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  • Presentations

How to Make a Better Presentation Without PowerPoint (+Top Alternatives)

How to engage your presentation audience - without powerpoint.

Make Great Presentations (Free PDF eBook Download)

Which powerpoint alternative is best for your next presentation.

Zach LeBar

Do you have to make a presentation soon? It probably isn't your first. You know the drill:

And yet, you're still feeling unenthused. You want something new, something different.

Maybe you're putting together the monthly sales report, and you're presenting it to your bosses yet again. Or, you're pitching something to a brand new client and you need to make an impact. You know they've heard other proposals, and you want yours to stand out from the rest. Or, you're struggling to figure out how to get a PowerPoint presentation to look nice in the first place.

We've already looked at the absolute basics of making a presentation with PowerPoint:

presentations without powerpoint

But do you know how to make a presentation without PowerPoint?

In this article, we review a few different types of powerful alternatives to PowerPoint presentation software. We explore why you might want to use each of these options, and how you can quickly put them to work for you. We also take a quick look at how to make a presentation without PowerPoint. We'll explore creative presentation ideas other than PowerPoint or any other slide presentation software tool. 

We also have a comprehensive eBook you can download for free:  The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations .  It'll help you master the complete presentation process.

Making Great Presentations eBook Free Download

So, we've seen how you can make a great presentation in any app. But perhaps you want more. In that case, you need the " anti-PowerPoints ," the newest apps with novel approaches to presentations. 

Let's dive in. 

It's easy to think only of software tools such as PowerPoint when you consider giving a presentation. But there are many PowerPoint alternatives you can use to make an effective presentation. Some of those tools and techniques aren't even software oriented.

The main goal of any good presentation is to engage your audience. If you'll be giving a presentation, first consider using one or more of these creative presentation ideas without PowerPoint or the need for other software:

To learn more about how to connect with your audience, and more creative presentation ideas without the need for PowerPoint, review this tutorial:

presentations without powerpoint

Now that we've explored some non-technical PowerPoint alternatives, let's look at some great software PowerPoint alternatives.

1. Great Alternatives to PowerPoint: Google Slides & Keynote

Of course, there are many other alternatives to PowerPoint when it comes to selecting presentation software. Two of the most notable options are Google Slides and Keynote . Let's take a quick look at each of these tools:

Google Slides

Google Slides has come a long way since it was introduced as part of Google apps included with Google Drive. One of its strengths is that it's web-based. That makes it ideal for collaboration. If you need to work with someone else on your presentation, Google Slides may be the right choice for you.

Keynote is part of Apple's iWork productivity suite. The intuitive interface will be familiar to Mac users. But if you want to open a Keynote file on a PC you will need to export it to either a .pdf or .ppt file.

For a more in-depth look at both Google Slides and Keynote, as well as a comparative look at PowerPoint, review this article:

presentations without powerpoint

2. The Original Anti-PowerPoint: Prezi

Popular PowerPoint Alternative Prezi

When it comes to the "anti-PowerPoints,"  Prezi is king. It walks that fine line between being unique yet understandable, engaging and yet still comfortable. Prezi bills itself as a " nonlinear presentation tool. " That's an apt description for an app that flies in the face of traditional presentations' " stack of slides " metaphor. 

Prezi Is a Powerful Nonlinear Presentation Tool

Instead of seeing each part of your presentation as individual slides, Prezi lets you lay out your entire presentation on one canvas, and then zoom in and out to see specific points or the bigger picture. 

You've likely already seen nonlinear presentations during TED talks. Perhaps you've seen infographic-style videos that put info together for a big picture at the end. It can be an effective presentation style for conveying information that goes together—or just for spicing up a traditional presentation.

If you want to make nonlinear presentation, you'll find that Prezi is a great app for it. It's simple to use, with an interface that keeps enough of the traditional slide layout to make you feel comfortable with it, while giving you the simple tools you need to format your text and more. 

As a web app, you can use Prezi from any computer, and collaborate with others on the same presentation. But then, that's not much different from Google Slides , Keynote for iCloud , and Microsoft's PowerPoint web app.

Prezi's main differentiator, of course, is its nonlinear presentation style. That's tough to really capture with mere words. So, check out the short video below to see Prezi in action, and how its nonlinear format changes the way you think about presentations:

presentations without powerpoint

Isn't that cool?! Prezi really is a great solution when you feel like you've seen one-too-many PowerPoint presentations. The online tools are very intuitive and easy to use, you'll be creating Prezis in no time. It's the perfect first app to try if you want alternatives to PowerPoint for your next presentation.

3. Do-It-Yourself Animated Videos

This is an interesting segment of the " anti-PowerPoint " market. Tools to help you make those popular stop-motion animation films or hand-drawn cartoons that are so popular for advertising new apps these days. 

As with any filming, hand-animated videos are difficult and time-consuming to make and need a ton of expensive equipment. That's clearly more work to take on than you want for your next presentation.

But with animation apps, you can get a similar effect far cheaper, and in far less time. That makes them perfect for something you'd otherwise have tried to describe with a PowerPoint slide deck. Plus, animated clips have the advantage of letting you step outside of the laws of physics and reality. They help you make an idea or concept more understandable than it otherwise would have been.

Now, if you're truly wanting a full-featured animated video, you'll never have a replacement for professional animators. Each of these apps, even though billed as " professional animated tools ," are simplified animation tools designed just for making a simple demonstration video. That's great if that's all you need, but don't dive in thinking you'll be able to make the next Paperman  in five minutes.

If you're wanting to make a much better presentation than PowerPoint—or Prezi—could ever allow, though, these tools are perfect. They'll let you put together a hand-drawn animated video in minutes, ready to show off your ideas better than bullet points ever could. Here's the best apps for that:

Vyond - Powerful PowerPoint Alternative

Presentation Alternative GoAnimate

In the realm of online do-it-yourself animation tools, Vyond  is at the top of its game. Its web app makes it easy to pull their wide array of animation styles and pre-made graphics together into an animated presentation. You can easily customize those graphics as well, so your finished product will look like your very own—even if it's built from stock graphics.

Beyond just the animated graphics, Vyond supports audio, too. You can give your characters dialog, uploading your own voice recordings—or outsourcing to professional voice actors. And those characters will automatically get built-in lip sync animations. But more than just the spoken word, Vyond offers a library of both music and sound effects, helping your animation really come to life. Once things are finished, you've got a wide array of one-click export options to various social networks. Or if you'd prefer, you can download an HD video file for use wherever you like.

The app  is very polished. If you're wanting to quickly make animated videos, it's a great option. All in all, Vyond's vast catalog of built-in customizable graphics and audio support with lip sync animations makes it a great PowerPoint Alternative if you want to animate your next presentation.

VideoScribe - Creative PowerPoint Alternative

PowerPoint Alternative VideoScribe

VideoScribe carved out a nifty little niche for itself by letting you create those fancy " whiteboard animations " that have become a huge hit across the Web. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, have a look at this video, produced by VideoScribe . Cool, right?

I'm a big fan of this style of animation, but it can be a costly thing to produce custom. What VideoScribe lets you do is take a whole bunch of pre-drawn, pre-animated images, put them together in a way that best suits you and the message you want to convey. Then it turns the whole thing into a slick little animation. Where Vyond lets you make a cartoon-style video, VideoScribe gives you similar stock graphics that'll be drawn on-screen during your presentation with a real hand, to give the feel of someone sketching your presentation.

It's surprisingly simple to put together a VideoScribe—much like you might expect. You'll mainly drag-and-drop pre-made graphics into the storyboard. Then let the app work its own magic—and you can have something presentable worked up in a matter of minutes.

This sort of video will definitely make an impact if all your audience was expecting was a humdrum PowerPoint presentation.

4. HTML-Based Presentations With Reveal.js

Then, with the apps we've looked at so far being web apps, it's only fitting to look at the latest " anti-PowerPoint" : HTML-powered presentations. As you've perhaps seen from some Google IO conference presentations, there's plenty of web features today to turn basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into a full presentation that's just an animated website. 

You can create your presentations in your favorite code editor, save them online in revision control tools like Git, and present them in any browser. Anything you can add to a website, you can put into an HTML presentation.

That's very cool, but it'd also typically take far longer to make presentations with raw code than it'd ever take to make a PowerPoint presentation. But thanks to  Reveal.js  and its web app counterpart,  Slides , it's as easy to make an HTML presentation as it is to make a presentation in any of the other apps we've looked at.

PowerPoint Alternative Revealjs

Reveal.js is an open-source framework for turning an HTML document into a killer presentation. It's pretty impressive. Just look at this introduction presentation to get a feel for what Reveal.js is capable of—especially considering it's all done with standards-compliant HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It offers modern transitions, some subtly non-linear presentation features, and even a PDF export option.

If you're capable of hand-writing your own HTML code, then take a look at the documentation for Reveal.js on Github . With the help of some JavaScript code and specific tag attributes on your HTML elements, Reveal.js turns a typical HTML document into a fancy presentation, for free.

But then, everyone doesn't want to hand-code an HTML page each time they make a presentation, so that's where  Slides comes in. It's a hosted version of Reveal.js, combined with an elegant GUI. So, you can use its power to make your own slideshows with the simple tools you'd expect from any other presentations app. There's even the extra features, such as web fonts and CSS customization, that you'd expect from a web-powered presentation.

Both Reveal.js and Slides have lots to offer—the former's great if you're comfortable coding your own presentation. The latter's a perfect option if you're looking for a new, simpler presentations app that won't need any coding.

You can read more about Slides below.

Visme

Visme is a software where you can create a presentation without PowerPoint. It's a cloud-based software where you can create more than just presentations. You can also create:

Visme comes with templates that you can use. Along with templates, there are millions of free images, thousands of icons, and hundreds of fonts. You can share your presentation by sharing a URL or embed it into a blog post or web page.

Visme is a free software. But to unlock premium features you need the Starter or Pro packages, which bill at $12.25 USD per month or $24.75 USD per month.

