what is a online presentation tool

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Stay in sync in your slides, with easy sharing and real-time editing. Use comments and assign action items to build your ideas together.

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With easy-to-use presenter view, speaker notes, and live captions, Slides makes presenting your ideas a breeze. You can even present to Google Meet video calls directly from Slides.

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Slides is thoughtfully connected to other Google apps you love, saving you time. Embed charts from Google Sheets or reply to comments directly from Gmail. You can even search the web and Google Drive for relevant content and images directly from Slides.

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Easily edit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations online without converting them, and layer on Slides’ enhanced collaborative and assistive features like comments, action items, and Smart Compose.

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6 online presentation tools that’ll engage your audience

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Meghan Ryan April 09, 2021

Online presentations are more common in the workplace than ever before. Maybe you just launched a new product and you need to create a product demo for a remote client. Or maybe you want to do online sales training for your employees. Presentations like these are really different online than they are in person, and many things that helped you stand out and engage your audiences in the office won’t help you when you present online. It helps to have all the virtual presentation tools at your disposal to make your presentations stand out and get people’s attention online . 

What we look for in online presentation tools  

A free version to try.

Free trials and free basic plans allow you to try out the platform and decide whether you like it before you make a purchase. You don’t want to spend a lot of money buying the product and then realize you’re not going to use it. 

Ease of use

Good online presentation tools should be easy to learn and easy to use. Learning how to use a new tool takes a little time and effort, so you should choose a virtual presentation tool that has clear instructions, intuitive design, and starting blocks like templates and color schemes to help make designing presentations easier. 

Audience engagement

It’s tempting for online audiences to multitask or tune-out during a presentation, so your online presentation tools should help you grab their attention and keep them engaged. . Use virtual presentation tools that allow you to add interactive multimedia elements, such as moving text, audio, images, GIFs, and videos to your presentations. Something as simple as a unique slide animation can help your presentation stand out. 

Cloud storage and access

With cloud storage and access, you don’t need to carry your computer around to edit or use your presentations in different places. Your online presentation tools should have online access, so you can work on your presentation anywhere, anytime as long as there is an internet connection.

Team collaboration features

Got a project you need to work on with your teammates? It’s very inefficient if only one person can work on a project at a time, especially in a remote work environment. Find a web presentation tool that allows multiple people to edit at the same time. Real-time teamwork and collaboration leads to better productivity and communication. 

What online presentation tool could possibly cover all of those requirements? Keep reading to discover our top online presentation tools for 2022:

1. Prezi Video

Prezi Video is a video presentation tool that lets you bring text, video, images, and GIFs onto the screen with you, resulting in a professional-looking presentation that’s more engaging for your audience. At the same time, your audience can react with unlimited on-screen responses using Prezi Video. Creating a presentation is easy with Prezi’s free video templates or by reusing slides from a past presentation. You can sign up for a free trial or get your whole team using Prezi with our business solutions . Reach out for more details.

Presenters love the ability to make unique presentations that help them stay connected to their virtual audiences. Try out Prezi Video for your next training, sales pitch, webinar, online class, team update, and more.

Otter is a note-taking tool that can transcribe audio to text. Run Otter in an online meeting to record the conversation and create a written record of what was said. Afterward, Otter will provide an automatic summary of the most commonly said phrases and generate a nifty word cloud.

Virtual audiences can use it to capture information without breaking focus during a presentation or an event, and presenters can rely on it to connect with more audiences. Check out Otter to learn more about using it for your virtual events .

3. Creatopy

Creatopy lets you create animated GIFs for slideshows, emails, banners, and presentations. You can use one of their pre-designed templates and customize it with your own text, or start from scratch and make a GIF with your own imagery and content. Either way, you’ll create animations that’ll pop on screen.

Creating a GIF is easy with Creatopy’s drag-and-drop editor, so you can create professional designs in minutes. Get started and learn more at Creatopy.

Grain is a tool for recording and sharing highlights from virtual meetings. It’s great for record-keeping and recapping for your teams. Instead of reading or listening to the summary of a presentation, your team can just watch the best moments themselves.

Grain is a useful addition to the virtual presentation toolbox, especially in the post-event phase of a presentation. Send attendees highlights of the most important parts and avoid diluting your message through different media. Check out Grain to learn more.  

Docket is a workspace for collaboratively building meeting agendas and creating reminders so no items go undiscussed. Since it’s a shared workspace, it helps keep your team aligned and up to date on learnings. Use it to organize a virtual presentation with a client or stakeholder and to store notes on the presentation post-facto. 

Integration is currently available on several platforms , including Google and Zoom. Check out Docket to learn how it can help your team.

Krisp is a noise cancelling tool that can be used to improve audio quality on any conferencing, voice messaging, and communication app. Turn it on and remove background noise from yourself and other people on the call. It’s quick to set up and works with a wide range of headsets and microphones. 

Krisp is a crucial online presentation tool whenever you’re presenting from a shared space. Try it during your next call or presentation.

See these tools in action and explore the best virtual presentations on Prezi when you visit the Video Gallery . Or get started today and make your own virtual presentation on Prezi Video.

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25 Tools for Creating and Delivering Amazing Presentations

Updated: August 10, 2022

Published: November 10, 2020

If you're in business, you need to know how to create captivating presentations. Whether you're trying to convince your boss to support a new campaign, talking with a prospect to close a deal, or building a new piece of marketing collateral, you need to know how craft a presentation that won't put people to sleep.

The best (and easiest) way to do that? Use the right tools to create and deliver your presentation.

If you're not sure which tools to use, look no further than this blog post. We’ve compiled our list of the top presentation tools for sales and marketing professionals. They’re listed below, in no particular order. But first ...

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Best Presentation Tools

Canva makes design easy -- even for marketers and salespeople who feel like they're design-challenged. The platform gives you a bunch of presentation templates to use right away, and it's very easy to customize them to your organization and presentation objective. Plus, a variety of apps that integrate with Google Drive, Instagram, and YouTube, to name a few.

Pricing : Free; Pro, $12.95/month for up to five people; Enterprise, $30/month per person

Often, being different is what attracts prospects, and Powtoon can help you do that in your presentations. Powtoon’s animation software lets you easily create videos with props, characters, and more -- which can help you differentiate your company when talking with prospects.

