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10 Top PowerPoint Presentation Tips for Beginners (2021 List)
Written by:
Orana Velarde
Some of the best PowerPoint alternatives include Prezi, Keynote, Slides, Slidebean, Zoho Show, Google Slides, Canva and, of course, Visme.
In this guide, we’ll do a full comparison of those PPT alternatives to help you find the best solution for your online presentations.
Let’s see what the best free presentation software on the market for 2021.
Alternative #10: Microsoft Sway
To help you make sense of the dozens of options out there, we’ve summarized the most important features of the best PowerPoint alternatives:
A cloud-based, drag-and-drop presentation software, Visme offers users all the tools they need to create not just compelling presentations, but also infographics, data visualizations, reports, product demos and resumes.
Its ready-to-use templates, with HD backgrounds and professionally designed layouts, give users a breather from the all-too-familiar PowerPoint themes.
Packed with millions of free images, thousands of vector icons, graph tools in any style and hundreds of fonts, Visme allows users to create virtually any type of visual content in Its custom design area.
Features:
Price: Starting at $12 a month per user
Pros: Users can create virtually any visual content—including infographics, charts, reports and printables—in a single place; add animation, full interactivity and audio
Cons: Due to high level of flexibility and variety of options, might take some time to master all of its features
Ideal for: Marketers, entrepreneurs, educators and individuals in general; corporate teams
Other reviews: Huffington Post, ClearVoice, Crazy Egg
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This cloud-based software is popular for its nonlinear presentations, which pan and zoom from one page to the next without creating the impression of moving to a new slide. It’s a favorite with a lot of students and educators, especially for its ease of use.
Features:
Price: Paid plans starting at $5 / month per user
Pros: Create nonlinear presentations with ease
Cons: Not fully customizable; can only create non-linear presentations; can actually cause motion sickness in some viewers
Ideal for: Students, educators, speakers, companies
Other reviews: SmallBizTrends, PCMag.com, PC World
Apple’s alternative to PowerPoint, Keynote is everything you would expect in an Apple product: sleek, sophisticated and intuitive.
Packed with powerful features—such as the ability to create interactive charts, add reflections and picture frames—Keynote makes it easy to create presentations with cinematic-like transitions between slides.
After the release of the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, Keynote is even more intuitive. Presentations are stored in the cloud and available on all devices.
Features:
Price: Free for all Mac computers
Pros: Compatible with PowerPoint
Cons: Desktop software, not online-based; no slide library
Ideal for: Mac owners
Other reviews: PCMag.com, Macworld
This cloud-based presentation software offers a solid and user-friendly alternative to PowerPoint. Its sleek editor workspace allows you to add background images, use a variety of designs and themes, collaborate easily with others and customize any of 10 default slide templates.
You can even other people’s presentations and use them as a template. Slides.com is not to be confused with Slides.ai.
Features:
Price: Paid plans starting at $5 / month per user
Pros: User-friendly; includes beginner’s tutorial; users can copy other people’s design and layout as templates for their own content (this preference can be turned off when creating presentations).
Cons: Create only linear presentations; limited design options such as professional templates and types of slides; no graphs or infographic widgets available.
Ideal for: Startups, students, teachers, individuals
Other reviews: TechCrunch, SitePoint
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This PowerPoint alternative is a good option for all those who don’t have the time to design their own slides.
Slidebean has recreated pitch decks from big-name startups and offers them as ready-to-use templates. There are more themed templates available for users to simply plug in their content.
Features:
Price: Paid plans start at $96 / year per user
Pros: Allows you to focus solely on the content
Cons: No animation
Ideal for: Those who want to create presentations in as little time as possible, startups
Other reviews: PresentationPanda, TechCrunch, The Next Web
Part of a suite of online applications called the Workplace Bundle, Zoho Show provides users with a traditional presentation tool that's online-based.
Like the other PowerPoint alternatives listed here, this presentation software allows users to create and access presentations from any browser or device connected to the Internet.
Features:
Price: Paid plans of the Workplace Bundle start at $4 / month per user
Pros: Import multiple file types; conferencing option
Cons: Limited animations and transitions; only standard presentation functionality
Ideal for: Business users, students, educators
Other reviews: ZDNet, Blinklist
Google Slides is the most popular PowerPoint alternative because it’s completely free with a Google account. When logged into Google, Slides is available at any time, even from the email dashboard.
The design process on Google slides is simple and to the point. There are hundreds of templates in different color themes to choose from.
