There are lots of presentation applications out there these days, many of them rapidly improving in functionality. Working on conferences, we get to see lots of different presentation methods, so we thought we'd take you through the three major ones and break down the pros & cons of each to help you decide which is best for your next presentation.
This application has been around for a while, and it's usually the first program that people learn to create visual presentations with. It's relatively easy to use, it's familiar to most people, and it's available on both Mac & Windows platforms.
Unfortunately, slide content does not always translate well between Windows & Mac computers, which could cause problems if you built your presentation on one computer and have to present it on another. Overall, though, it is a solid tool for creating slideshows and presenting visual information.
Keynote is a favorite of many Mac users & Apple aficionados. It has a more minimal & user-friendly interface, and often provides more seamless video & audio playback than PowerPoint.
That said, it is only compatible with Mac platforms - and its presenter mode, which many speakers depend on, can be tricky to customize and lay out effectively. But Keynote gets bonus points for its default slide aspect ratio (which just so happens to be the aspect ratio that looks best on screen!)
Prezi is a much newer option, but we're seeing more and more speakers depend on it for presentations of all scales. It's a free application that offers multiple levels of unique & useful paid features.
Its main distinguishing quality is the ability to create more engaging presentations using highly dynamic transitions between slides. It also gives you some flexibility in where you edit & play the presentations from, as it is available both as a browser-based and as a desktop application. Because of the dynamic slide transitions, there can be some slight lagging when clicking through slides - so if you like to move backwards & forwards through your presentation quickly, this may not be your best option. All things considered, this application is worth at least toying with to see if the kinetic layouts might give your content some oomph!
If you have any questions about creating presentation content for your next event, feel free to reach out to us by clicking the button below!