Pricing : Pro, $19/month; Pro+ $49/month; Agency, $89/month

3. PowerPoint

For years, PowerPoint has been the standard in presentation software, but it hasn’t remained static. PowerPoint is full of features to make sales and marketing presentations dynamic and engaging. ( Here are just a few ways you can do that .)

Pricing : Business Basic, $5/user/month; Business Standard, $12.50/user/month; Business Premium, $20/user/month

4. Slidesgo

Slidesgo is your creative companion in the world of presentation design. This website specializes in crafting visually stunning Google Slides and PowerPoint templates that breathe life into your ideas, making them shine on any screen. With a wide variety of templates ranging from business and marketing to medicine and education, Slidesgo empowers presenters of all backgrounds to engage, educate, and inspire their audiences.

Pricing: Free plan, $0; Premium, $4.99; Education, $2.99

A PowerPoint add-in, Oomfo helps sales and marketing pros create those oh-so-important interactive charts for presentations. Specialized charts, live charts from multiple files, data from cloud applications, interactive options, one-click conversions -- it’s all possible, and more, with Oomfo.

Pricing: Free

Apple’s Keynote allows users to work between their Mac and iOS devices, as well as with people who use Microsoft PowerPoint. With easy-to-use visual tools, drag and drop functionality, interactive charts, and more, Keynote is a popular choice among sales and marketing professionals.

Pricing : Free

7. SlideModel

SlideModel contains thousands of ready-made and 100% editable presentation templates to help any presenter save time creating engaging and aesthetically pleasing presentations. Their collection of presentation templates covers a variety of business purposes and even gets updated periodically to add new business and education templates. You can find a collection of visually appealing slides on the site including dashboards, creative infographics, editable Maps, funnels, timelines, mindmaps, and presentation slides depending on the need of your presentation. Their slides templates are easy to edit and are compatible with PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Pricing :  Free plan, $0; One-Day Access, $24.50; Annual Unlimited, $199.90/year

8. Beautiful.ai

Create beautiful slides, pitches, and proposals without a team of designers. AI applies design rules in real time, and a library of free photos and icons are at your fingertips.

Pricing : Basic, $0; Pro, $12/month; Team, $38/user/month

9. Haiku Deck

Available for the web or iPad, Haiku Deck has become a favorite of sales and marketing pros. With Haiku Deck, professionals can quickly create presentations that can be "easily projected, shared, posted, embedded on a website or blog, or viewed on any web-enabled device." Though it's another tool that helps you create presentations from scratch, its ease-of-use sets it apart from the rest.

Pricing : Pro, $9.99 - $19.99/month; Premium, $29.99/month

Vyond is an online animation software that allows you to create animated videos for marketing campaigns, sales enablement, or even human resources. Use their library of customizable templates or create your own from scratch.

Pricing : Essential, $229/year; Premium, $649/year; Professional, $999/user/year; Enterprise, contact for pricing

11. Storydoc

With templates for all the most popular business use cases, Storydoc is an interactive presentation maker built to help sales teams and marketing professionals engage more prospects and boost conversion rates. 

You can create amazing and engaging decks where you can embed video and social media content to tell your story the right way. Then, integrate your CRM into Storydoc decks, as well as calendars, sign-up forms, and other solutions that will make your presentation. Additionally, you have access to Storydoc's tracking analytics which shows who viewed your presentation and which components they interacted with the most. 

Pricing :  Free trial 14 days); Starter Plan, $40/month

Busy sales and marketing pros choose emaze because it makes creating amazing presentations quick and easy. The options abound with emaze: Choose a professionally designed template and then create a slideshow, video presentation , or 3D presentation.

Pricing : Business Plan, contact for pricing; Executive Plan, $40/month; Pro Plan, $13/month

13. Camtasia

TechSmith’s Camtasia is an amazing tool that helps you create professional videos. You can record screen movements, import HD video from another source, customize and edit the video, and then share the completed video presentation on practically any device. 

Pricing : Individual, $249.99/user/year; Business $249.99/user/year; Education, $169.99/user/year; Government and Non-Profit, $223.99/user/year

14. SlideShare

SlideShare is a popular choice for sales and marketing professionals looking for a way to share their content publicly. Because it already has a built-in audience, you can easily distribute your presentation out to lots of people -- and those people can embed your SlideShares on websites and blogs, or share them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

15. SlideDog

Sometimes, sales and marketing professionals need to be able to move between presentation tools, but it’s not always possible because of their technical limitations. SlideDog is the solution, as it enables users to switch between PowerPoint, Prezi, PDF, web pages and others.

Pricing : Free; Pro, $99/year; Pro Event, $49 for one-time payment

16. Presentation Assistant

Presentation Assistant lives up to its name: It assists professionals by enabling them to annotate, zoom, and more during a presentation. Sales and marketing professionals can clarify and emphasize points more clearly to their audience with Presentation Assistant.

Pricing : Presentation Pointer, $29.95; Presentation Screen Master, $29.95

17. authorSTREAM

Sales and marketing pros choose authorSTREAM to make their presentations dynamic and engaging. authorSTREAM allows users to share their PowerPoint presentations publicly or privately, broadcast them, convert them to video, communicate and collaborate about them, and more.

Pricing: Free or paid plans start at $4.20/month

18. Zentation

With Zentation, salespeople and marketers combine video and slides into a simulated live experience. Presentations created with Zentation become webinars, webcasts, and virtual events for prospects and customers -- all great collateral for marketing and sales.

Pricing : Free; Premium, $10 - $45/month; White-Label, contact for pricing

Sales and marketing professionals love Prezi because it is cloud-based. Prezi makes creating, editing, and presenting from your browser, desktop, iPad, or iPhone possible anywhere, any time.

Pricing : Standard, $5/month; Plus, $15/month; Premium, $59/month

20. Brainshark

Sales reps and marketers often choose Brainshark, a cloud-based presentation tool, because it allows them to create and deliver presentations live or on-demand (even using their iPad or iPhone), use on-demand video content, polls, or surveys for increased engagement, and embed presentations in websites and blogs.

Pricing : Contact for pricing

Vcasmo is a unique presentation tool -- it's a multimedia solution that enables users to synchronize a video and slideshow, side by side. Sales and marketing pros love Vcasmo because it supports playback in three forms: browser, mobile, and iPad. 

