look at how animations work on Prezi and their range of customization.
First of all, Prezi uses animation as the way a presentation transitions from slide to slide.
The first slide has all the topics in a layout and the presenter must click on each one to enter a set of slides. When a topic is clicked, the effect is a zoom-in visual that takes the audience on a journey inward. The presenter can then exit that slide and zoom-out to the first overview slide again.
Additionally, all slide elements can be animated to fade in or fade out. Simply click on an element and add an animation. The animations for each element can be reordered easily with a movable tab.
From the animation controls, you can also add a new zoom-in area to any slide, which adds another level of information to the presentation.
Finally, the main overview page can have animation controls depending on what topic has been opened, creating even more animated options.
Is Prezi presentation free? Yes, and No, I found that like most top tier presentation tools, it offers a limited free plan. In fact here’s a quick snapshot of the current pricing:
Prezi also offers plans for students and educators that start at $4/month.
The most widely used presentation software, PowerPoint, also has lots of animation features.
The options for animation on PowerPoint are quite varied and can turn a boring presentation into a fun experience. But they can also turn any presentation into a big animated mess in no time.
Of course, if you use some restraint, you can create amazing animated presentations with PowerPoint. Let’s take a look at the animation options inside PowerPoint.
First of all, every single element inside each slide can be animated more than once.
PowerPoint offers around a hundred animation options; from regular slide-ins to pinwheels and color fills. When an animation is added to an element, a marker shows up next to it on the slide that shows its position in the animation timeline.
The animation timeline is on the right side and includes lots of customization options.
The timeline is unique for each slide, and the order can be rearranged by dragging the elements up or down on the timeline. Each animation effect can be given an “on click” control and also a timed value.
Slide transitions in PowerPoint also have animation controls.
There are around 20 slide transition options and they can be further customized using the controls in the top bar. You can choose how long the transition lasts and even give it a sound.
How much does PowerPoint cost? PowerPoint like most Microsoft tools comes with the Microsoft 365 subscription.
The subscription costs $69.99 per year for a Personal plan or $99.99 per year for a Family plan, which supports up to six users.
Genially has a pretty high standard for animations. When you click on any element in a slide, two tiny buttons pop up. One of them is for adding animations to that particular element.
The animation controls open on the right side of the editor and offers many customization options. What’s unique about this animated presentation software is that the effect can be continuous apart from on-entrance and on-exit. What you can’t do is control animations on a timeline or add a delay.
When it comes to slide transitions, there are around ten style options. Choose for it to be horizontal, vertical or centered. The slide transitions can be selected slide by slide or for all slides at once.
Genially's pricing model is designed to accommodate a range of preferences and team plans. The options are as follows:
Animation controls in Beautiful.ai are available inside each slide. And if you don’t choose anything, the elements in your slides will be slightly animated on their own.
But that's the only thing that makes Beautiful.ai an animated presentation software.
Customizability is limited. If you want to change how the animations work, you can change the speed, timing and order. What you can’t do is choose how or from where the element appears on the slide.
There are some simple slide transitions, but you have no option to change them either.
Keynote is the Apple software version of PowerPoint.
There are plenty of animation options for animating elements on Keynote slides. Like most other animation software, you can animate the entrance and the exit of an element on a slide.
Additionally, you can also add an action animation to happen when you click on the slide.
The options for animation range from standard fades to bumps and light bulb spark effects. All the animation options can be customized for speed and intensity, and can also be given a specific timing.
Keynote also has animated slide transition effects. The controls are in the same place as the element animations, you just have to click on the slide instead of an actual object. There are over 20 transition effects, which can be customized for duration and direction.
There is one particularly special transition effect called Magic Move. This animated transition makes objects, words and characters look like they are moving from one slide to another.
In the Slides animated presentation software, you can animate all the elements in a slide with the usual fades and slides. These can be customized to work on click, on hover or automatically on a timer. The timing controls have duration and delay values that you can edit.
The slide transitions in Slides are a bit more unique than standard animated transitions.
Transitions are separated into regular transition and background transition, and there are six options for each. The background transition effects work only when a slide has a background image or color.
However, the transitions can only be done for the entirety of the presentation, not slide by slide.
Transitions in Slides are automatically applied to the entirety of the presentation, not slide by slide. However, you can override this for specific slides by tweaking the settings for each individual slide.