6.   Slides

Slides

Slides is another cloud-based alternative where you can create a presentation without PowerPoint. This software allows you to edit and access presentations from multiple devices and also allows you to present offline.

For example, if you've got a math-based presentation, Slides makes it easy with the ability to display math formulas. There are three purchase options for slides starting with the Lite options, which start at $5 per month and are billed annually.

7. Zoho Show

Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a software where you can create a presentation without PowerPoint. It’s a part of a workplace bundle. With this software, you can embed live tweets, YouTube videos, and Flickr images. The Workplace Bundle plans start a USD three a month per person billed annually.

Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use alternative to PowerPoint. This presentation without PowerPoint software comes with templates ready to use. You’ll have access to millions of images if you use the paid plan. 

This free software comes with premium features you can get with the Canva Pro Plan is USD 119.99 per year per person.

Grab this new eBook:  The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations . It's available for FREE with your subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter. 

It'll help walk you through the complete presentation process. Learn how to write your presentation, use the best presentation software, design like a pro, and deliver memorably. 

Making Great Presentations eBook Free PDF Download

There you have it. We've looked at how to do a presentation without PowerPoint and dived into the best types of " anti-PowerPoint " apps:

You've learned about ways to present other than PowerPoint. We've also discussed Google Slides and Keynote. If you're looking for a tool with a different perspective, then Prezi can help breathe some life into an otherwise tired presentation. 

Also, if you want to really stand-out, you can do so by putting together an animated short that helps explain your point for you. If so, Vyond and VideoScribe are great options to work with. And finally, if the flexibility of an HTML-based presentation has you intrigued, there's Reveal.js and its web-app counterpart, Slid.es, to explore.

The next time you've got to put together a presentation, instead of just reaching for the safe choice of PowerPoint or Keynote, give one of these alternatives to PowerPoint tools a try. They're your best shot to help your presentation stand out and actually get people's attention.

Editorial Note : This post was originally published in 2014. It's been comprehensively revised to make current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special help from Laura Spencer and Sarah Joy .

Zach LeBar

More From Forbes

10 things to do instead of powerpoint.

The bad news: there are thousands of presentations every day, everywhere around the world.  Most of them use PowerPoint, badly, as speaker notes, with more words or numbers on each slide than anyone can read.

The results are predictably boring – no, excruciating  -- for their hapless audiences.  That’s human misery on a massive scale.

The good news: in an effort to make the world a better place, here are 10 things to do instead of PowerPoint.  Ways to make your points without the sleep-apnea-inducing effects of boring slides.  Ways to pep up your presentations without much additional effort.  Your audiences will thank me.

1.  Use props. For most workers, in a cubicle world, it’s sensory deprivation from 9 – 5.  The whirr of computers and the A/C.  The hum of colleagues chattering away.  The beige walls of the cube farm.  The fluorescent lighting.  It’s amazing anyone stays awake.  Offer the audience, then, something physical.  Instead of describing that new product on a slide, show them a prototype.  Pass it around.  Let the audience get physical.

2.  Use music. We have an emotional response to music which is much more powerful than we do to most words.  Especially words like “3rd Q results” and “product optimization.”  So add a soundtrack to your presentation.  It will bring it to life.  Do obey copyright and licensing laws, please.

3.  Use video. Video –good video -- has all the life in it that static slides lack.   A good clip can enchant, move, and thrill and audience in 60 seconds.  You can create the right emotional atmosphere to begin or end a speech – or to pick it up in the middle.

4.  Use a flip chart. Create any visuals you need right there in front of the audience.  No need for technology.  Just a magic marker and your arm.  The act of creation draws the audience in where a slide doesn’t.

5.  Ask the audience. Of course, the best way to draw the audience in is to draw them in.  Ask them to tell you their stories – as they relate to the topic at hand.  Ask the whole audience or just selected volunteers.

6.  Ask the audience – 2. Break the audience up into small groups and get them to respond to a challenge that you set, a question that you ask, or a problem that you pose.  Then have them to report back to the whole group.

7.  Ask the audience – 3. Play a game with the audience – relevant to the topic.  Award prizes.  Audiences love to compete.  Just don’t make the questions too difficult or the prizes too expensive – or too cheap.  Only Oprah gets to give away cars.

8.  Ask the audience – 4. Get the audience to design something – new products, plans, or ideas.  Give them plenty of paper, sticky notes, ipads, or whatever you have on hand that they can play with.

9.  Ask the audience – 5. Have the audience create video responses to what you’re talking about.  Hand out a dozen flip cams and get them in groups.  Give them a limited amount of time – 10 minutes, perhaps.  Then show some of the video to the whole group on the big IMEG screen.

10.  Combine any 3 of these to create huge audience buzz. Stop thinking of a presentation as a static activity where you show slides to a catatonic group of fellow humans.  You passive, them active.  Instead, treat them as co-conspirators in something exciting, educational, and fun.

Nick Morgan

A world of presentations without PowerPoint

author

Most of the presentations made nowadays are made with the help of PowerPoint. There are also class teachers and lecturers who use PowerPoint to make..

Standing Ovation

Presentation techniques are the tools that help us to bring a page of written text to spoken life. They are the means by which we animate words, inject interest and build audience rapport. Learn the following 7 techniques and you’ll have your audience clinging to every word you say.

Powerpoint Presentation

Most of the presentations made nowadays are made with the help of PowerPoint. There are also class teachers and lecturers who use PowerPoint to make the teaching and learning process more interesting. However, it is the professional who makes presentations without the use of PowerPoint, while following some of their age-old beliefs for presentations. 

Delivering Lecture

Presentations without PowerPoint prove to be quite boring. This is because the presentation PowerPoint presentations usually provide a change for the audience in presentation and give the crowd some visual explanations of the points that are being told in the presentation. So, without PowerPoint in the presentation, it is very important that the presenter use some creativity in the presentation. This is because it is only this creativity that will keep the audience interested and motivated in the presentation! 

Presentation with end in mind

When beginning the presentation, you must present it while keeping the end of the presentation in mind . You must know what the purpose of your presentation is, as without PowerPoint you might lose the interest of the audience! Make sure you see, hear, and feel what exactly it is that you want people to respond to in whatever it is that you say. Make a strong start to your presentation. Without PowerPoint, it is very much important that the first words and your appearance set the right tone for the audience to listen to you throughout the presentation. One of the best ways of making a connection with the audience without the help of PowerPoint is to tell a story or an anecdote that has universal appeal. 

practice on the speech as much as possible.

One of the main things that must be done when giving a presentation is to practice the speech as much as possible. This is the only way of looking polished while speaking . It is indeed a false notion that using PowerPoint slides in a presentation will make a person a dynamic speaker. The process of becoming a dynamic speaker lies in the hand of the speaker. Only practice can make one a successful speaker, and this is one skill that cannot be delegated to anyone else. One of the best techniques to implement for practice is called bits. Here one practices a short piece of material repeatedly till perfect. It is not that you practice it for word, one just has to talk one’s way through the presentation! In this way, one can easily continue a presentation, even if there is a distraction while onstage. 

Props

If PowerPoint is not used in a presentation, it is important that props be used instead. This is because a prop is basically worth a thousand words. With props, people tend to anchor thoughts in their minds to these props. It is no different if the prop is large, small, funny, or serious if it relates to the point that you are trying to make and that the audience sees it! Another way of making sure that the audience loves you even though you don’t use PowerPoint in your presentation is to bring solutions to the problems they have. With your research of the audience, you would already have an idea of what their problems are; it is only up to you to bring new ideas to them to try. 

Deliver Presentation

Remember that when you are not using PowerPoint, you are the visual aid of the presentation. People will then gain more interest in whatever it is that you say, instead of visuals or fancy slides or overheads. So basically, without PowerPoint, it is important that the speaker be more self-confident and well-versed in his speech. Without this, it may be quite impossible to imagine giving a presentation without PowerPoint! 

Enjoyed this read ? Please share your thoughts in the comments section. There are many other blogs on this main page . Please check our write-up and have your say on it.

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Categories: Public Speaking

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presentations without powerpoint

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The 7 Best Free PowerPoint Alternatives for Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint is great, but what if you can't afford it? Here are the best free PowerPoint alternatives for presentations.

Microsoft PowerPoint has been around for a long while and so far it has served users well. However, because it's a paid program, not everyone can afford it.

Thankfully, there are many options available for users who want the functionality of Microsoft PowerPoint in a free-to-use package. In fact, some of them don't even require any downloads and are completely web-based.

1. Google Slides

By far the most popular PowerPoint alternative out there, Google Slides shines when it comes to collaboration. Multiple people can work simultaneously on a presentation and add new slides.

This is further strengthened by its availability. Google Slides works on your web browser and has apps for both iOS and Android.

Additionally, Google Slides keeps a record of all the changes users have made to a presentation, and you can easily restore your slideshow to a previous version. While anyone with a Gmail account can use Google Slides, G Suite users get added data protection.

Compared to PowerPoint, the number of templates, animation forms, and fonts is somewhat lacking. However, businesses tend to overlook these shortcomings on a day-to-day basis.

While Canva is primarily known as a photo editor and design tool, it is also a competent MS PowerPoint alternative.

One of Canva's main strengths is its ease of use. There are many beginner tutorial videos on the website if users do not understand something. Complete beginners can easily navigate through the minimalistic interface.

With the free version of Canva, you get access to over 8000+ presentation templates that exponentially speed up your workflow. Additionally, Canva still remains one of the easiest services to create infographics and charts in.

The only limiting thing with Canva is that it offers a basic set of tools and transitions at users' disposal. It's apparent that the company places more focus on photo editing and design aspect than anything else.

The Prezi presentation format is unique in the way that it lets you view slides. Instead of addressing multiple elements at once, Prezi gives viewers a single canvas that allows them to zoom in on different presentation parts. This provides a much more immersive experience.