Pricing : Free; Standard, $10.99/month; Professional, $16.99/month

22. ViewletBuilder

ViewletBuilder is a different presentation tool; it captures critical screen updates and cursor position changes so sales and marketing pros can create presentations detailing how their product or sites work. With a plethora of features, ViewletBuilder allows for editing and enhancing and includes a variety of publishing and sharing options, too.

Pricing : Pro, $399; Enterprise, $599

23. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a top pick for sales and marketing pros because it lives online, making it possible to create, access, present, and more from anywhere, any time. The simple, intuitive interface and collaboration features are just two of its beloved benefits.

24. AhaSlides

Pricing : Free; Essential, $4.95/month; Pro, $15.95/month; Annual, Monthly & One-time plans available.

Visme is an all-in-one content creation platform with a vast library of professionally designed presentation templates, each tailored to your industry and specific proposal needs. Its beginner-friendly design platform allows you to drag and drop elements into place, use dynamic fields to update all your content in one place instantaneously and integrate your tools like Hubspot or Salesforce, and more to personalize each presentation.

Pricing: Free, Starter: $12.25/month, billed yearly, Pro: $30/month, billed yearly, Visme for Teams & Enterprises.

What are you waiting for? Pick a tool and start creating. Your prospects are waiting.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2014 and has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Why Miro is the best presentation maker

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The best presentation software

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 been using 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 the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog .

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 UI. 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).

While many apps now offer AI features in one way or another, I found many of these features to be lacking still—they're often slow, struggle to pull in relevant imagery, and yield wildly inconsistent designs. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict requirement (for now!), and I've still included apps that don't offer AI. (Of course, if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images from a separate tool and copy them into your presentation app of choice.)

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. (And I opted not to test any brand new apps that are still in beta, since there are so many established options out there.)

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, interactive content, and more. 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, canva (web, windows, mac, android, ios).

Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

The Magic Design AI tool is still inconsistent and not super impressive

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.

Canvas has added a number of AI-powered tools , but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. When I asked the Magic Design tool to generate a presentation from scratch, for example, the result was a bunch of unrelated images, inconsistent design, and surface-level copy. These features will likely improve in time, but for now, you're better off starting from one of Canva's many great templates.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $119.99/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

Beautiful.ai (web, mac, windows).

Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

Generative AI features aren't great yet

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 UX 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 23 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 did test the newly released generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) and felt it wasn't much to write home about. 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 generate a quality presentation from scratch.

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.

If you're a founder looking for an AI presentation tool for your pitch deck, Slidebean is a great Beautiful.ai alternative for startups. The app offers a number of templates; a unique, content-first outline editor; and AI design help that you can toggle on or off for each slide. I didn't include it on the list mainly because of the price: the free plan is quite limited, and the paid all-access plan starts at $228/year.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

Prezi (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

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 pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans start at $5/month and include additional features like private presentations and Prezi Present.

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (web, ios, android).

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.

Powtoon pricing: Limited free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, and more.

The best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (web).

Genially pros:

Don't need a presenter (it's interactive)

You can set universal branding guidelines

Unlimited creations on the free plan

Genially cons:

Free plan has some limitations worth looking into (e.g., can only make public presentations)

While many presentation apps are built for presenter-led decks, Genially 's interactive features and animated templates make it easy to build a self-led presentation. A variety of interactive buttons allow you to show viewers additional context on hover, have them skip to any page of your deck, and let them navigate to external links.

This presentation program offers a bunch of searchable templates, including some for business proposals, reports, social media presentations, and more (though most of those are available on premium plans only). Genially also includes Smart blocks —templated blocks of content for elements like data visualizations and image galleries.

My favorite feature is the brand settings. Premium users can set universal branding guidelines that include your logo, color scheme, fonts, images, and backgrounds, among other options. Think of them like a custom template, created and customized by you, that the whole team can use. Once set, your team can easily create on-brand presentations that automatically apply your brand settings, without even thinking about it.

Plus, Genially supports additional content like training materials, infographics, and interactive images—all subject to your brand presets.

Genially pricing: Free plan available with unlimited creations and views and access to templates; paid plans start at $7.49/month and include additional download options, privacy controls, offline viewing, premium templates, and more.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

Pitch (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Start live video calls straight from decks

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, react, 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.

The "Go live" feature is a personal favorite—with just a click on the camera icon in the top-right, you can start a live video call. Any team members who open the presentation can hop in and collaborate in real-time. 

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; paid plans start at $8/user/month for additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best simple presentation app

Zoho show (web, ios, android, chrome).

Zoho Show pros:

Simple and easy to use

Version history and ability to lock slides

Completely free

Zoho Show cons:

Templates are pretty basic

If you're looking for a simple, yet capable presentation app that's a step up from Google Slides, Zoho Show is a great option. It's completely free to use, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates.

While the handful of "Themes" offered are on the basic side, Zoho templates boast a more modern and professional design than much of what Google Slides or PowerPoint offer. And I love that you can set the font and color scheme for the whole template, right from the start.

The app doesn't skimp on collaboration or shareability either. You can invite collaborators via email or shareable link, and comments and version history make it easy to work together on presentations. Once you're ready to share, you can even broadcast your presentation to a remote audience right from within Zoho. Plus, you can one-click lock slides to prevent any more editing or hide individual slides to customize your presentation for different audiences.

You can even connect Zoho Show to Zapier , so you can do things like automatically create a presentation when something happens in one of the other apps you use most.

Zapier is the leader in workflow automation—integrating with 6,000+ apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use interfaces, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more .

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

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 generative 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 produced the most useful jumping-off point of all the AI presentation apps I tested. 

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.

Gamma pricing: Free plan includes unlimited users, 1 custom theme, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the Pro plan ("coming soon," as of this writing) for $10/user/month to get additional AI credits, advanced view analytics, custom fonts, and more.

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.

Some of these companies (think: Microsoft and Google) are openly working on some pretty impressive-sounding AI features, but they haven't been widely released to the public yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll retest tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides to see what new features are available.

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.

Related reading:

8 Canva AI tools to improve your design workflow

The best online whiteboards for collaboration

How to share a presentation on Zoom without sharing your browser tabs and address bar

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 May 2023.

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Kiera Abbamonte

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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14 Must-Have Online Presentation Tools So You Can Own The Stage

• August 16, 2018

The secret to winning your presentation is to own it, and using online presentation tools is one of the best ways to do it. Here are 14 creation tools on the web that boost your engagement with your audience.