Features:
Price: Free for everybody, as long as they have a Google account
Pros: It’s free and easy to use
Cons: Design capabilities are limited to standard features
Ideal for: people who appreciate Google products and need to create presentations with remote teams
Other reviews: ConsumersAdvocate, EnvatoTuts
Canva is an easy-to-use PowerPoint alternative. The presentation templates come ready with numerous slides. All you need to do is choose the slides you want to use and switch out the content.
Along with the basic presentation features, animated presentations are also possible if you purchase the Canva for Work plan.
Features:
Price: “Free” but assets cost $1 or more to use. Canva for Work is $12.95 / month per user
Pros: Easy to use and lets you create nice-looking presentations fast
Cons: The best features are in the Canva for Work plan; complete presentations can’t be colorized as a whole.
Ideal for: Pretty much anyone
Other reviews: CMSCritic, Capterra
Beautiful.ai is a PowerPoint alternative with a twist. The design of the slides is controlled by Artificial Intelligence. Their pitch is that presentations will look great every time without much work from the user. On the other hand, customization possibilities are limited.
Features:
Price: Free. Pricing tiers to be announced sometime in 2019
Pros: AI helps create better presentations fast
Cons: Very limited design capabilities
Ideal for: Students, educators, startups
Other reviews: Techradar, ThePowerpointBlog
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Sway is Microsoft’s own PowerPoint alternative. It’s everything that PowerPoint isn’t. In fact, it is so different, you can’t really tell it’s made by the same company.
Sway is a cloud-based app, which can be accessed through any Microsoft account, such as Hotmail and Outlook.
Features:
Price: Free with a Microsoft Account
Pros: A presentation can look like a website, a newsletter or a classic slide presentation
Cons: No tools or options to present data
Ideal for: Students, NGOs
Other reviews: AvePoint, Laptop Mag
This is our take on the best PowerPoint alternatives out there right now. Which of these top-rated PowerPoint alternatives best suits your needs?
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And if you have any feedback on any of the tools listed above, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line in the comments section below, and we'll get back to you.
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[…] Sourced through Scoop.it from: visme.co/blog […]
I’m Aarthi from Zoho. Thank you for mentioning us in the top 10 Powerpoint alternative blog.
However, the screenshots used of Zoho Show is quite outdated. Our website http://www.zoho.com/docs/show.html will have the latest images. Please do get back to us and once the changes are done (if possible) we’ll retweet it from our official account.
Thanks.
Hi Aarthi. The screenshots have been updated with the ones from your site. Please take a look at them now. Thanks.
Nice content really enjoyed the articles nice write up to the blog owner
Hi Nayomi. Great list! Have you heard of: http://www.genial.ly? It is a recently launched presentation platform. What do you think?
Hi Nayomi, I do a lot of presentations for agencies and video companies and I was looking around for a better presentation software for that that, your article saved me days of reviewing! Thank you so much, really thorough and helpful The one I finally found isn’t actually in your list though https:presbee.com, it’s perfect for me as it allows video backgrounds and streamed content and it has a really cool remote presenation feature. Thanks again for your help, va bene!
Hi Francesca, thank you for the feedback. Never heard of Presbee, but I’m glad you found a tool that fits your needs!
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Hi Nayomi,
The review you provided on your blogsite is amazing. I am working on a presentation project to present to trainers of county agencies in California on the various presentation tools available to them. You are so right! Everyone tends to use PowerPoint as the industry standard and I agree, it is entirely over-used. I’m not a PowerPoint hater, however, with more and more people using mobile devices and with the wonderful features of internet-based and cloud-based applications, I am so excited about the possibilities of creating a really dynamic presentation.
Thank you for the break-down of presentation tools!
CC
Hi Nayomi,
The review you provided on your blogsite is amazing. I am working on a presentation project to present to trainers on the various presentation tools available to them.
You are so right! Everyone tends to use PowerPoint as the industry standard and I agree, it is entirely over-used. I’m not a PowerPoint hater, however, with more and more people using mobile devices and with the wonderful features of internet-based and cloud-based applications, I am so excited about the possibilities of creating a really dynamic presentation.
Thank you for the break-down of presentation tools!
CC
Thanks you, Cynthia, for the wonderful feedback. I’m so glad you found this useful. I’m also not a PowerPoint hater, but with so many options out there right now, you can definitely find something that better fits your specific needs. If you’re interested in learning about the similarities and differences between PPT and Visme, here’s a visual comparison post on that: https://visme.co/blog/powerpoint-alternative-visme/
Nice blog! thanks for writing this useful and informative article and I refer my friends to vist your site and i will be in regular updating.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad you found it useful!