Similar to Google Slides, Prezi supports the real-time collaboration of up to 10 users. Users can also add comments to indicate changes or report missing information. Prezi works on any modern web browser, and there are Android and iOS apps available as well.

Related: Powerful Google Chrome PDF Extensions and Apps

The Prezi software also has an analytics feature that helps users optimize their presentation by showing them which slides were the most viewed as well as which ones were skipped.

Even though the basic version of Prezi is free to use, it doesn't allow users to control the privacy of their presentation, which could be a dealbreaker for many. Additionally, due to the way Prezi works, there is a steep learning curve associated with it.

4. WPS Office Free

WPS Office is the closest alternative to PowerPoint when it comes to functionality and user interface. Plus, unlike the other web-based services on this list, you don't always need an active internet connection to use it.

With its complete support for PowerPoint files, users can edit existing PowerPoint documents with ease in WPS Office. They can also embed videos and animate individual objects, just like in Microsoft PowerPoint. It also offers many templates, so users can pick their favorite.

However, users should keep in mind that while the software is free, it is supported by ads, which may be a bit intrusive at times. In addition to this, collaboration is less straightforward than with Google Slides.

WPS Office is available across all major platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux. iOS, and Android. There is a web-based version available as well. Alternatively, you can check out this handy guide to smoothen your transition to WPS Office from Microsoft .

Xtensio is one of the best options for business users. It has many templates available regarding various organization sections, such as marketing, UX design, etc.

With Xtensio's easy-to-use interface, even newbies can create professional-looking reports and presentations. Additionally, they offer even greater flexibility in terms of design. You can edit each object in a template to suit your specific needs.

But it does have some shortcomings. For one thing, users cannot export their presentations in PowerPoint format. Additionally, the free version supports only one user at a time with a storage space of 1MB.

6. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is open-source presentation software that does everything PowerPoint can do. Although it lacks functionality such as OneDrive Integration, its PowerPoint-like functionality more than makes up for it.

LibreOffice has its share of useful features, such as the ability to import Keynote files. In addition, LibreOffice has a vast collection of free templates that users can use to create their presentations.

If that's not enough, you can download additional templates from LibreOffice's online repository. LibreOffice is available across Windows, macOS, and Linux.

7. Zoho Show

There are several reasons to use Zoho Show for your next presentation. It's a great presentation tool that's similar to Google Slides, but even better. Users can also import and edit all their PowerPoint files in the online tool.

Users can create tables, infographics, and data charts within Zoho Show itself. In addition to this, the service also has in-built Google Image Search functionality that lets you search and insert images quickly.

Related: Tools to Give an Online Presentation From Anywhere

Additionally, Zoho Show supports collaboration in real-time and multiple users can edit presentations. Although there's not much to complain about in Zoho Show, many users would like to have more options when it comes to templates and animations.

Worthy PowerPoint Alternatives

Essentially, all these tools and services function the same way as PowerPoint without the cost. Furthermore, the web-based alternatives are more advanced such as automatic saving and cloud storage.

Despite this, PowerPoint remains the front-runner when it comes to presentation software. As such, it is important for users to know how to make the best out of its features.

Creative presentation (without PowerPoint!)

Hi! I’m from Spain, and i ‘ve to make a presentation in the university (about an advertising agency) and i need some ideas for help me to do a creative presentation without PowerPoint. I know: it’s very useful sometimes, but aaaall guys are gonna use it and i want to be different and more “creactives”. I’ll really appreciate all your ideas, ’cause i don’t know very well how to do an exposition of 20minutes without make my teacher bored to stiff.

Lot of thanks!

Powerpoint is boring

There are many ways to make an exciting presentation without the use of powerpoint. People use powerpoint because it suggests the speaker is prepared. First you want to make an outline of your speech or presentation. Then divide the time in minutes to each line or category of content. I might recommend 3 main points and use a visual prop for each. You shouldn’t have any problem finding props for marketing agencies. It all depends on how detailed your topic may be. All marketing agencies market or advertise because that is what they do. You might want to use a newspaper ad, flyer, peice of mail, or even a telephone for a prop. These are avenues of marketing. If you are speaking on types of agencies then you can use visual aids like a barbie doll if it is a modeling agency, or a soda beverage container to distinguish the difference in looks and designs from their competitors. You really have to think outside the box here but the ideas are unlimited.

More to life than powerpoint

Powerpoint is a professional tool used in many presentations across the world. Have you ever heard the term peradigm? Paradigm is what we believe about something. Since the inception of Microsoft and the Microsoft Office package, we have been lead to believe that Powerpoint is the ONLY way to make an effective presentation. Guess what? There is more to life in the classroom besides boring powerpoint presentations. Bill Gates has done an outstanding job getting us to believe his product is the only option when it comes to making a presentation. Thinking outside the box is the only way to break away from this thinking. There are many tools that make an effective presentation. Most of these can be found on the internet just like this site. I suggest visual aides and props. Visual aides and props get the audience involved in the presentation. Ask questions to get them involved. Use illustrations that apply directly to the topic. The best example I can give would be the comedian called Carrot Top. He uses only visual props to entertain his audience. Just remember to map your outline and only use what is necessary to make your points. I never use powerpoint!

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How to Open PowerPoint Documents Without PowerPoint

Lee Stanton Read more July 2, 2021

Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to open a PowerPoint presentation but don’t have the program installed on your computer? Maybe you’re at work and forgot to bring your laptop. Or perhaps you’re using your friend’s home PC, which doesn’t have an up-to-date version of MS Office.

If this sounds like you, we’ve got some good news. There are plenty of tools that can help open that PowerPoint document, and you don’t even need to spend big to get them.

In this article, we’re going to take you through the different tools that you could use to open a PowerPoint file if you don’t have the program on your device.

PowerPoint Compatible Applications

Microsoft PowerPoint may be the Mona Lisa of presentation programs, but it’s definitely not the only well-known option in town. Whether you want to make your work stand out with some snazzy transitions and animations or need an easy-to-use tool for creating basic slide shows, there are plenty of options available on the market. These include web-based utilities like Google Docs Presentations, LibreOffice Impress, PowerPoint Viewer, NeoOffice, Slide Share, and others.

Let’s now see how each of these tools work.

1. Downloadable Programs

a) PowerPoint Online

PowerPoint Online is a cloud-based service from Microsoft that allows users to create, edit and share presentations on any of their devices. It provides high-quality presentation tools that let you design and collaborate with your team and automatically synchronize that information across your connected devices.

To use PowerPoint Online, all you need is a browser and a Microsoft account (hotmail.com, live.com, outlook.com, MSN, or even a Microsoft 365 work/school account). If you have the file on your computer, you can view it with one simple drag from your desktop to the PowerPoint web page. You can also use PowerPoint online to open files saved on Dropbox or OneDrive.

PowerPoint Online lets you share or collaborate with partners when giving presentations. So you’ll never have that awkward moment during work meetings where colleagues are trying to pass along an idea but can’t quite do so because they don’t have access to the specific content like you do.

b) PowerPoint Viewer

PowerPoint Viewer is a great tool to use if you want to view your PowerPoint presentations. It works well with password-protected documents and allows you to open, print, and share files with others. Although it doesn’t allow you to edit anything, you can see slideshows in their entirety and compile notes on ideas that may have been brewing while it was being created.

Although, Microsoft retired the original PowerPoint Viewer back in 2018, but we already have a few replacements designed for Windows 10 version 17763.0 or higher. A good example would be PPTX Viewer , which offers pretty much the same tools as the application originally developed.

2. Open-Source Tools

You’ll be pleased to learn that Microsoft PowerPoint isn’t the only tool you can use to power through a slideshow. There are plenty of open-source alternatives out there that don’t involve the default software package from Microsoft. In most cases, these alternatives are as good as PowerPoint itself, if not much better. Before looking at our top picks under this category, it’s important to understand what open-source tools are.

Open-source software is software whose source code is available to the public for reuse, study, and redistribution under a list of licensing terms that indicate various copyright responsibilities. Unlike proprietary software, no one owns open-source software. Everyone can modify it and share it with others. For this reason, you should always exercise caution before using any open source program for your presentations.

Here are our top open-source presentation tools:

a) Apache OpenOffice Impress

Apache OpenOffice Impress is a free and general-purpose office software compatible with many different kinds of documents. It includes a word processor (similar to Microsoft Word), a spreadsheet application (similar to Excel), and a presentation and graphics program (similar to PowerPoint). It is available in over 100 languages and also allows you to install third-party extensions for additional functionality.

To open a PowerPoint file with the help of Apache OpenOffice Impress:

Apache OpenOffice Impress is a versatile tool that allows you to view and create striking presentations. You can even enhance your presentations with 2D and 3D graphics, special effects, and animations. The toolbar and sidebar are incredibly user-friendly. There’s a “Properties” button to help you sort through slideshows as well as a “Navigator” button to enable you to navigate around with ease. In addition, a variety of formatting tools are available in the “Style” section located at the top of every slide.

Apache Open Office Impress might not have the best graphics but it certainly won’t disappoint. That said, there’s a minor learning curve involved, and it’s unlikely that you’ll hit the ground running. But once you conquer that hurdle and learn how all of its features work, you’ll be making high-quality presentations in no time.

b) LibreOffice Impress

LibreOffice’s presentation software is also named Impress. It’s synonymous with quality presentations that are just as good as those created using PowerPoint.

To open a PowerPoint file with LibreOffice:

LibreOffice Impress comes with a wide range of templates to choose from, but their basic layout can be tweaked by installing specific formatting add-ons. That includes animated transitions and decorative frames. So it’s a good pick if you need well-crafted presentations, complete with visual animations and powerful charts for your marketing campaign.

Libre Office and Apache OpenOffice are strikingly similar. As a result, some users use them interchangeably.

c) NeoOffice

NeoOffice is a free, open-source office suite for Mac that includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawing applications. It also allows you to open presentations initially created using LibreOffice or OpenOffice Impress.