Innovative Online Presentation Tools That Are Engaging

How to pick online presentation tools.

I can never count the number of online presentation tools out there, and most of them are amazing. Using a lot of them can be time-wasting, though. What I then do is to set up my list of criteria and then match the tool’s features and benefits with it.

Some of my main preferences are the following:

• Allows collaboration
• Allows online and offline editing and sharing
• Can be accessed across multiple device platforms
• Has compelling and engaging visual and audio features
• Has good technical support (for troubleshooting)

With these in mind, here are my top 14 recommended online presentation tools:

A post shared by Canva (@canva) on Mar 28, 2017 at 12:39pm PDT

One of my favorite online presentation tools is Canva. This one has both a free and a premium version. Either of the two is great.

Canva is a free presentation maker where you can create different kinds of visuals. You can use the images in their library, which comes with a fee or upload your own. This way, you can further personalize the look. This application makes it easy to build an original design. You can also alter the ready-made templates.

With Canva, you can edit online and download your saved work to your PC. This is a useful tool even for presenters who don’t have the skills in designing.

Access it here.

2. CustomShow

CustomShow is for marketing presentations . It works like cloud-based presentation software. You can use its cloud storage to collaborate and share files online. Here, you can customize your presentations based on your brand preference. You can also stream your presentations through its web meetings feature.

CustomShow works across multiple devices such as iPad whether online or offline. It also has its analytics platform, although there’s still room for improvement in its data intelligence.

Try it here.

Read Also: How To Create A Webinar Presentation That Sells

3. Genially

Work on your genially with your best friend. Learn how to make it collaborative! 👭👬🤝👍 #Innovation https://t.co/gERvBJydTa — Genially (@genially_en) September 4, 2017

One of the most interactive online presentation tools is Genially. You can make stunning and impactful visual media. These include infographics and mind maps. It also allows real-time collaboration among users. You can even embed some animation into your presentations. Plus, it can gather its own statistics. It then helps measure the effectiveness of your presentations.

Don’t forget to try it here.

4. Google Slides

A post shared by Google Slides (@custom.gs) on Jun 13, 2017 at 9:14pm PDT

This application is somewhat easy to use. One of its downsides is the limited design it offers. It doesn’t promote customization. Its history and accountability features aren’t always reliable.

Go try it out now.

Keynote has neat templates and its own transition features. You can apply them to improve your visuals. Plus, it integrates animations. To maximize this presentation tool, though, you need to take the time to learn it.

You can get it here.

A post shared by Powtoon (@powtoon) on Mar 22, 2018 at 1:35am PDT

See for yourself.

7. Preseria

Preseria is one of the must-have online presentation tools if you’re planning a conference . It allows you to manage and organize different presentations on one platform. Aside from that, Preseria can project these presentations. The only downside is you cannot change your content with it.

Use it today.

8. Prezi (Personal)

A post shared by أصدقاء النجاح 🕊🌱.. (@friend_of_success) on Mar 16, 2018 at 11:57pm PDT

A Prezi presentation breaks away from conventions. With this free presentation maker, you can zoom in on the important points of your discussion. A presentation in Prezi uses Pathway Points. This way, you can maneuver the different parts without jumping from one slide to another.

Note, though, the presentations made using its free edition are set to public view by default. It also takes some time to learn how to operate Prezi.

Make a Prezi presentation with this.

9. Slidebean

A post shared by Slidebean (@slidebean) on Feb 14, 2016 at 7:19am PST

Make a Slidebean presentation now.

Read Also: Online Presentation Tips To Get More Clients | Must-Know Trade Secrets

10. SlideDog

I love smart online presentation tools such as SlideDog. Its beauty lies in the fact you can combine different file types. It can be a PDF, PowerPoint, Prezi, web pages, images, and videos. The app organizes these files and creates a playlist out of them. It also features a live and interactive audience poll. You cannot use it to create presentations.

Experience how it works.

A post shared by Haiku Deck (@haikudeck) on Feb 19, 2015 at 5:03pm PST

The Haiku deck is well-known for its being gorgeous. You can select from a wide variety of amazing and appealing images. It clears away the clutter as well, so the focus goes straight to your message.

Explore it here.

11. PowerPoint Online

Our list of online presentation tools is not complete without PowerPoint Online. As its name suggests, it is the web-based version of MS PowerPoint. It is handy if, for some reason, you don’t use the Windows operating system. The features are almost the same. Moreover, you can now add social media posts including live tweets.zoho

Here’s a link so you can try it.

A post shared by Social Media 💻 Web Design (@socialtect) on Aug 10, 2015 at 9:35am PDT

Have fun with Zoho.

13. LibreOffice Impress

A post shared by AlloPC24 (@allopc24) on Jan 31, 2018 at 5:55pm PST

Learn more about it here.

Bonus: Slideshare

As a hosting service, you cannot build presentations with Slideshare. Instead, it lets you share your work from other online presentations tools to the public. It is already under LinkedIn, which means it’s a reliable business-oriented application.

Online presentation tools can make life easier for a public speaker or salesperson. I know they’ve made mine. They make presentations less nerve-racking and more engaging.

Try out these online presentation tools for your next speaking engagement. Don’t forget to let me know how it works for you.

Up Next: An Online Presentation That Sells | Tips On How to Create One

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in March 2018 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.

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4 Best Presentation Tools Online For Creating Presentations Online

Table of Contents

Presentations are a powerful tool used to engage and communicate with an audience in an effective & illustrative way.

The best presentation tools online are ones that retain your audience long enough for them to understand and feel the message you’re communicating.

The presentation tools below are going to be the best for creating presentations that convert. Checkout each of these tools now and see if they’re right for you! (A good presentation can mean a big difference in the results the presentation can create)

What Makes A Good Presentation App Or Tool?

When deciding which presentation app or tool you’re going to use, there are a variety of important factors you should consider when making presentations.

• Features: You want to be able to have the freedom to be creative. In order to do this, you need different features to allow you to customize your presentation or slide shows however you want. Find a good presentation tool that has a wide range of dynamic features for editing.
• User Friendly: A good product or service should be easy to use for all customers. All slides and presentations should be “easy on the eyes” to read.
• Customizability : You should be able to customize and make any change you desire to color, size, shape, and other features – of any editable element in your presentations.
• Engagement & Audience Retention : Being able to retain and keep the attention of your audience in a presentation is crucial in order for your presentations to generate results.
• Variety Of Templates And Custom Built Slides : Having already previously and professionally made templates and slides to build your presentations from, makes creating presentations easier. People recognize some templates for a presentation so you will want to customize any templates you use.

