PowerPoint has been getting a bit of a bad press of late, what with it being 20 years old and all that. We’ve had such a stunning response to our free Open Office Impress templates that we decided that it would be worth putting together a comparison of Impress and seeing where we think that it is actually better than PowerPoint.
Here are a number of areas where we think that Impress is better than PowerPoint.
1. Impress is free. Being Open Source - Impress is free to download and make your own modifications. PowerPoint on the other hand can set you back at current prices around £171 or $197 (so why exactly is it almost twice as much in the UK?)
For less than this you can get Open Office Impress, an iPod Nano and have enough left over for a modest meal.
I know which one I would go for.
2. Export to Flash. If you want to put your slides online it is pretty hard going in PowerPoint. With Impress you can export your slides to Flash. Sure it is pretty basic and you lose all animation, but it is easy to put online.
If you click on the example above you can see a simple file that I created in Impress and then converted to Flash.
3. Eyedropper tool. The eyedropper tool allows you to pick up a colour from an object or from a picture. You can do this in Photoshop, but it means opening up a new application. In Impress it is a tool within the application.
4. Visual indicator on the crop tool. It is pretty easy to crop images from within Impress. You have a measurement of how much you are cropping and you can also see the area to be cropped.
5. You can import PowerPoint files and you can save as PowerPoint.
While not a benefit over PowerPoint it makes it very easy to migrate from PowerPoint to Impress. Microsoft employed this trick in the early 90s when most users migrated from Lotus 1-2-3 to Excel.
This comparison has been made with PowerPoint 2003 (which is the version that most people have).
Comments on: Is Open Office Impress better than PowerPoint?
[...] technology. It contains a number of features not available in PowerPoint. See our posts on Is Open Office Impress better than PowerPoint? and Free Impress Templates. You can also read Bruce Byfield’s comparison of Open Office and [...]
Impress is as good as powerpoint thogh it lacks templates and a wizard it is free NEPRA just downloaded open office and thinks it is as good as ms office.
Posted by Oliver, Matilda, Henry, Stella and Elliott — 19 June 2008 @ 7:49 pm
impress is good but powerpoint, especially 2003 & 2007, are far more better. impress is like powerpoint 97/2000.
Posted by bryant — 25 June 2008 @ 2:51 am
I don’t know if this is the right place but does any one have any points on why powerpoint is better than impress
Thanks
Posted by Scott — 22 July 2008 @ 3:35 pm
What if I have a slideshow that has a sound track (such as the accompanying lecture) — can I export it to a video format like AVI or MPG to put it on a DVD?
I work with some small, local nonprofits and Impress/Open Office makes a lot more sense than spending good money on MS Office that can be used to better purposes. Plus, the templates available for OO don’t look like the same, tired MS stock we’ve seen for years.
[...] worse is still Powerpoint (I know, I know. My cool Mac friends tout Keynote and there’s groovy open-source stuff out there too, but we like to rock our presentations old-school here at [...]
It may be important to point that your presentation files can be accessed anytime with any other application, because OpenOffice.org Impress uses an open (non-proprietary) file format.
PPT presentations depend on a proprietary application or in some other kind of import functionality (like OpenOffice.org Impress has).
Free your mind, share information, use free software.
I’ve just started using Impress after many years on powerpoint. The biggest hassle so far for me seems to be printing- I often end up printing individual pages when I want handouts with multiple slides, and in some cases both individual pages and handouts get printed and I have no idea why. But, as mentioend above, the price can’t be beat!
Posted by Life Planner — 7 December 2008 @ 2:50 am
Yes, I think impress is much better for all the reasons listed by the author. It’s a great program, I have used it hundreds of times and I love it.
Posted by Sirley — 27 February 2009 @ 9:33 pm
Some one said that impress are like M$ powerpoint 97/2000 whatever. I should told him that started form version 2 of OpenOffice.org, the impress of OOo
has became the same looking (and the same using method) of 2003.
And how about when the 3.0 version compare with MS 2007?
Did you think a free thing will become too “user-friendly” (and u have to learn again anything in 2007)?
The OOo version 3.0 will not let you learn everything again .
Posted by ZumarX Ku — 14 April 2009 @ 7:37 pm
I’m using OOo Impress. No need for MS Office anymore!
Posted by Firefly — 7 May 2009 @ 6:15 am
Yes
Posted by Mohan Babu Dussa — 26 May 2009 @ 7:07 am
Powerpoint is faster, better looking, less prone to bugs and errors, and entirely more convenient than the pitiful excuse for a presentation program offered by OpenOffice. It is absolutely worth the price of buying it, especially if you’re planning on using advanced tools like custom animations. Heck, those animations look absolutely awful on Impress, even on very fast computers- how hard is it to make a picture move across a screen? And don’t even get me started on templates, list glitches and font issues. Absolutely awful experience if you try anything beyond the basics.
I had to use OpenOffice for months before I finally got to switch over to Microsoft’s program, and I must say I’m glad I did.
Posted by Mike — 8 June 2009 @ 6:12 pm
Open Office provides the core functionality that most people use in Microsoft Office. OK some would call the apps basic - but if that’s all you use why spend on the money on MS Office.
I am not sure which versions are you comparing, but after trying to make a simple presentation in Impress, I am very disappointed. It constantly provides some bugs - either font changes itself, or it crashes or some background elements disappear. Even Google Docs is more stable. I am sure this can be a great application, but developers should think of improving stability and providing a better design. I like PowerPoint, because it does not crash and everything is intuitive (so, I don’t have to look up the documentation). But, I agree, that the price hurts :).
PowerPoint has been getting a bit of a bad press of late, what with it being 20 years old and all that. We’ve had such a stunning response to our free Open Office Impress templates that we decided that it would be worth putting together a comparison of Impress and seeing where we think that it is actually better than PowerPoint.
3. Eyedropper tool. The eyedropper tool allows you to pick up a colour from an object or from a picture. You can do this in Photoshop, but it means opening up a new application. In Impress it is a tool within the application.
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