 To open a PowerPoint presentation using NeoOffice:

NeoOffice comes with several benefits. First, you don’t have to use or subscribe to any particular service to work with your documents in the software. Second, it’s always up-to-date because the developers constantly monitor the program and install the updates by themselves. They don’t have to wait for official approval from a company owner such as Microsoft or Apple to release new features. Lastly, there are no commercial restrictions on downloading copies for multiple people at once.

3. Web-Based Tools

a) Google Docs Presentations

If you want to make a presentation without using PowerPoint, Google Slides is an excellent option. It lets users easily import their presentations and share them with others conveniently through the cloud. Although it doesn’t come with the same features as Microsoft PowerPoint, it’s one of the most user-friendly presentation tools.

If you want to open a PowerPoint file using Google Docs, here are the steps:

Besides viewing the file, you can also make further tweaks as you see fit. Additionally, you can download the presentation in various formats, including PPTX, ODP, PDF, JPEG, and TXT.

b) SlideShare

SlideShare is a social media site for presentations. Users can upload their slideshows and embed them on other websites. Presentations are typically viewed by browsing topics that others have uploaded within a specific category (e.g., business, marketing).

To open a PowerPoint file using SlideShare:

SlideShare comes with its limitations. Notably, you can only upload PPT files as static slideshows with no multimedia or animation effects. In addition, the quality of the text and images you create within your presentation is low since everything is saved in a raster format (720 x 480 pixels resolution).

Despite the low resolution, SlideShare presents one of the best ways to introduce yourself and your work in an interactive format that’s easy on the eyes. You’re able to create engaging, compelling, and immediately shareable presentations that can be accessed anytime.

F requently Asked Questions

How do i use powerpoint on a smartphone or tablet .

The Microsoft Office mobile app lets you read, view, and edit PowerPoint documents on the go with your iPad, iPhone, or Android device. You can store files in the cloud and access them from anywhere. The app is designed to work around your schedule by seamlessly syncing the files on your devices to provide online and offline support.

You can use the app to open files in your Google Drive or OneDrive account and quickly transfer them between devices. What’s more, you can create a document on one device and then continue editing it later on another device. Thus, the app is perfect for co-authoring with others.

The app is readily available in both the App Store and Google Play.

Make Presentations Like a Pro

PowerPoint is an excellent program for presentations, but its alternatives may work better depending on your needs. In this tutorial, we’ve shared information on how each of the available options works and what to do to view your document. We’re confident that this information will help you choose the perfect presentation tool for your next project.

Have you tried any alternatives to PowerPoint? Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.

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We dare you to ditch your slides: the no-slide presentation challenge.

presentations without powerpoint

Have you ever sat through a boring presentation? I’m going to guess your answer is “yes”. Invariably, when we ask this question to our program participants, all hands go up.

Think back to those presentations. I’m willing to bet there was a common element: a deck of densely packed  PowerPoint slides  behind the speaker.

Now, I don’t know about you, but as soon as I see slides like this in a presentation, my attention immediately starts to wane. You would think that visual information, graphics and graphs would enliven and enrich a presentation. But it’s not the software itself that’s the problem – it’s how it’s being used.

So how can we communicate more effectively –  without relying heavily on PowerPoint ?

In part one of our two-part video series  Presenting Without Slides,  I talk about why PowerPoint is such a presentation killer, and how to reframe your approach to using slide deck software in a way that is more  engaging to your audience .

1. Only use slides if they add value to your presentation

For tens of thousands of years, humans have demonstrated effective communication without PowerPoint. Global businesses have been built, wars won and lost, worlds ‘discovered’ and centuries of learning compiled and shared without the use of PowerPoint. Projected imagery itself is, of course, a modern invention.

And while there is value in visual aids, we need to start thinking of ourselves as communicators first.

If the PowerPoint deck communicates the message or is used to simply format content ideas, then hand it out for people to read and follow it with a Q&A. Presenting is foremost a spoken, auditory experience with the visuals providing support and value.

Each slide needs to be rigorously and brutally assessed with this question: “How does this slide enrich, deepen or support the message?”

2. Be confident presenting without props

Imagine you walk into the room – no PowerPoint presentation behind you, no notes, no visual aids, no clicker in hand. You simply stand there in front of your audience and speak with zest and authenticity.

If you do this, you convey to your audience the  quality of authority . You’re saying, “I am confident enough to stand before you without the props to help me, because I am enough. What I have to share and say is enough value in and of itself.”

When you own the space, you become the powerful communicator.

Ask yourself, “If the projector exploded, or the whiteboard magically melted, could I still deliver the outcome? Would I have enough confidence in myself to articulate and convey my messages in a manner that engages and enriches my audience – and deepens their ability to apply what I have presented?”

Your answer must be “Yes!” It’s that simple. And that challenging.

Don’t believe me? Well, why not try it for yourself?

3. See yourself as a visual aid

The third step to avoiding a dreary presentation is to think of yourself as a visual aid. Yes – you are the reference point! The other stuff you bring into the room is just collateral that either supports or distracts from what you have to say.

Your physiology, gestures and voice can create interest, intrigue, imagery and emphasis.

So forget the slideshow and become the performer. Become the presentation. Be original, be creative and only add slides and other tools to support your performance.

If you don’t feel quite up to it yet, don’t worry – we’ve got just the thing to help.

Join us at our next Public Speaking Workshop ,  save 22% with our Early Bird special by registering 1 month in advance.   Break the shackles of nerves and learn how to build and deliver engaging presentations to amplify your audience experience.

No more hiding behind PowerPoint slides – remember, it’s your message (and how you deliver it) that will make you a star!

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Scott Berkun

How to present well without slides.

If you were having an important conversation with a friend at a restaurant, would you pull out a projector and put your slides on the wall? They’d think you were crazy as would the people at other tables. Rather that look into your eyes or give full attention to your words, your friend would have their minds divided between you and the images you were showing simultaneously.

Which raises the question: why use presentation slides at all? Most important conversations you will have in your lifetime happen without slides. And ask anyone who works in media: if the power went out and they could only show your slides or broadcast your voice, they’d go with your voice. Your voice, what you say and how you say it, is the most important thing. If you listen to This American Life or The Moth , it’s clear how powerful a speaker can be with their voice alone.

Look at any list of the best speeches of all time  and you won’t find a single use of slides or other props. Of course slides and presentation software hadn’t been invented then so it’s unfair to make a direct comparison (For fun  see The Gettysburg Address as a bad Powerpoint deck ). Yet the question is easy to ask: would these speeches have been better if they were narrated over slides?

In many cases, no. You’d have to listen carefully to figure out when ideas would be better presented visually rather than with words alone, which is the secret for thinking about your own presentations: when do you truly need a visual image to express an idea? And when would it be better simply letting your voices tell the story?

Speaking without slides seems more challenging because:

Speaking without slides is often better because:

But slides do have some advantages, including:

When is it best to speak without slides?

If I’m asked to speak for 20 minutes or less I often go without slides. More than 20 minutes and the dynamics of attention are more complex and I typically use slides, though less than many speakers do. I give the same advice to others: the shorter the talk, the simpler your presentation should be.

How to prepare a slide-free presentation

In Chapter 5 of Confessions of a Public Speaker (“Do Not Eat The Microphone”) I provide a simple, well-tested method for preparing talks of any kind.  In short it looks like this:

This approach works with or without slides, but in all cases it forces you to develop your ideas into a solid outline and practice delivering it before you’d even consider making a slide . If you want to go entirely without slides, you’re already prepared for that. And if you decide as you revise that you need slides to best make your points, then add them, but only after you’ve proven their necessity by trying to present without them.

If you want your ideas to take center stage, the slides should come late in the process so that they are used only to support what you’re saying, rather than the other way around. Even if you are a visual thinker and need something to look at to develop your ideas, develop your ideas and rehearse assuming the slide deck is scaffolding you will remove . Don’t fall into the trap of polishing your slides and tweaking fonts when you should be revising your thoughts and practicing how you’re going to express them.

Given a choice between a great talk with lousy slides, and a lousy talk with great slides, what do you think most audiences would choose? Prepare accordingly.

What do you put on the screen if presenting at a slide-dominant event?

I simply put together a slide with my name, the title of the talk and the basic contact information I want to provide. There’s an argument that only having a single slide does far more to make you accessible to an audience interested in your work as the way to contact you is visible the entire time you’re speaking, instead of just at the end. Here are two examples from two different events:

economist-berkun

How do you get over the fear of forgetting something?

Many speakers use slides to mitigate fear. Slides used for this reason often come at the audience’s expense. It’s common to see speakers reading their own slides, or facing their slides as they present, clear signs they made their slides first, rather than constructing the presentation first and using slides to support their thoughts. Slides should be for the audience, not for you.

If you work hard to have clear points, and you practice it’s unlikely you’ll forget anything important. Even if you did forget something, only you will know. Since there are no slides, as the speaker only you know what you planned to say. You could skip an entire point or express it in a completely different way than you intended and no one will know but you.  Slides can lock you in and if you are a true expert on the subject you’re speaking about you may find advantages in flexibility.

The notecard

When I speak without slides I usually have one small piece of paper listing my 5 main points. For my recent keynote at Warm Gun 2013 on The Dangers of Faith in Data , here’s what I brought with me on stage:

data-talk-point-list

This notecard is short and simple. Since I’ve thought hard about this topic and have practiced the talk, all that I need the notecard to do is remind me of the next point, and the overall structure. I cheated on #5 as it has sub-bullets, but I simply found while practicing I couldn’t recall all three, so I wrote them down. Churchill and some other famous speakers used similar lightweight systems for their speeches.

You can see the notecard on the conveniently transparent lectern:

notes-on-stage2

What about the handout problem?

If I prepare my talk as described above, it’s easy to write up a blog post with the same structure.

Here’s the blog post, titled The Dangers of Faith In Data , which I wrote in less than an hour while the ideas were still fresh in my mind.