Best Presentation Tools Online List

Each of the below presentation tools online has been tested and proven to be easy to use and have dynamic templates for every niche. You’ll find them easy to use and great for creating content of all kinds! Read through the review of each one closely to decide which is best for you.

Each presentation tool has a variety of features, benefits, pricing, and other aspects that are unique. Remember what your business, marketing, or audiences needs are when choosing the right presentation tool online for you.

Prezentar Presentation Software

Prezentar is a new presentation software that has launched and within the first 7 days sold over 10,000 copies . This huge success brought a dynamic new presentation tool into the marketplace. This fully customizable and easy to use tool is bringing a new professional and quick way to make presentations that work. Prezentar is the #1 recommended tool for creating…

• Presentations
• Presentation Templates
• Slide Shows
• Social Media Posts
• Course creation

You can buy Prezentar for only $47! This one time fee is affordable and accessible to anyone who need a quality presentation tool or service. There are a variety of upsells and upgrades available for purchase as well in order to enhance any presentation you make further.

You’ll find that Prezentar comes with the following features to help you create the best presentations possible.

• Unlimited storage for presentations & other creations
• Unlimited customizability of all elements
• Easy to use simple design
• User friendly
• Quality support time for great customer support
• Ability to create videos, slides shows, presentations, webinars, posts, ebooks, and much more.
• Founder And CEO with credible products and services creation background
• Drag and drop feature
• Variety of professional templates
• Easy To Use & Create Any Presentation
• Has High Converting Tools & Elements Editable On Every Presentation Style
• Download as PDF, MP4 video file, and more…
• Affordable pricing
• Take only minutes to create any piece of content
• Not free to use like other presentation creators
• Takes some time to set up the presentation or slides

Of course, if you need any assistance with this presentation creator – sign up below, and we’ll talk you through it.

Canva – Online Presentations Creator

One of the most popular and well made presentation creators has to be Canva. Over the years Canva has grown to be one of the most used and best rated presentation tools in the marketplace.

What makes it better then other alternatives? The affordable pricing and easy of use makes it a #1 choice for many businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals.

Canva is often better suited however for creating images, videos, and social media content pieces. They also do have a variety of good templates for their presentations, and also for their slides.

You can join Canva as a free or paid user .

You can setup an account with Canva completely free. However, you can upgrade your Canva account to get all of the premium features. Paid plans start at only $9.99 per month.

This means that you’ll be paying a small fee on a monthly basis in order to use the advanced Canva features, images, templates, logos, etc. But again, it technically is a free presentation app if you don’t want to upgrade.

Create several types of content − From social media posts, presentation, to videos, to ads, Canva can help you design & create anything you want…

Drag and drop feature − Every element inside of the Canva editor can easily be drag n dropped, edited, and much more. Every aspect of any presentation is fully editable.

Templates − Canva over 50,000 templates that you can choose, edit, and customize as you want… Also, new templates are regularly added to the existing library that Canva has.

Photo editing − You can do more than basic cropping and texturing photos in Canva. With its beginner-friendly features, you can blur your photos, add texts, create collages and photo grids that will produce an engrossing impression for every presention.

Stocks images, icons, and fonts − Canva has a library of free stock photos, icons, and fonts that you can use to create graphic designs of every kind… You can also upload your own photos as well in any presentation.

• Free to join
• Widely used and respected in the industry
• Great customization
• Great support & uptime
• Long standing reputation
• Easy to use
• Simple and consumer friendly
• Plenty of pre-made templates, presentations, slides, and more
• Great marketing features
• Isn’t completely free if you want the advanced version of Canva for making better quality presentations
• All content is hosted on Canva until downloaded.

Google Slides – Free Presentation Software

Yes! Google Slides is a free online presentation tool that will allow you access to a simple and user friendly presentation option.

However, Google slides lacks the ability to create powerful slides that are effective and that convert at a high enough rate. If you are on an extremely tight budget and need an extremely simple presentation tool, then this is when you may want to consider Google Slides.

Otherwise, you should build slides and a presentation with a different presentation creator. Free isn’t always the best. And being to simple, and dumb down any presentation or slides created.

PowerPoint Presentation – To Show And Create Beautiful Presentations

You’ve heard of this tool & presentation creator since you were young, PowerPoint is the most mainstream and widely used presentations tools in the world. However, it is also the most basic and simple tools.

This means that you can effortlessly create slides shows in minutes, but there is very little dynamic and engaging content that you can add. Simple, but not high converting. There also is no pricing free plan for this tool used to show and create presentations.

To unlock your creativity and make a presentation or slides your viewers will love, go with a different option.

Why Are Presentations Used?

Presentations are used because they are great at presenting information in an easy to understand way.

They engage viewers longer then other kinds of content, while also retaining their attention. Presentations are often how large corporations, businesses, and other individuals – present ideas.

With a presentation you can include graphics, images, text, headers, videos, and more. By combining these different elements together into a presentation, your presentation will be effective at getting its message across in a persuasive way.

Presentations have been used for decades in order to illustrate view point in a more effective matter. Over time presentations have became more complex, in a way that has increased their efficiency.

Is Every Presentation Software Good To Use?

No, you should only use the presentation software that meets your needs.

Because otherwise you may waste your time using a presentation tool online that doesn’t do what you’d like it to, or you may find yourself using a software that does way more then you need. Be careful in deciding which tool or software you’re going to invest your time or money into.

A bad presentation can not just lack conversions, it can ruin the reputation of your business. You need good slides, templates, and features – in order to create a truly effective presentation. (Especially online)

How Effective Are Presentations?

Presentations are extremely effective at persuading, selling, strategizing, and much more. Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, and many other global influences use presentations because of their effectiveness.

These slides show and pieces of content are easily understood and visually pleasing for viewers.

Well made online presentations or slides can help a business get more customers, convince a friend to go on a trip with you, and so much more.

In order for an online presentation maker to be effective, it should allow you to create any presentation your imagination can come up with.

As you design a presentation, you will realize that the best features are the ones that allow you to relate & engage with your audience the best. This type of converting presentation will be much more effective for any presenter to use.

