Create Good-Looking Presentations

I remember going to church as a young boy and seeing missionaries come with their large collection of slides to show.  While there were other forms of presentation available, slides were still the cheapest way to show a church pictures of what had been accomplished.  Now, missionaries usually come with a professional DVD presentation, and that DVD is probably much easier to produce than slides were just 15-20 years ago.

The idea of a "presentation" has gone through many changes over the last few years.  Microsoft's PowerPoint used to be the clear leader in presentation software.  However, it has fallen behind to more modern-looking options.  The majority of the presentations I see now completely avoid PowerPoint's slide concept in favor of much smoother transitions and development.

Fortunately, Microsoft has recognized this change and is adapting.   While it has not made any comment regarding its plans for PowerPoint, Microsoft has published a preview version of a new presentation tool called Sway.  Instead of slides, Sway uses cards that you will transition through as you build your presentation.  Like PowerPoint, Sway uses a very linear format, but the transitions between your information is much smoother.  The Sway preview is free, but at some point, it may be rolled into Microsoft's current online offerings (such as Office 365).

If you are looking for something different, I like Prezi.  With Prezi, you are given a canvas on which you can zoom in to various levels of information.  Your data can be sorted in a linear format, or you can jump around.  Some may follow a line or design that winds across the canvas, but others may simply zoom out and then zoom in on the next subject.  Prezi has a free level and two subscription levels.  With the free version, your presentations are public and you have 100 MB of storage.  If you pay $10/month or $59/year for the Enjoy package, you can make your presentations private and upgrade to 4 GB of storage.  For $20/month or $159/year, the Pro package gives you unlimited storage and the ability to create and edit your presentations when not connected to the internet.


Links:

Sway

Prezi