Watch the actual talk based on the above

Now that you know how I prepared and practiced, you can watch the actual talk and judge for yourself. You’ll see me look down at the notecard,  but it’s typically while I’m silent and trying to let the audience digest what I just said, while I collect myself to lead into the next thought.

Free Checklist For Great Talks (with or without slides)

You can download a handy, comprehensive, printable checklist for giving great presentations here  (PDF) based on the bestseller  Confessions of a Public Speaker .

12 Responses to “How to present well without slides”

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In the case of scientific seminar talks given to expert audiences, the slides are used to show actual data. So we have no choice but to use slides and make them the focus of the presentation. Although there is a special form of slideless presentation called a “chalk talk”, which entails explaining scientific shit using only a chalkboard, and usually with intensive audience participation: ongoing chiming in with questions, comments, and criticisms. The idea is that a chalk talk reveals whether someone can think on their feet without the crutch of slides, and they are used as an interviewing tool.

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I love this! I’ve been doing this for years successfully. Even won an award. I’m glad I’m not alone!

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For longer talks (more than 15 minutes) I like to have LOTS of notes when I speak, mostly to keep from getting ahead of myself; I also like to have those notes large enough to read from 10 feet away, so I can move around. “Presenter mode” with the notes section just doesn’t cut it, so I carry two laptops and write two sets of slides. One set is my speaking notes: very dense, lots of words, 100% inappropriate for showing to anyone but myself. The other set is what I show the audience: pictures, graphs, or just a few words to reinforce my point; often these slides will be repeated multiple times in a row so even though I’m clicking through them at a pretty fast clip, the audience sees a new slide only every 1-3 minutes.

The “secret” is to have exactly the same number of slides in each deck, and to have two receivers listening to a single “clicker.” I get as many notes as I want, in nice big fonts with plenty of color; the audience gets a very different “show”; everyone is happy.

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Thanks for sharing your method – I hadn’t heard of anyone who makes two sets of slides before.

I’ve found that from speaking so often and experimenting that the less materials I depend on while I’m speaking, the more comfortable I am, not less. But everyone is different of course.

Yes, absolutely. Back when I was doing full-time technical training I practically knew the material by heart. These days, however, I give maybe five presentations a year, only two of which are usually the same talk. Some I’ve done before but often as long as a year ago (and by then I’ve usually updated the material), but the rest are new “this time” and will likely never be given again. Also, most of my “presentations” are actually half-day tutorials, which means about three hours worth of material; I simply can’t remember that much unless I’m teaching it several times per month.

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My formal presentations always include slides because I’m talking about a visual subject, but it is ALL visual: no text, and certainly no bullet points (my personal pet peeve). It’s nice to know that I can give a presentation without them too, because any day I can literally be stopped in the hallway and told that there’s a tour group coming through and I need to give a talk *now*. It took me a while to get to that place, but knowing your subject inside and out and having a crazy passion about it helps.

I have to give props to Toastmasters too. I used to have a deathly fear of public speaking, but that environment really helped. Plus, it was all talk, no slides!

Makes sense to me. There are certainly plenty of situations where slides are essential. An artist talking about their work is one of many.

[…] E început de an, deci probabil toți discutăm o strategie, un buget sau planuri pentru 2014. Ce facem când trebuie să prezentăm ceva fără ajutorul unui suport grafic? Scott Berkun, autorul Confesiunile unui vorbitor public ne oferă câteva sfaturi pentru prezentări memorabile. […]

[…] How To Present Well Without Slides […]

[…] Interesting post by Scott Berkun on not using a presentation tool. […]

[…] Secret: Presentation expert Scott Berkun writes out his 3-5 main points on an index card and keeps it in his back pocket when he speaks. […]

[…] How to present well without slides (by Scott Berkun) […]

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If you're looking for professional presentation tool like Microsoft PowerPoint. Here's a list of the best PowerPoint alternatives to use.

Oladimeji Shadrach

If you’re looking for the best Microsoft PowerPoint alternatives to make presentations. You’ve come to the right place, we’ve handpicked some software that’ll let you design presentations without depending on PowerPoint.

When it comes to creating and delivering presentations, Microsoft PowerPoint is undoubtedly the most popular tool available. Aside from its popularity, everyone knows PowerPoint is quite easy to use. But to get PowerPoint, one would need Microsoft Office Suite and that sometimes costs much.

Well, there are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint. That’s why today at NaijaKnowHow , we’ve curated the best PowerPoint alternatives for making presentations.

Table of Contents

List of The Best PowerPoint Alternatives for Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint does a great job when it comes to making presentations, but it’s not the only one out there. You can check other presentation makers like PowerPoint below.

Best PowerPoint Alternatives

Prezi offers a library of pre-designed templates and graphics for any type of presentation. Over the years it has been one of the best PowerPoint alternatives. Prezi is a cloud-based presentation maker, it is quite different from Microsoft PowerPoint and you don’t need to download or install it.

With Prezi, you can create dynamic and engaging presentations that stand out from the rest. Prezi’s unique zooming and panning features make it easy to create an interactive presentation that captures the attention of your audience. Unlike PowerPoint, which uses a slide-by-slide approach, Prezi allows you to zoom in and out of different sections of your presentation, creating a non-linear storytelling experience.

Best PowerPoint Alternatives

Visme shares some similarities with Prezi and they’re both cloud-based presentation makers. If you’ll like to design beautiful presentations or infographics, Visme is one of the best tools you can use, it also allows users to design social media graphics and it offers a lot of features as well. If you don’t want to design from scratch, you can pick from different variety of templates and design elements.

Visme has a drag-and-drop interface, that makes it easy to create and design presentations without stress. You can make professional looking designs with Visme, any project done with Visme can be shared anywhere including social media platforms .

Keynote

Just like how PowerPoint is owned and developed by Microsoft, Keynote is a presentation software owned by Apple. If you’re a macOS and iOS user, you’ll be able to have access to this presentation tool. There’s a lot you can do with Keynote and it offers all the great features found in presentation software.

You can use Keynote to create beautiful presentations, Keynote is quite popular very popular because of the tools and templates it has. Keynote offers a variety of pre-designed themes and layouts, as well as animation and transition options to bring your presentation to life. One of the best PowerPoint alternatives for presentations is Keynote.

4. Google Slides

Best PowerPoint Alternatives

Google Slides is a great option for those who prefer a simple, intuitive interface and don’t need all the bells and whistles of other presentation software. With Google Slides, you can create, edit, and share presentations online, and collaborate with others in real time.

Google Slides offers a variety of templates, themes, and font options, making it easy to create a professional-looking presentation quickly. Since Google Slides is cloud-based, your presentation is automatically saved to the cloud, ensuring that you never lose your work.

Best PowerPoint Alternatives

Canva is known to serve a lot of purposes, it is arguably the best graphics design platform you’ll see online. With Canva, you can create logos, flyers, banners, social posts and a lot more. Despite a large number of Canva alternatives out there, it still stands out and it is also perfect for making presentations.

Canva’s presentation tool includes a library of templates, images, and graphics that make it easy to create beautiful presentations. Canva’s drag-and-drop interface also makes it easy to add and arrange elements on your slides. You’ll find Canva to be very easy to use, it has a less complicated interface compared to Microsoft PowerPoint.

Powtoon

Another presentation tool on the list is Powton. You only need your web browser to get started on Powtoon. Powtoon is a very popular presentation maker just like Microsoft PowerPoint. Powtoon’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create engaging and interactive presentations, and the platform includes a library of pre-made templates and characters.

There are a lot of features you’ll find on Powtoon, while creating presentations with Powtoon, users can add voiceovers, music and any sound effects that they want. Powtoon is well known for its ability to create all sorts of animations on it. If you’re looking for one of the best presentation tools out there, Powtoon is one of them.

Emaze

Aside from being a powerful presentation maker, Emaze can be used for other animation tasks well, you can use it to create website layouts, and it has both 3D and parallax effects as well. Emaze offers cloud services and offline services. If you want to use it offline, all you need to do is download it on your PC.

Emaze is one of the best PowerPoint alternatives to create nice presentations. Emaze also offers collaboration and sharing features, as well as the ability to integrate with other platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Emaze is a great option for those who want to create presentations that incorporate multimedia elements and offer a unique visual experience.

8. Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck

One of the easiest ways to create presentations online is with Haiku Deck. Even if you’re coming out as a starter, there’s no need to stress much. With Haiku Deck, you’ll find different presentation templates that you can edit and make your work easier. There’s no doubt that Haiku Deck is one of the best PowerPoint alternatives out there.

One of the unique features of Haiku Deck is its image library, which includes millions of high-quality images that you can use in your presentations. Haiku Deck also allows you to import images from your own library or from social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook .

In conclusion, these are the best Microsoft PowerPoint alternatives for presentations. These alternatives might not have a big name like PowerPoint. But if you’ll to make beautiful presentations, you can always use them. They all offer different features, you can create awesome looking slides with them.

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A world of presentations without PowerPoint

presentations without powerpoint

Word Count: 738

Summary: Most of the presentations made nowadays are made with the help of PowerPoint. There are also class teachers and lecturers who use PowerPoint to make the teaching and learning process more interesting. However, it is the professional who makes presentations without the use of PowerPoint, while following some of their age-old beliefs for presentations.

Most of the presentations made nowadays are made with the help of PowerPoint. There are also class teachers and lecturers who use PowerPoint to make the teaching and learning process more interesting. However, it is the professional who makes presentations without the use of PowerPoint, while following some of their age-old beliefs for presentations.

Presentations without PowerPoint prove to be quite boring. This is because the presentation will be monotonous, with no music background or visual aids to help in the presentation. PowerPoint presentations usually provide a change for the audience in the presentation, and also give the crowd some visual explanations to the points that are being told in the presentation. So without PowerPoint in the presentation, it is very important that the presenter use some creativity in the presentation. This is because it is only this creativity that will keep the audience interested and motivated in the presentation!