Linearity Move is the go-to animation software for designers who want to bring their projects to life. Its standout feature, Auto Animate, helps you transform static images or vector files into beautiful animations.
Even if you're new to animation, Linearity’s user-friendly interface makes it a breeze to create dynamic animations that look like they were made by a pro. The platform also supports high-resolution outputs up to 8K, which means you can expect sharp and polished animations every time.
And if you're working with a team, Linearity Move's real-time collaboration features make it easy to work together seamlessly.
Vyond is known for its advanced animation and transition capabilities that make it a professional video presentation maker. The software offers detailed control over each frame and seamless transitions.
With its easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface, you can quickly build engaging scenes using thousands of customizable characters, templates and backgrounds.
Moreover, Vyond’s lip-sync feature synchronizes voiceovers with character mouth movements, which makes your animations feel more lifelike and engaging.
Another cool feature is Vyond’s generative AI tool, Vyond Go, which automates video creation from text prompts to produce high-quality animations in minutes.
Vyond has a higher pricing range compared to most of the tools on this list, but it also offers other comprehensive tools outside of presentations.
Here are all the plans Vyond provides for (annual billing):
Moovly is an intuitive platform for creating animated presentations and videos. Users can combine various media assets, including royalty-free images, videos and sounds, to create beautiful animations.
The software offers a wide range of animation effects, such as fade, fly, wipe, bounce, move, zoom,and rotate, which can be applied to any visual object like images, text or videos. You can also incorporate hand animations and transparent motion graphics to enhance your presentations.
Moovly supports various video formats, and users can create horizontal, square or vertical videos for different platforms. You can also add multiple soundtracks, voiceovers and sound effects to your presentations.
Finally, Moovly's text-to-speech feature converts written text into voice-over, available in over 20 languages, adding another layer of customization to the projects. You can also use the AI subtitle generator to automatically create closed captions for your video presentations.
Presentations often use various animation styles, like 2D, 3D, motion graphics, whiteboard and kinetic typography. 2D animations are flat and simple, while 3D adds depth and realism. Motion graphics combine text, shapes and images, and whiteboard animations mimic hand-drawn illustrations. Kinetic typography uses moving text to convey messages.
Some types of animated presentations include 2D animation videos, 3D animation videos, whiteboard animation videos, motion graphic videos, animated typography videos and stop motion videos.
The best animation style for presentations depends on the content and target audience. However, simple, clean animations that enhance the message without overwhelming the viewer are generally preferred in most situations.
It’s important to choose animations that complement your presentation’s tone and purpose instead of distracting from the core content.
Yes, PowerPoint offers built-in animation tools, effects and transitions that allow users to animate the text, images, shapes, slides and other elements in their presentations.
You can also edit your PowerPoint presentations using a third-party tool like Visme to add even better, more advanced and sleek animations, interactivity and design elements.
PowerPoint offers four main types of animations: entrance, emphasis, exit and motion paths.
There are several presentation software that are great alternatives to PowerPoint, but one of the best tools for creating engaging presentations is Visme. The platform offers powerful and easy-to-use tools for creating, editing, animating, presenting, sharing and downloading all kinds of slide decks.
Visme’s presentation software gives you access to thousands of ready-made presentation templates and lets you customize every aspect of the slides, use AI and branding tools, add animated elements and interactivity, embed multimedia and much more.
Yes, Canva offers a range of animations, transitions and effects to enhance your presentations. Users can apply an animation style to the entire presentation or animate specific elements within slides.
You can also adjust duration and delay settings, and even create your own animation style. Canva also offers several transitions to create a smooth flow between your slides.
If you’re looking for the perfect software to help you create your own animated presentation, you don’t really need to look any further than Visme.
You can easily animate elements in a clean and seamless way without it getting overwhelming. Slide transition effects are also super effective with plenty of options for customization.
To present or share your animated presentation, use the online link and view from any device. If you’d like to present it without an internet connection, download it as an HTML5 (offline web) file or as a high-quality MP4 video.
You can also collaborate with your marketing team to put together an animated presentation in Visme. Or, take advantage of the brand kit and save your animated presentation as a template to use for your future slideshows.
Sign up for a free Visme account today and create your perfect animated presentation.
Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.
Try Visme for free