A good presentation can…

• Generate millions of dollars
• Convince an audience of a viewpoint

So how well you presentation or slides are made, is extremely important. (And it’s why you want the best presentation maker possible)

What Tools Do You Use For A Presentation?

To create a proper & professional online presentation, you may use the followings tools…

• Slide Show or Presentation Creator
• Image Library
• Other Media Crafting Tools
• Presentation Editor

While most presentation tools you use will be able to provide every needed service to create a presentation, others won’t. In this case, you may need to use a combination of tools together in order to create the presentation you want. Each presentation slide should be unique in some way.

What Kind Of Online Presentation Tools Should Not Be Used?

You should avoid using online presentation software that are hard to use, or that are expensive. You should stay away from any presentation tool online that…

• Costs more then $100.
• Takes hours of testing to learn.
• Doesn’t have a good customer support
• Doesn’t look professional or legit

You want your presentation to be the best it can, and when you don’t use a top presentation software, you’re going to sacrifice your presentation quality. The best video presentation software should be built for beginners and experts alike, with a variety of templates you can create with. As well, it should be available to be used by multiple users.

Here’s a list of presentation softwares that should NOT be used.

• Zoho Show. This slides creation platform is not very good at creating any good quality presentation. While it is free, it does not have very good templates. Don’t use this to create presentations.
• Powtoon. This presentation maker is among many that should not be used. While you have the basic functionality of any presentation, you don’t have the variety of important features that other presentation creators do have. Their slides and templates are not as good too.

Final Thoughts On The Best Presentation Tools Online

Finding the best online presentation tools to use is a simple process if you know where to look. Each of the tools you’ve read through you can feel sure are among the best to create presentations.

When you have created 1000’s of presentation without almost every software available, you start to know the good ones from the not so good ones available. Give your small business the chance to show presentations that get results.

Use your own thoughts and consideration when deciding which presentation software is best for what you need.  And remember that a good presentation can mean a lot for your business, or influence. Spend as much time as you can perfection your presentation and slides to make them perform well, complete optimization is best.

With our kindest regards,

Richard Weberg

Online Presentation Tools FAQs

What are the best free online presentation tools.

The best online free presentation tools are going to be… Canva: Presentation Maker Google Slides: For A Simple Presentation PowerPoint: For Easy To Use Presentation Each of these are easy to use, simple to navigate, and a great for creating presentations. They are quality producers of presentations online.

What Are Some Presentation Templates Examples?

In any presentation software you will see a variety of templates examples listed. Simply choose from which one you want to look at or work with – or start a presentation from scratch. Any presentation created should be designed with your audience in mind. 

If you want to find presentations custom templates then you can also look on Fiverr for template creators.

How Do You Present An Online Presentation?

You should present by following a few guidelines as a presenter showing any presentation… 1. Talk clearly and at the appropriate volume, regardless of the presentation. 2. Present information starting from more general, continuing to either more complex or more specific. 3. Move from slide to slide at an even pace, do not speed through the presentation. Offer free value as much as you can, and your presentations should do well.

What Is The Best Simple Presentation App?

If you want to only use the most simple presentation app in the market and aren’t looking to be creative, just use Canva. It is by far the easiest and most simple to create a presentation of any kind

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Richard Weberg and Jon Weberg are a father and son marketing duo who are both expert email marketers & master affiliate marketers. They are also the founders of EmoneyPeeps.com. With over 29+ years of experience in the industry between them, they have a wealth of knowledge and skills in digital marketing, including email marketing, affiliate marketing, high ticket sales, conversion marketing, lead generation,and blogging.

They are known for their ability to create effective marketing campaigns, and sales funnels that drive results for them and their clients. Richard and Jon are both regularly invited to speak at marketing conferences, events, and webinars. Jon has also written several books on digital marketing. They are respected thought leaders in the field and are highly sought after for their expertise.

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How to Make a “Good” Presentation “Great”

• Guy Kawasaki

Remember: Less is more.

A strong presentation is so much more than information pasted onto a series of slides with fancy backgrounds. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others. Here are some unique elements that make a presentation stand out.

• Fonts: Sans Serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial are preferred for their clean lines, which make them easy to digest at various sizes and distances. Limit the number of font styles to two: one for headings and another for body text, to avoid visual confusion or distractions.
• Colors: Colors can evoke emotions and highlight critical points, but their overuse can lead to a cluttered and confusing presentation. A limited palette of two to three main colors, complemented by a simple background, can help you draw attention to key elements without overwhelming the audience.
• Pictures: Pictures can communicate complex ideas quickly and memorably but choosing the right images is key. Images or pictures should be big (perhaps 20-25% of the page), bold, and have a clear purpose that complements the slide’s text.
• Layout: Don’t overcrowd your slides with too much information. When in doubt, adhere to the principle of simplicity, and aim for a clean and uncluttered layout with plenty of white space around text and images. Think phrases and bullets, not sentences.

As an intern or early career professional, chances are that you’ll be tasked with making or giving a presentation in the near future. Whether you’re pitching an idea, reporting market research, or sharing something else, a great presentation can give you a competitive advantage, and be a powerful tool when aiming to persuade, educate, or inspire others.

• Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist at Canva and was the former chief evangelist at Apple. Guy is the author of 16 books including Think Remarkable : 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.

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How to Create Slides That Suit Your Superiors: 11 Tips

When you’re pitching ideas or budgets to execs in your organization, you need to deliver slides that fit those particular people just right. This checklist identifies the key considerations.

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I recently interviewed 20 of my customers, all in senior roles at Fortune 100 companies, and asked them their biggest pain point in presenting to higher-ups and even colleagues. What I heard consistently was that it can feel like Goldilocks bouncing from one option to the next, testing to figure out what’s “just right.” Does the audience want deep reports? Sparse slides? Something in between? Like … what?

Teams often come to presentation meetings with vast amounts of backup content just in case an exec wants to take a deep dive on any given point. There’s often a struggle to anticipate every direction attendees might want to go. It’s frustrating, and it’s not efficient.

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There are many ways to build slides. I’m not just talking about crafting them well versus poorly. I’m talking about all of the important decisions regarding how to organize them, how much text to use, when to lean into a chart, the best ways to use bullets and color, and whether to include an appendix with additional information. Before you make your next proposal or request of the executive team, use this list of 11 tips for your next set of slides as a guide.

Four Things You Must Have in Every Exec’s Slides

Before we drill down into the harder aspects, the ones where your executives’ tastes may vary widely, let’s quickly cover four aspects that you can consider the building blocks — the basics you should never proceed without.