The most important thing that has to be remembered to give a successful presentation without PowerPoint is to exactly know what you are talking about. If you are well versed with the matter you intend to present, you can very well present it without the help of PowerPoint. However, make sure to make your presentation only after learning about the temperament and nature of your audience. Remember that it is of no use talking to the audience as a group of employees. Instead, make it a point to tailor your presentation to meet the intellectual of the audience you are facing.

When beginning the presentation, you have to present it while keeping the end of the presentation in mind. You have to know what the purpose of your presentation is, as without PowerPoint you might lose the interest of the audience! Make sure you see, hear and feel what exactly it is that you want people to respond to in whatever it is that you say. Make a strong start to your presentation. Without PowerPoint, it is very much important that the first words and your appearance set the right tone for the audience to listen to you throughout the presentation. One of the best ways of making a connection with the audience without the help of PowerPoint is to tell a story, or an anecdote that has universal appeal.

One of the main things that has to be done when giving a presentation is to practice on the speech as much as possible. This is the only way of looking polished while speaking. It is indeed a false notion that using PowerPoint slides in a presentation will make a person a dynamic speaker. The process of becoming a dynamic speaker lies in the hand of the speaker. Only practice can make one a successful speaker, and this is one skill that cannot be delegated to anyone else. One of the best techniques to implement for practice is called bits. Here one practices a short piece of material over and over again till perfect. It is not that you practice it for word for word, one just has to talk one’s way through the presentation! In this way, one can easily continue a presentation, even if there is a distraction while onstage.

If PowerPoint is not used in a presentation, it is important that props be used instead. This is because a prop is basically worth a thousand words. With props, people tend to anchor thoughts in their minds to these props. It is no difference if the prop is large, small, funny or serious, as long as it relates to the point that you are trying to make and that the audience sees it! Another way of making sure that the audience loves you despite the fact that you don’t use PowerPoint in your presentation is to bring solutions to the problems they have. With your research of the audience, you would already have an idea to what their problems are; it is only up to you to bring new ideas to them to try.

Remember that when you are not using PowerPoint, you are the visual aid of the presentation. People will then gain more interest in whatever it is that you say, instead of visuals or fancy slides or overheads. So basically, without PowerPoint, it is important that the speaker be more self-confident and well versed in his speech. Without this, it may be quite impossible to imagine giving a presentation without PowerPoint!

Eli Logan is an award winning entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience emphasizing sales, marketing, and innovation in the Energy, Engineering, Transportation, Motorsports and Face To Face Marketing Industries. Eli is highly innovative with excellent relationship building skills as evidenced by the successful formation and operation of 24 business units resulting in 16.4 Billion in economic impact for his clients.

Originally posted 2021-11-24 13:32:00.

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Eli’s expertise was developed through a series of successful ventures including B2B trade show development and management, developing and utilizing effective content platforms, in addition to automates sales and marketing adaptations. Additionally he has founded sales and service operations in the energy industry.

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How to Deliver a Memorable Presentation without Powerpoint

Yes, you CAN deliver a memorable presentation without PowerPoint!

But will you be memorable?

ABSOLUTELY.

People spend far too much time preparing PowerPoint or Prezi slides for a presentation and not enough time thinking about how to influence audiences, so today we want to give you some tips on how you can deliver a memorable presentation without PowerPoint.

Your slides are an aid to your presentation, but they’re not the presentation itself.  The more you stand side-on to an audience reading from them, the more likely you are to have zero impact.

Yes, you’ll survive.  And yes, everyone will tell you were great! (No-one will want to hurt your feelings).  But no-one will remember a thing you said.

Here’s another way.

Ask yourself what you want your audience to think, feel, do or believe?  Are you there to educate?  To motivate?  To entertain? Your presentation needs a purpose.  And the answer to this question gives your presentation its shape.

Once you’ve answered that question, the opening line of your presentation becomes obvious. For example:

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. My aim today is to inspire you to quit your very safe day job and pursue your dream of owning your own business.”

You’ve told them exactly why you are there and what you plan to achieve. This gives them a clear direction, and something to look forward to!

Now you’ve got their attention, take them on a journey.

Think of one, two or three reasons –  no more – why people should do just that: quit their day job and start a business.  These reasons will become the key messages you want the audience to remember.

My own three reasons for owning a PR consultancy are these – autonomy, job satisfaction and financial freedom.

So here’s your presentation so far.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, my aim today is to inspire you to quit your very safe day job and pursue your dream of owning your own business. I know you’ve got a dream like this. Now there are three reasons why everyone should live life without a safety net and pursue this dream.  The first is autonomy – having complete control over your own life. Imagine that. The second is job satisfaction.  Having your clients hug you, when they adapt your ideas and it changes their lives.  I can tell you, that’s a great feeling. And the third is financial freedom.  No longer just working for wages, but tasting some profit as well.”

That’s the introduction to your presentation.  You’re sixty seconds in, no Power Point in sight.  And you have the attention of the entire room.  They’re open to the proposition you’re making, and ready to go on a journey.

Your introduction gives you the structure for your presentation.  Stay with what you’ve promised and don’t introduce any other themes.  You stated your purpose and key messages in the introduction. Now repeat those messages and elaborate on them. Use the same order as in the introduction.

Illustrate your key messages with personal stories or real industry case studies.  The more personal and emotional the better.  You won’t need Power Point, you won’t need notes and what you say will be unforgettable.

Here’s how you might unpack the first key message in your presentation.

“The first reason you should quit your very safe day job and pursue your dream of owning your own business is autonomy.  If you’re a natural boss, who has been masquerading as an employee for twenty years, business ownership is for you.  If you’re a parent who regrets missing out on limitless precious moments with your children, the autonomy of business ownership is for you.  My drive to starting my own PR firm was a combination of these.  I’ve always been the dad who purposely worked 5.00am starts in the newsroom so I could be there when my kids got home.  I’ve never been able to understand the kind of reasoning that puts children as top priority in theory, but not in practice.  I came from a small business family, and I’ve  watched them make a success of things while I’ve been toiling away at the ABC.  Not long ago, I decided it was time for a change.”

My presentations continue with the rest of my story. I highlight the autonomy I’ve enjoyed since leaving news reporting.  How I’ve lost weight and felt better. The better work/life balance I’ve had, and quality time with my children.

Then I stay with the structure, deliver my second key message and illustrate that with a personal story. Likewise for the third key message.

Finally, I summarise and round things off.  A good conclusion is simply the introduction restated. Don’t be afraid to use the same phrasing. It reaffirms your message.

“ So in conclusion my aim here today was to inspire you to quit your very safe day job and pursue your dream of owning your own business.  How did I go?  Hands up If I’ve got you thinking. Now there’s three reasons why everyone should live life without a safety net and pursue this dream.  The first is autonomy.  Having complete control over your own life – imagine that.  The second is job satisfaction.  Having your clients hug you, when they adapt your ideas and it changes their lives.  And the third is financial freedom.  No longer just working for wages, but tasting some profit as well. Thanks for having me.”

Stand back and enjoy the applause.

No power point, no notes, just a purpose and three key messages illustrated with personal examples.

You’ll notice that there is a lot of repetition.  This is what helps your audience to remember what you say. Reaffirming things helps them resonate.  Give them the same messages at the start, in the middle and at the end.

Make it emotional, tell stories and you will never be forgotten.

At Good Talent Media, we want you to be memorable in the boardroom for all of the RIGHT reasons.  You can find out more about our presentation training services here .

If you’ve got some presentation stories to share, leave us a comment.  Maybe it was a memorable presentation for all the wrong reasons.

Tony Nicholls

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Create free presentations without PowerPoint

Can't afford Microsoft's venerated program? Or maybe you want to build slide decks that really stand out? Try one of these PowerPoint killers.

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Everybody likes to make fun of PowerPoint, but when it comes to expressing your ideas, making your pitch, and so on, the slide deck remains one of the most effective tools.

That said, PowerPoint isn't exactly free, and I suspect most seasoned users would agree it hasn't evolved much over the years. What if you want to integrate, say, a live Twitter feed in your presentation, or move beyond static slides?

Good news: There are plenty of PowerPoint alternatives, some of them free, some of them capable of adding considerably more pizzazz to your materials. In addition to the obvious PowerPoint clones -- Google Docs, OpenOffice Impress, Zoho Show and so on -- make sure to check out these three free outliers:

Price: Free

Claim to fame: Media-rich presentations

Summary: Currently in beta, the newly rebuilt Bunkr lets you whip up presentations inside your browser, but with a twist: It's designed to incorporate not just your own content (text, photos, etc.), but also a wide range of Web stuff.

bunkr.jpg

Thus, for any given slide, you can embed photos from your cloud-storage services, video from the likes of YouTube and Vimeo, feeds from Instagram and Pinterest, charts from Infogram and Chartblocks, audio from Spotify and Soundcloud and so on. This might be single most Web-savvy presentation tool ever.

It is not, however, the most versatile. Although you can choose from a smattering of background colors for your entire presentation (not individual slides), there are no font or transition options, at least for the moment. (Bunkr is currently in beta.)

Even so, Bunkr offers a fast and easy way to produce media-rich slide decks.

Price: Free (in-app purchases available)

Claim to fame: iPad-powered (but also Web-based)

Summary: If you've ever tried to build a presentation from scratch, you know that half the battle is finding interesting and/or informative visuals to drive home your message. Haiku Deck solves that problem by providing quick and easy access to millions of Creative Commons images, with premium Getty images available for purchase if needed.

haiku-deck-sample.jpg

Cooler still, Haiku Deck automatically queues up a list of available options based on words you've added to your slides. Tap the one you want, and bam: the perfect background.

The tool started out as an iPad app, but there's now a Web-based version as well. If you're looking to build slides that are heavy on imagery, this is the place to start.