Thanks for sharing the best posts they very useful I am impressed by your site it’s amazing one you made a good site it’s interesting one you giving us such a good information I like your thoughts they very help us
[…] the stakes are this high, a simple presentation isn’t nearly good enough to get the job done. Powerpoint alternatives like Visme are mission critical in terms of not only “wowing” your investors, but […]
[…] If you’re ready to break free from PowerPoint, check out this article: “Best Presentation Software: 10 Alternatives.” […]
[…] the stakes are this high, a simple presentation isn’t nearly good enough to get the job done. Powerpoint alternatives like Visme are mission critical in terms of not only “wowing” your investors, but […]
Prezi is a nice alernative. It has both, a free and a pro version.
the fact that you have taken the time to review your competitors openly.. wow, you saved up a lot of time for me. Just signed up to paid account.
Thanks for comment, Sebastian. We always appreciate feedback!
I found Haiku the best. Visme’s features & options are also appreciated.
Thank you for the best compilation.
Thanks, Yasar. Glad you found it useful!
Hi Nayomi,
It’s really great to see businesses who are fairly representing their competitors!
I’m just starting up the blog for our own platform over at SlideCamp and very much hope to be able to get the same respectful level as you’ve shown in this article.
That said, as number 6 – Projeqt has ceased to be around anymore, if you would consider taking a look at our platform, and popping us in instead we’d be super grateful.
We have a very simple online platform for teams to get their slides from without the fuss.
Even if you don’t put us in, thanks anyway for a great article, the blog you’ve got going on here is really awesome 🙂
Good content! I need a not-cloud-based alternative, due to absence of wifi in one place where I present. I saw some in your list.
PowerPoint is old and stiff and rigid and too much in charge. I’ll probably try Keynote first, cuzz Apple tends to be about freeing up for creativity, whereas Microsoft is always about productivity. Boring productivity….
Congratulations on your post, it is very complete. We don’t know if you have used Genially before but it is a very useful tool to create animated and interactive content very easily. We think it will be very interesting for you to take in consideration Genially in your next articles.
Kind regards
Good list- one issue with the idea that people remember only 20% of what they read but 80% of what they see. Unless you are reading braille you are seeing what you read- and there isn’t any scientific basis for the numbers quoted.
Use post. I’ve been using powepoint, but I wanted to try something else for a smaller presentation as a test.
You might need to update your list already. Projeqt is no longer active according to their website.
Thanks for the feedback. Have you tried any of the others on this list?
would be nice to make a link on the title of the different softwares…
I liked them all, but would like to try Emaze first.
What did you think of it? have you tried any others on the list?
Thank you for your information. I love the premise of SlideDog however found operationally it was very slow and non-responsive. It would be amazing not to have to transition between the multimedia I use to teach my class and am always looking for new tech to keep students engaged and participate in learning.
Thanks for the input. Have you tried any of the others on the list?
Thanks for writing informative article. i learn a lot from this post
thanks. glad you found it useful
Thanks for the article! Sutori is now offering a presentation mode. I recommend you check it out, I’ve had a lot of success since moving away from Powerpoint.
Thanks for the feedback, Robert. Will check it out. Have you tried any of the others on the list?
Thanks for the reply Payman. Yes – I tried the Zoho product but the UX was not very good. Emaze was good but I was looking for something to embed onto our own website. I’m pretty pleased with Sutori and you can view some the presentations we’ve put online
Do any of these platforms output the slides as printable audience handouts, that include areas to take notes, more information QR links, copyright notices, etc?
Hi Morry. Not any of these platforms no. You could try GLISSER. I think it does something like that.
Powerpoint can sometimes get a bad name for itself simply because it has been around for so long and users have had access to powerpoint without any skill or training and simply been able to ‘get stuck in’. This mightve been fine 10+ years ago but Powerpoint like any other medium today has certain audience expectation levels in regards to the standard of presentation. These days you wouldnt expect to build your own website or design your own brochure if you only knew the basics – neither should you do the same now with presentations. Especially when you consider a presentation may be the first impression you leave with an audience. Powerpoint is a great tool, and it has a key advantage above those mentioned above that people ARE familiar with how it works and so any last minute changes to a powerpoint presentation before you present ARE achievable. With any other software you need to learn how to use it first.
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Hi, Orana
I’m still using powerpoint also I got more options in this post. You sharing huge website alternative to powerpoint and yes these tools are more powerful and looks good.
Thanks for sharing.
Michel Joachim