Start with an executive summary. Begin the slide deck with a tight executive summary that follows a three-act structure. First, start with stating the current realities. Second, clearly state the problem or opportunity your idea addresses and its potential impact. Third, explain how your recommendation solves the problem or exploits the opportunity and the next steps you’re proposing.

Have a logical organization. The arc of the deck — the package from beginning to end — should make sense. If your audience reads only the headline of every slide, the order should be coherent and make most of the case for you. The content below each slide’s headline must support the statement made in the title. Remove everything that doesn’t support your point; as writers will tell you, you sometimes need to “kill your darlings” when you’re editing.

Begin the slide deck with a tight executive summary that follows a three-act structure.

Make it skimmable. Help your audience to quickly grasp the point without getting bogged down in details. Create a clear visual hierarchy. Guide the reader’s eye through the content: Use bold headings, bullet points, and numbered lists to break down information into digestible pieces. Highlight key takeaways or conclusions in a different color or font size to draw attention to these critical points.

Focus on concise insights. Succinct statements with clear insights are everyone’s jam. Every slide should serve a purpose and contribute directly to the decision-making process. Distill complex information. Don’t use 100 words when 20 words will nail it. If you’re having difficulty trimming, consider using company-approved AI tools to help you take out the fluff.

Five Preferences to Confirm With the Person You Want to Reach

Now we’ll delve into what your particular audience does and does not want. If you haven’t yet, start by asking the person you’re presenting to what they generally prefer. They probably know themselves well but have not been asked to articulate how they like to receive information.

Ask how dense is too dense. Some executives prefer detailed slides with comprehensive data. Others favor a more high-level approach. You’re weighing how to balance informative content with readability, ensuring that slides are not overloaded yet are sufficiently detailed to support decision-making.

Confirm the delivery format and timing. Some execs like information presented to them. Others prefer a pre-read of the material followed by a discussion. I always recommend our tool Slidedocs (I’ve written a free e-book on them), which are visual documents using both words and images. The templates help presenters organize their thoughts into a document for a pre-read or a read-along. They are designed to be skimmable and able to travel through your organization without the help of a presenter.

I’m a huge fan of pre-reads and prefer to use my time in meetings to ask questions and build alignment. If your audience didn’t review your material in advance, ask at the top of the meeting whether they would like you to present it or would prefer to read through it and then discuss it.

Find out how much data visualization they prefer. Charts, graphs, photos, and illustrations often communicate complex data more clearly than words alone. When execs can see what you’re saying, they often can better understand the impact of your idea. Does the exec want to understand exact numbers? Bar charts allow them to move their eyes across a series of specifics. Does the exec want to know the shape of a trend over time? Line charts can show the pattern. (See “Classic Charts Communicate Data Quickly.”) Some prefer charts with annotations that draw attention to what you think is the most important point. Others want to make their own conclusions from the data.

One of my clients, the CEO of a massive commercial real estate company, doesn’t want anything visualized. He prefers numbers, only in a table, and only in two colors — black and red. You might think this is archaic. But the fact that he’s clear to his teams about what he wants takes all the mystery out of how to communicate with him.

When the stakes are high, have a conceptual thinker help with diagrams and concepts. If you don’t have one on your team, and when it’s high stakes, find an internal designer to help you or hire one. You can’t afford to have the baby (your idea) thrown out with the bathwater (terrible slides).

Identify which details need spelling out. How well do the people you’re presenting to know the landscape and function of the company and products you’re talking about? For example, if your engineering team threw a slide into a deck about an issue that requires executive approval, do the execs all speak geek? Or do you need to explain the technology so that they will really understand the ask? Either eliminate internal jargon and acronyms or unpack those bits, especially if your proposal deeply involves expertise outside of the executives’ domain.

Ask whether appendices will be useful. When you’re organizing a presentation, you often troll data, read through complicated reports, and even hire external experts to figure out what’s best for the company. Do your execs want access to that supporting data? You can add a document to the end of the presentation as an appendix to show all of the data and source material. This allows the main content of the slides to remain focused and accessible while still providing comprehensive background information for those who want more.

Two Tips to Improve Your Presentation Skills

Getting materials in place is the biggest step. They will be your best tools for selling your ideas. But there are two extra areas to pay attention to as a presenter: how you handle questions and how you use every experience to improve.

Anticipate questions, and practice your answers. Before you have your meeting, gather a small team to challenge every point you make. Invite colleagues you trust to role-play as “a rapidly inquisitive exec” or “the doubting naysayer exec” so you are prepared to present your idea well. They’re gonna grill you, and practicing will help you remain unruffled when it happens.

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Ask for feedback after the presentation. Establish a feedback loop with those you presented to. Ask what worked well and how you can improve. If attendees don’t have the time, find people who have had their ideas funded and talk to them about what they did that worked. Advice and some perspective will help you nail your performance even better next time.

Empathetically understanding your audience members and how they process information, whether it’s executives or peers, sets up your ideas for success. Clarity creates efficiency. When a presentation fits just right, you’ve given your great thinking the best chance of moving through your organization and having maximum impact.

About the Author

Nancy Duarte is CEO of Duarte Inc. , a communication company in the Silicon Valley. She’s the author of six books, including DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story (Ideapress Publishing, 2019).

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Alright, your robotic pal has generated a presentation for you. But, for the time being, AIs can’t read minds, so it’s likely that you’ll want to modify the slides. Please do! We didn’t forget about those time constraints you’re facing, so thanks to the editing tools provided by one of our sister projects —shoutouts to Wepik — you can make changes on the fly without resorting to other programs or software. Add text, choose your own colors, rearrange elements, it’s up to you! Oh, and since we are a big family, you’ll be able to access many resources from big names, that is, Freepik and Flaticon . That means having a lot of images and icons at your disposal!

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They say that variety is the spice of life. That’s why we let you choose between different design styles, including doodle, simple, abstract, geometric, and elegant . What about the tone? Several of them: fun, creative, casual, professional, and formal. Each one will give you something unique, so which way of impressing your audience will it be this time? Mix and match!

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What is an AI-generated presentation?

It’s exactly “what it says on the cover”. AIs, or artificial intelligences, are in constant evolution, and they are now able to generate presentations in a short time, based on inputs from the user. This technology allows you to get a satisfactory presentation much faster by doing a big chunk of the work.