Price: Free; Pro plans start at $10/month

Claim to fame: Animated presentations

Summary: Prezi is the anti-PowerPoint, a presentation tool that doesn't just flip or swipe from one slide to the next. It flies , Google Earth-style, from one set of data to another. Sounds simple, but when you see it action, you'll loathe the idea of going back to static slides.

This is better shown than explained, so take a look at this sample:

You can build your presentations in your browser, but if you want to work offline, you'll need to download a version for Windows, Mac, or iOS. The service is free, too, though business users may want to consider one of the premium plans. These start at $10 per month (or $59 annually) and include private presentations, considerably more storage, custom logos and 24-7 support.

Unless you create a lot of materials, a presentation subscription service may seem like overkill. But Prezi really does add some cool visual flair to the experience, and if it helps you dazzle your audience, well, it might just be worth it.

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7 Tips for presentation with and without PowerPoint slides

We show you how to present correctly

successful presentation of a project in factory planning with planning software

Stuffed PowerPoint, Prezi or Google slides, overwhelmed listeners and presentations where hardly anyone can tell what it was all about afterwards. Unfortunately, this is the daily routine in many meeting rooms. We provide you with presentation techniques that will help you present your work properly and inspire your audience. The seventh tip at the end of this article, may even be the alternative to slides in your presentation for you.

Again and again, we have to present interim results of our work, ideas or new knowledge. That’s reason enough to get to grips with modern presentation techniques. We will therefore show you tips for your presentation that will not only help you give better talks, but also inspire your listeners! The principle is very simple: make it as easy as possible for your audience. Because at its core, it’s always about not overwhelming your audience.

1. One statement per slide

A common mistake is overloaded PowerPoint slides. The result is too much text across too many topics. Yet the opposite is better. This is because your audience is only capable of dealing with one statement at a time. Focus on one keyword or question and your audience will focus on your slide. After all, a PowerPoint presentation is not a handout, even you can create one with it.

2. Do not overload the head

Every member of the audience must be able to absorb the information on your slides. He does that in his working memory. This is something like short-term memory, except that the content can also be processed at the same time. However, there is one limitation: you can either listen or read. So if there are whole paragraphs on your slide and you are narrating in the meantime, your listeners have to decide between listening and reading. You can’t do both at the same time. So limit your PowerPoint content to a little text, preferably only keywords, and create a good, understandable image. If you use a self-explanatory video, just keep quiet until the video stops. Tell your audience the rest but never both at the same time.

3. The more important, the bigger

Most PowerPoint slides have one thing in common: big headline, small text. However, since our attention is focused on the largest object first, everyone focuses on the headline first. But that doesn’t contain the message of the slide. Therefore, it makes sense to make important elements larger than the less important ones. Create consciously focus points with bigger text.

4. Contrast draws the focus

In addition to size, contrast also determines what the audience focuses on. Conversely, this also means that if the elements do not stand out from each other, the viewer’s eye will wander aimlessly across the slide. Therefore, provide the element you are talking about with the strongest contrast. For example, change the font color of the words in a bulleted list of your PowerPoint. The keyword you are talking about is clearly visible, all others are grayed out. Or create highlights for individual parts of a PowerPoint graphic one at a time. This way your audience can follow you step by step.

5. Black background for relaxed eyes

We are used to slides always having a bright white background, but this is not a law of nature. A black basic layout for slides is much more relaxing for the eyes. Plus, you don’t have to fight your presentation for the audience’s attention. After all, the slides are only a tool of your presentation and you as the presenter are the focus of attention.

6. Use objects sparingly

It’s not the number of slides that is one of the big problems with bad presentations, but the number of objects on each slide. From the headline to the page number, everything gradually grabs the attention of the audience. The more different objects a brain has to grasp, the busier it gets and the more it can’t listen to you. Therefore, limit yourself to a maximum of 6 objects and only fade in those elements that are important for the context of your presentation. Avoid cluttered slides and create a clean and professional-looking presentation. Be sure to avoid animations or videos that are constantly repeating in a loop, such as spinning logos. This equals a hypnotic distraction for your audience. 🙂

7. Can you do without PowerPoint slides?

Creating an interactive presentation is especially for factory planning a possibility to turn the audience into participants and to raise the common understanding of your work to a new level. Question yourself, does your next meeting even need PowerPoint slides? Or does your planning software already offer great ways to directly visualize metrics and the 3D layout of the factory similar to an easy-to-grasp video? There are always PowerPoint alternatives that might be a better fit for your content to be presented. If this topic interests you, take a look at the following blog articles:

5 ideas to make your project presentation more successful

3 ideas on how to convince with your planning concept!

What does an easy-to-use VR app for factory planning look like?

Your audience will thank you

Presenting properly is not a matter of impressive animations or stunning graphics. It’s about your audience being able to follow you as easily as possible. With our presentation techniques, you can make your message resonate with your audience and, most importantly, stick. This way you communicate better what you do and what you can do. Try it out right away.

And if you don’t want to miss any more articles from us, sign up for our blog news here!

No problem, simply subscribe to our Blog-News!

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presentations without powerpoint

Record your presentation

You can record your PowerPoint presentation—or just a single slide—and capture voice, ink gestures, and your video presence. The completed recording is like any other presentation. You can play it for your audience in Slide Show or you can export it as a video file. So instead of just handing the deck to someone, people can see your presentation with all your passion and personality intact. 

Record is an improved version of Record Slide Show for PowerPoint for Windows. The feature replaces the older experience and provides enhanced capabilities for capturing your presentations for later viewing.

Your browser does not support video. Install Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash Player, or Internet Explorer 9.

What's new?

New access points for recording a video of the presentation .

Record button in top bar

New features added for recording video

The new Record window has two screens: Record and Export .

When you select Record , the Record screen opens by default.

Record screen

If you select Export in the top right of the Record screen, the Export screen opens.

Export screen

You can switch between the Record and Export screens using the  Record  and Export  buttons in the top bar of the window. 

New features added to the Record window

You'll see the following new features in the Record window:

Teleprompter view

You can also use the seek bar to skip to any point while you're previewing the video on the current slide.

New Export window

The  Export  window is another change with the Record feature. After recording, you’ll be lead through instructions to create a shareable video file of your presentation. By default, the video is in Full HD 1080p resolution in an mp4 format and will be saved to the same location where the presentation is stored.

Export window

The exported video includes all recorded timings, narration, animations, transitions, media, ink, and laser pointer gestures. If there's no recorded timings for a slide in the presentation, the slide will be displayed for 5 seconds in the exported video by default. 

By default, the exported video has the same filename as the presentation, but you can create a unique filename for the exported video, if you want. 

Depending on the size of your presentation, it may take a few minutes to export. After the export starts, you can track its progress in the  Export  window. You can also exit the  Record  window and track the progress in the status bar in PowerPoint. 

The  Customize Export  button takes you to the backstage export menu to change resolution and time spent on each slide in the exported video. 

Recording tips

Recordings are added to the presentation on a per-slide basis. If you want to change a recording, you can re-record one or more slides. You can rearrange the order of slides in a recorded presentation without having to re-record anything. This also means it's easy to pause for a break while recording a presentation.

PowerPoint doesn't record audio or video during transitions between slides, so be sure not to narrate while advancing the slide. There's also a brief buffer of silence at the beginning and the end of each slide.

Use video preview to make sure everything is set up correctly before recording.

Presentation recording works best with touch-screen PCs that have a web camera but you can use an external webcam and/or microphone.

If you're using PowerPoint on a tablet or laptop and you're inking with a stylus, you can use an external camera and microphone to minimize stylus noise.

After you finish your first slide recording, play it back to make sure your audio and video are set up the way you expect.

You can adjust and edit the size of video and ink in edit view.

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When a speaker reads too much from their slides the presentation can be boring

Hi, I’m Shola and today I’m answering the question, how do you make a presentation without PowerPoint? Now I know that this is one that strikes fear into the heart of a lot of presenters because they tend to use their slides, whether it’s PowerPoint or Keynote or Prezi, or what are some of the other presentation software? Google Slides. They tend to use their slides, their presentations, as a crutch and they use those slides to help them pace the presentation to know where to go next and even to know what to say. And we’ve all seen presenters who literally just read the content that’s on the slides, maybe they’ve got so much there that they can actually read word for word what’s on the slide, and that is the entire presentation. And that is boring, right? Because if we can read it, we don’t necessarily need somebody there to actually say it to us, okay?

I suggest either scaling back on the slides or using none

So I always say to my clients, if somebody can get the entire beef, the gist, the value from your presentation without you needing to even be there, they can just read the slides and learn everything, then you’ve included too much information on your slides. So it’s all very well to scale that back, but what about if you have no slides at all? How are you going to cope my dear? Well, let’s talk about that now. So there’s a number of things that you can do to help you if you have to give a presentation without slides. Now, the first one might well be memorizing word for word. I typically don’t enjoy doing that unless it’s a really big speech and it’s very, very important, or big presentation, super important to have it all down. So I would use that as a last resort, because if you forget one or two words, it can completely derail the entire presentation and throw you right off. So you don’t want that to happen. But you can use devices like… Not a device, it’s actually a memory aid.

If you have no slides use a memory palace or note cards

So it’s called a memory palace, and that’s where you associate certain… You visualize a room or a building or a house in your mind, and you associate certain rooms and items in the house with certain parts of your presentation. It’s not something I’m going to go into here, but if you go onto YouTube and just do a Google search for memory palace, then you’ll find a lot of information about that. So that can help, it’s something I’ve tried in the past which has been very useful. Other ways that you can do this are you can use note cards, okay? So note cards can be excellent for helping you when you don’t have a PowerPoint presentation to guide you. And what you want to do is just get those three by five inch note cards, and rather than writing really tiny and cramming it all onto one card, you’re better off just having a few words per card, or perhaps two or three bullet points per card, written up nice and big so that you can easily read it without having to put the cards right in your face, okay?

