Presentation Software - The Top Ten (10)

Top 10 Presentation Software 1. PowerPoint

Like it or loathe it, PowerPoint is here to stay. At 20 years old it is still the leading presentation software. At one point it was estimated that there are 30 million PowerPoint presentations given every day. But is it really time to Ditch PowerPoint?

2. Flash

For stunning presentations that you can also put on-line Flash is by far the best presentation technology on the market. The animation effects and the ability to import video are stunning. The biggest problem is that it takes a high degree of proficiency to get it to work for you. I have been on a couple of day classes and still find it extremely difficult to do even a most basic presentation. There are quite a number of examples of Flash Presentations you can find on the web.

3. Open Office Impress

Open Office Impress is the free open source presentation 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 PowerPoint.

4. Apple Keynote
For those of you using Macs there is a small community of people who use Apple Keynote. They have just brought out a new version. Apple launches iWork 8 with Keynote update
5. Photoshop

If you want to make your presentations fly then you will need a way of easily editing images - for example to adjust the colours, or make images transparent. We use Photoshop a lot - but you could also use the open source equivalent Gimp. Why do you need to manipulate images - have a look at how to make incredible pictures.

6. NXPowerLite

NXPowerLite can compress files by as much as 75%, making them easier to use, store and share. It reduces file sizes more significantly than zip compression and removes the need to unzip. www.nxpowerlite.com

7. PowerPlugs Charts

If you want to make professional looking graphs and charts in PowerPoint then you will find the PowerPlugs Charts pretty hard to beat. The only downside is that once you have made the chart it is not easily possible to e-mail it to other people and allow them to change the image.

8. Perspector

A nifty little tool for making 3d shapes for PowerPoint. Read the review of Perspector.

9. Color Schemer

PowerPoint comes as standard with the most appalling colour schemes. To solve this we extensively use an electronic colour wheel called Color Schemer. We bought the PC software but there is a free on-line tool at Color Schemer Online.

10. PowerConverter

PowerConverter is a nifty little tool that can convert PowerPoint to Flash. It is a nice way to put a presentation online and you can include navigation. We found that it was not fully compatible with all of the animation settings but was a good way to put a presentation online.

Anything that we have missed? Need us to review some Presentation Software? Drop us a comment below.

20 August 2007

Comments on: Presentation Software - The Top Ten (10)

We missed off DirectorMX, which is similar to flash but runs from the desktop or CD rather than a browser.

Have you considered any 3D presentation software in your top ten? I think Dryfork should be considered. If you would like a free copy (full version) for evaluation I can arrange to send you one. If you just want to download the free trial version you can get it at www.dryfork.com. 3D blows powerpoint out of the water.

Hi, I am just starting some research into how I might better present our data to clients (financial graphs etc.) Having done some surfing I was inpressed by the rolling charts I saw at www.IFA.com Anyone got any idea what software I would need to generate this kind of finished product?

I like AuthorPoint Lite for PowerPoint to Flash conversion. It is free and better than some paid tools out there and also helps you upload your presentation to AuthorStream and WiZiQ, where it plays like a youtube video in Flash format. You can even get a unique URL and embed code to play it in your site. I have seen some playing on the Ning network also. Here’s the download site:

is there a better way to present your powerpoint presentations other than using a projector?

I’m a novice trying to put together a presentation for 2 weddings and a graduation coming up in my family PHEW !

Is there any software program that is easy to use that will allow audio, video, animation ect. even put together a game or quiz formate.
Remeber your talking to a beginner.

I have a presentation question but I don’t know if this is the proper forum. I am a photographer and I would like to be able to creat a photo presentation on a disk to hand to customers but with the restrictions that the presentation could not be hacked (misuse of photos) and could not be printed from screen (Ctrl P). Do any of the top ten presentation programs provide anything like that?

Take a look at Photodex…designed for photographer’s presentations. It is awesome and they have different versions depending on your needs and skills (ProShow Gold and ProShow Producer).

Hi.
You may want to check out our Flash and video presentation software, Flair. Tom Arah of PC Pro wrote: “Flair offers everything you need to produce impressive results. In particular, it brings together the core features from a whole host of applications - Adobe Flash Professional, Microsoft PowerPoint, Articulate Presenter, Sorenson Squeeze and Adobe Captivate - and at a fraction of their cost. That’s extraordinary power and value.”
It is an awesome way to create presentations, especially with video.
You can obtain a free trial at www.wildform.com/demos.

It’s a niche market, but I’ve been quite impressed with the results created by Latex and the Beamer layout.

Three advantages here are:
*great math and science layout
*Free!
*Presentation can be transported either as .pdf or a simple ascii file.

What presentation you need depends on what the situation you are in. PowerPoint is the most popular presentation tool, so is Flash. And now some file converter like Powerpoit to Flash is wildly used in training and lecture.

This screen recording software can help to capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a stunning tutorial in minutes.
http://www.sameshow.com/demo-creator.html

If you need some cutting edge 3D effects in your presentation, take a look to Slide Effect: http://www.slide-effect.com

I think this blog is a little out of date. You should check out SlideRocket (sliderocket.com). You’ll love it!

How about MagicPoint? Simple text slides which are human-readable, and presentations can be created in a text editor.

The only problem is with sliderocket.com is that it is really slow. Not very usable in the real world.

Presentation Software - The Top Ten (10)

Comments on: Presentation Software - The Top Ten (10)

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