Can I customize the presentation generated by the AI?

Of course! That’s the point! Slidesgo is all for customization since day one, so you’ll be able to make any changes to presentations generated by the AI. We humans are irreplaceable, after all! Thanks to the online editor, you can do whatever modifications you may need, without having to install any software. Colors, text, images, icons, placement, the final decision concerning all of the elements is up to you.

Can I add my own images?

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Is this new functionality free? As in “free of charge”? Do you mean it?

Yes, it is, and we mean it. We even asked our buddies at Wepik, who are the ones hosting this AI presentation maker, and they told us “yup, it’s on the house”.

Are there more presentation designs available?

From time to time, we’ll be adding more designs. The cool thing is that you’ll have at your disposal a lot of content from Freepik and Flaticon when using the AI presentation maker. Oh, and just as a reminder, if you feel like you want to do things yourself and don’t want to rely on an AI, you’re on Slidesgo, the leading website when it comes to presentation templates. We have thousands of them, and counting!.

How can I download my presentation?

The easiest way is to click on “Download” to get your presentation in .pdf format. But there are other options! You can click on “Present” to enter the presenter view and start presenting right away! There’s also the “Share” option, which gives you a shareable link. This way, any friend, relative, colleague—anyone, really—will be able to access your presentation in a moment.

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This is just the beginning! Slidesgo has thousands of customizable templates for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Our designers have created them with much care and love, and the variety of topics, themes and styles is, how to put it, immense! We also have a blog, in which we post articles for those who want to find inspiration or need to learn a bit more about Google Slides or PowerPoint. Do you have kids? We’ve got a section dedicated to printable coloring pages! Have a look around and make the most of our site!

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AI Presentation Makers leverage artificial intelligence to automate design and content suggestions, making the creation process faster and more efficient than traditional methods.

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What Doctors Want You to Know About Beta Blockers for Anxiety

Start-ups are making it easier to get the pills online, but experts warn they should be used with caution.

By Christina Caron

Anxious ahead of a big job interview? Worried about giving a speech? First date nerves?

The solution, some digital start-ups suggest, is a beta blocker, a type of medication that can slow heart rate and lower blood pressure — masking some of the physical symptoms of anxiety.

Typically a trip to the doctor’s office would be necessary to get a prescription, but a number of companies are now connecting patients with doctors for quick virtual visits and shipping the medication to people’s homes.

“No more ‘Shaky and Sweaty,’” one online ad promised. “Easy fast 15 minute intake.”

That worries Dr. Yvette I. Sheline, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

“The first question is: What is going on with this person?” Dr. Sheline said. Are they depressed in addition to anxious? Do they have chronic anxiety or is it just a temporary case of stage fright? “You don’t want to end up prescribing the wrong thing,” she added.

In addition, although beta blockers are generally considered safe, experts say they can carry unpleasant side effects and should be used with caution.

What are beta blockers?

Beta blockers such as propranolol hydrochloride have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for chest pain, migraine prevention, involuntary tremors, abnormal heart rhythms and other uses.

Some are still prescribed for hypertension, although they’re no longer considered the preferred treatment , mainly because other medications are more effective in preventing stroke and death.

Beta blockers can ease the physical symptoms of the “fight or flight” response to stress, such as tremors, sweaty palms or a racing heart, but they are not F.D.A.-approved to treat anxiety disorders.

For decades, doctors have prescribed them for issues other than their approved uses, including for problems like stage fright. In recent years, celebrities like Robert Downey Jr. and Khloé Kardashian have said the medications helped them overcome performance anxiety.

How do they work?

When we start feeling anxious or stressed, our bodies produce adrenaline, which prepares us to respond to perceived danger. The hormone signals our heart to beat faster and narrows our blood vessels to redirect blood to important organs like the heart and lungs. Breathing quickens, and we start to sweat.

Beta blockers work by “blocking” the effects of adrenaline. They cause the heart to beat more slowly and with less force, which helps lower blood pressure.

But if you’re feeling especially anxious, “your mind is still going to race, you’re still going to ruminate and worry,” said Regine Galanti, a psychologist in Cedarhurst, N.Y., who treats people with anxiety disorders.

In other words, beta blockers are not going to address the root of your fears. “If it becomes like a weekly, ‘Oh, I’m just having a hard time in this course. I’ll just pop a beta blocker every single time.’ I would say, ‘What’s the long-term goal here?’” she added.

Patients are typically only prescribed a few pills for specific situations where they might experience performance anxiety, said Dr. Joseph Bienvenu, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. But some online companies dole out as many as 48 at a time.

Are there any side effects?

Yes. Beta blockers can make people feel dizzy. Other potential side effects include fatigue, cold hands or feet, trouble sleeping and nightmares. They can also cause stomach problems like nausea or diarrhea and, less often, difficulty breathing.

This is why some doctors tell their patients to avoid taking them for the first time on the day of a big event.

Dr. Bienvenu advises patients to initially try the medication on the weekend, or “when you don’t have anything else to do.”

“I just want people to know how it’s going to affect them,” he said.

Is it OK to take them for a potentially scary task, like a big presentation?

Possibly. But experts suggested visiting your general practitioner first.

Beta blockers may not be advised for some people with diabetes, low blood pressure or bradycardia, which is a slow heart beat — or people with asthma or another lung disease. And certain drugs, including some cholesterol and cardiovascular medications, can interact with them.

Online doctors do not have your full medical history and have not examined you in person, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the N.Y.U. Grossman School of Medicine.

Without a physical exam, some patients might not know that they have an underlying issue like an irregular heartbeat, he added. And they may not know who to call if they have questions after getting a prescription.

“You need to be managed on these kinds of drugs,” he said.

For those who often face anxiety-provoking tasks like public speaking, the experts said, it might be most beneficial to try breathing techniques or exposure therapy , which involves directly confronting what makes us anxious to break a pattern of fear and avoidance.

“Masking your anxiety symptoms is not going to teach you how to manage your anxiety symptoms,” Dr. Galanti said.

Christina Caron is a Times reporter covering mental health. More about Christina Caron

Managing Anxiety and Stress

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First, bring calm and clarity into your life with these 10 tips . Next, identify what you are dealing with: Is it worry, anxiety or stress ?

Persistent depressive disorder is underdiagnosed, and many who suffer from it have never heard of it. Here is what to know .

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