Include your aids in rehearsal so they become a part of your presentation

So you can just pull it out or pick it up from a table, just glance at it, and it gives you the direction for where you’re going to go with your presentation. So note cards can be really helpful. I don’t see them as cheating or taking the easy way out, but it’s just providing you with a bit of extra support, bit of peace of mind knowing that if you do forget where you’re going, you’ve got something there to help you. Or you can actually have them as an intrinsic part of your presentation and when you rehearse, you know that on the big day you are going to use the note cards. That’s completely fine, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

If you have note cards put them on the lectern but don’t stand behind it the whole time

So those are a couple of solutions that you can use. Other ones could be, for example, that if there’s a lectern or even a table where you’re presenting, you could have some notes on that lectern. I always advise people to not stand behind the lectern when they’re presenting, because it creates a physical barrier between you and the audience and you don’t want that. You want the audience to have access to all of you to be accessible by having your body visible to the audience. So you don’t necessarily want to cling behind the lectern the whole time, because that can also be perceived as being a bit afraid of the audience. But you can have your notes on the lectern and then have a glance, walk out, say a little bit, come back and you can even rehearse that way.

Don’t try to memorise word for word and use aids instead

So you can rehearse when are you going to go glance at the lectern, when are you going to flip to the next slide? Just make that an intrinsic part of your presentation and in that way, you won’t have any surprises on the day. Quite often people say, “Oh, I’m going to memorize all of this. I won’t use the cards,” and then of course nerves come into it, or we just feel a bit less confident than we did when we were rehearsing and we feel we need them, but we haven’t really integrated them properly into the presentation. So things go a bit clunky. Or I did a presentation once where I didn’t have any slides, but I had some A4 bits of paper, like this, big bits of paper. And I think it was in a school. This is a few years ago, and I was standing up in front of the entire five or 600 people, and the bits of paper that I had got stuck together.

Use material you can easily handle on stage, like small note cards

So I was trying to speak and turn or exchange sheets of paper and they got stuck together. So I was trying to make this thing happen, you can see them here, while I was trying to speak and it didn’t come across very smoothly. So I wouldn’t recommend that. But anything where you’re taking bits of A4 paper or exercise books while you’re trying to present, complete no no, okay? The best thing is to have little cards that you can easily turn over one after another. If you’ve got exercise books and you’re rustling bits of paper, that is so unprofessional, so try and avoid anything like that if you possibly can.

Make a final decision about your slides by considering what fits your content and your audience best

So I hope that helps, a few tips there how you can make your presentation without PowerPoint. You don’t have to have PowerPoint or slideware when you’re presenting. You absolutely don’t. And it can be a much nicer experience for your audience when you don’t have that. However, some people will say, “Oh, I never use slides,” and they’re really proud of themselves. But thinking about slides, if you use lots of nice images that tie in with your presentation, or of course, sometimes you may have data to present, sometimes slides are essential and they will improve the audience experience of your presentation. So I don’t necessarily think that the people who don’t use slides are better than those that do, but you’ve got to decide what’s the best thing for your audience in this situation, and also for you to give your audience the best experience of you and your information that you possibly can. Hope that helps, take care. See you next time. Bye-bye.

______________________________ Shola Kaye is an award-winning speaker, author and professional speaker coach with clients around the world. Her work has been mentioned in Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar and on the BBC. Need a speaker or a top notch coach to work with your people? – Get in touch at [email protected] – Organisations: book Shola to work with your team https://sholakaye.com/public-speaking-coach – Need a speaker for your event? https://sholakaye.com/speaking – Individuals : download a free guide to help you structure your next presentation quickly and easily https://sholakaye.com/shortspeech – Individuals and business owners : download a free guide to help you find more speaking opportunities https://sholakaye.com/27places

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10 Free PowerPoint Templates for Your Next Presentation

A free Office suite fully compatible with Microsoft Office

Giving a presentation doesn't have to be a difficult endeavor. With the proper equipment, you can create a powerful presentation that will impress your audience. One of the most important tools you need is a good template. A well-designed template can give your presentation a professional look and help you stay organized. That's why we've gathered 10 free PowerPoint templates for you to use in your next presentation. These free PowerPoint templates are high-quality and easy to use, and best of all, they're free!

1. Fresh General Plant Work Summary

This free PowerPoint template is perfect for presentations related to botany, plant care, and environmental studies. It has a bright green background with a modern design that will get your message across effectively.

2. Simple Blue Business Plan

This  free PowerPoint template has a sleek blue background and organized slides that are perfect for creating a business plan. With its clean and modern design, your presentation will be sure to stand out from the crowd.

3. Fashion General Business Report

This free PowerPoint template is perfect for fashion-related presentations. It has an eye-catching pink background and modern fonts that are sure to grab the attention of your audience.

4. Small Fresh Aesthetic Work Report

This free PowerPoint template has a light and airy feel, with soft pastel colors and a minimalist design. It is perfect for any type of presentation related to aesthetics or the creative arts.

5. Green General Business Plan :

This free PowerPoint template has a bright green background that will add some energy to your presentation. The organized slides are great for creating a business plan, and the modern design will help to keep your audience engaged.

6. Black Gold Style Product Project Proposal

This gorgeous  free PowerPoint template has a luxurious black and gold background that will make sure your presentation stands out from the crowd. The organized slides are perfect for crafting an impressive product proposal.

7. Fashionable Business Plan

This modern and stylish free PowerPoint template has an eye-catching black background that is sure to turn heads. The organized slides make it easy to create a professional business plan.

8. Yellow Simple Work Report

This cheerful template has a bright yellow background and simple design that will make your presentation stand out without overwhelming the audience. The organized slides are perfect for presenting data and facts.

9. Summary Report in Creative Years

This unique file free PowerPoint template has a creative and modern design that is perfect for summarizing your data in an engaging way. The organized slides will make it easy to put together a comprehensive report.

10. White and Green Minimalist Annual Summary

This free PowerPoint template file is perfect for creating an annual summary. It has a clean white background with green accents, and the organized slides make it easy to compile all of your data into one comprehensive presentation.

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Microsoft Copilot leak shows AI automatically creating a PowerPoint presentation

Microsoft is holding a big ai for work event later today, and it looks like a new copilot for office apps is on the way..

By Tom Warren / @ tomwarren

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An illustration of Microsoft’s new Copilot feature for Microsoft 365

Microsoft is holding a big AI event later today, but one of the announcements appears to have just leaked. Twitter user h0x0d has published details of a PowerPoint Copilot feature, which appears to include ChatGPT-like AI that will create presentations for you.

The Copilot appears in a sidebar in an online version of PowerPoint where you can ask the assistant to create a presentation based on a Word document. PowerPoint then immediately drafts a presentation, complete with a full slide deck based on the contents of the Word document supplied.

There are even options to ask the Copilot assistant to “add animations to this slide” or “apply a modern style to the presentation,” suggesting that you’ll also be able to control PowerPoint features using this chatbot. This could let PowerPoint users customize slides without having to know exactly how to use some of the more complex features that exist in Microsoft’s productivity apps.

The feature looks similar to how Google will use AI in Slides to add imagery, audio, and video to illustrate presentations. Google announced its AI additions to Gmail, Docs, Slides, and other Google Workspace productivity apps earlier this week, just ahead of Microsoft’s AI event.

Microsoft is holding its special “ reinventing productivity with AI ” event at 8AM PT / 11AM ET today. The Verge  revealed last month  that Microsoft was planning an AI event in March to demo how its new ChatGPT-like AI will transform its Office productivity apps. CEO Satya Nadella and head of Microsoft 365 Jared Spataro will host the event, and The Verge will be covering all the announcements as they happen.

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    View a presentation without PowerPoint Use PowerPoint in a web browser. If you have a Microsoft account (hotmail.com, outlook.com, live.com, msn.com) or a... Get PowerPoint for a smartphone or tablet. PowerPoint Viewer has been retired. PowerPoint Viewer was retired on April 30, 2018. It's no ...

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    There are many ways to make an exciting presentation without the use of powerpoint. People use powerpoint because it suggests the speaker is prepared. First you want to make an outline of your speech or presentation. Then divide the time in minutes to each line or category of content.

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  9. Create a self-running presentation

    Create a self-running presentation. You can use a self-running presentation to run unattended in a booth or kiosk at a trade show or convention, or you can save it as a video and send it to a client. Windows macOS. On the Slide Show tab, click Set Up Slide Show. Under Show type, pick one of the following:

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    Practice making your points without a single slide. Revise #3 and repeat #4 until done. This approach works with or without slides, but in all cases it forces you to develop your ideas into a solid outline and practice delivering it …

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    Keynote offers a variety of pre-designed themes and layouts, as well as animation and transition options to bring your presentation to life. One of the best PowerPoint alternatives for presentations is Keynote. 4. Google Slides.

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  13. Recover your PowerPoint files

    To manually open an AutoRecover file: Click the File button in the ribbon and then click the Home tab in the menu. Click the Recover Unsaved Presentations button at the bottom of the screen to navigate to the folder where AutoRecover files are stored. Change how frequently AutoRecover files are saved

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    1. One statement per slide. A common mistake is overloaded PowerPoint slides. The result is too much text across too many topics. Yet the opposite is better. This is because your audience is only capable of dealing with one statement at a time. Focus on one keyword or question and your audience will focus on your slide.

  17. Record your presentation

    You can rearrange the order of slides in a recorded presentation without having to re-record anything. This also means it's easy to pause for a break while recording a presentation. PowerPoint doesn't record audio or video during transitions between slides, so be sure not to narrate while advancing the slide.

  18. How can I make a presentation without Powerpoint?

    If you have no slides use a memory palace or note cards So it’s called a memory palace, and that’s where you associate certain… You visualize a room or a building or a house in your mind, and you associate certain rooms and items in …

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  20. Microsoft Copilot leak shows AI automatically creating a PowerPoint

    The Copilot appears in a sidebar in an online version of PowerPoint where you can ask the assistant to create a presentation based on a Word document. PowerPoint then immediately drafts a ...

  21. A world of presentations without PowerPoint

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