You’re ready to start planning that big presentation for work, school, or an event but aren’t sure what software to use. With so many options out there for building presentations, how do you choose? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ll walk you through 16 of the top presentation packages and software tools to consider for your next project. Whether you need something free and simple or are looking for more advanced features, we’ve got you covered. We’ll break down the key capabilities, and strengths of each platform. So read on to explore 16 presentation packages that can take your next talk, pitch, or presentation to the next level.
What is a Presentation Package?
A presentation package is a computer software package that is used to display information usually in the form of a slide show.
To choose a presentation package, consider the following;
- Look for a presentation package that allows you to save your presentations in a format compatible with the most common suites like Microsoft PowerPoint. That way, you know your work can be viewed by nearly anyone. Some packages also allow you to export your presentation as a PDF, video, or even an interactive website.
- Choose a package that makes it easy to share your presentations and access them from anywhere. Many are cloud-based, so you can log in from any device with an internet connection and pick up where you left off. Your presentations are automatically saved and backed up in the cloud as well.
- For interactive and engaging presentations, choose a package that allows you to easily add animations, transitions, videos, music, charts, images, and other multimedia elements. Look for options that allow you to apply animations to text, images, and other objects with just a click, as well as coordinate animations across multiple slides.
Presentation packages come in a range of price points, from free, open-source options up to paid cloud-based services. Evaluate your needs and budget to determine what level of features and support you require. For individuals and small teams, a free or low-cost option may work great, while large organizations may need a more robust paid solution.
16 Examples of Presentation Packages and Software
Whether you’re a teacher, student, or business professional, presentation software is an essential tool for sharing ideas with an audience. There are many options available, from free, open-source platforms to paid software with advanced features. Here’s an overview of 16 popular presentation packages to help you choose the right one for your needs.
Microsoft PowerPoint – The Classic Presentation Software
Microsoft PowerPoint is the most well-known presentation software and has been the industry standard for years. Chances are, you’ve created or sat through a PowerPoint presentation at some point.
PowerPoint is very intuitive and easy to use, even for beginners. The simple drag-and-drop interface allows you to quickly create slides by adding text, images, graphs, videos, and more. There are many pre-designed templates and themes to choose from to help you get started.
While easy to use, PowerPoint also has a ton of features for more advanced users. You can animate text and graphics, add transitions between slides, embed audio and video, and link to external data sources. There are tools for collaboration so multiple people can work on the same presentation. You can also save your presentation as a video to share online.
PowerPoint is part of the Microsoft Office suite and works seamlessly with other apps like Word and Excel. You can easily copy and paste content between the apps. For example, you might create a table of data in Excel and paste it into PowerPoint as a graph. Or, write content in Word and paste it into PowerPoint as slide bullet points. This tight integration is one of the biggest benefits of using PowerPoint.
PowerPoint files (.pptx) can be opened and edited on both Windows and Mac computers, so you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues when sharing and collaborating. The files can also be exported to several other formats, including PDF, JPG, and HTML. This makes it easy to share your presentations virtually anywhere.
Google Slides – Great for Collaborative Presentations
Google Slides is a free presentation software that allows you to create and edit slide decks. It’s part of the Google Drive suite and works right in your browser. One of the biggest benefits of Google Slides is how easy it is to collaborate with others. Multiple people can work on the same presentation at once, and you’ll see each other’s changes in real-time.
Google Slides has a simple, intuitive interface that’s easy to pick up. You can choose from a variety of pre-made themes and layouts to get started quickly. It has all the basic features you’d expect like adding text, images, shapes, charts, and animations. The learning curve is very small, so you can dive in and start creating right away.
One of the best features of Google Slides is the ability to share and collaborate. You can invite others to view or edit your presentation by entering their email addresses. Everyone will have access to the latest version, and you’ll see changes from your collaborators in real-time. This makes it easy to work with colleagues remotely and ensure everyone is on the same page. Comments and suggestions can also be added to specific slides for feedback.
Because Google Slides lives in the cloud (on Google Drive), your presentations are accessible from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection and a browser. Your files are also saved automatically as you work, so you never have to worry about losing changes or remembering to save your progress.
Canva – For Creating Visual Presentations
Canva is a graphic design tool website used to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. For presentations, Canva provides an easy-to-use interface with pre-made templates to choose from, as well as the option to design from scratch.
Canva has templates for presentations, social media posts, posters, infographics, and more. You’ll find templates for keynotes, PowerPoint, and general slide presentations. The templates are modern, minimal, and eye-catching. They’re also easy to customize by changing fonts and colors and adding your own images. This is perfect if you want a quick option to make a simple yet professional presentation.
With an easy-to-use interface, stylish templates, and powerful design features like uploading custom images and using shapes, Canva is a great free tool for creating stunning visual presentations.
Prezi – For Non-Linear Presentations
Prezi is a popular presentation software known for its dynamic, nonlinear designs. Unlike traditional slide-based presentations, Prezi lets you create engaging presentations on a giant virtual canvas.
To get started with Prezi, you first need to sign up for a free account. Then, you can begin building your presentation on an infinite canvas, adding text, images, videos, and shapes wherever you like. Rather than slides, you have frames that contain the elements of your presentation. These frames can be arranged in a nonlinear fashion, connected together on the canvas.
Some useful features of Prezi include:
- Themes and templates to get you started. Prezi has many free presentation templates for business, education, and personal use.
- Inserting multimedia like YouTube videos, graphics, and images. You can also draw freehand on the Prezi canvas.
- Collaborating with others. Multiple people can work on the same Prezi presentation together in real time.
- Presenting offline. You can download your Prezi to present without an Internet connection. The presentation and any embedded multimedia will be included in the download.
- Sharing and embedding. Share your Prezi via a link or embed it on your website so others can view and interact with it.
- Reusing content. Import slides from PowerPoint or reuse content from previous Prezis. You can also save sections as reusable frames or templates.
Prezi is an innovative tool for creating eye-catching presentations. With its zoomable interface and nonlinear approach, Prezi is a great option if you want to stand out and make a memorable impact. The free version is useful for personal and student use, while paid plans provide additional features for business and education.
Keynote – Apple’s Sleek Presentation App
Keynote is Apple’s presentation software and a direct competitor to Microsoft PowerPoint. If you’re an Apple user, Keynote is free to download and a great option for creating beautiful slide decks.
Keynote offers a simple, intuitive interface with tools to help you make an eye-catching presentation. You have access to gorgeous templates that make it easy to get started. Choose from categories like Business, Education or Casual. Keynote’s templates are very stylish, with modern and minimalist designs. If you prefer, you can also start from a blank canvas.
One of Keynote’s best features is the Photos browser. Search through thousands of high-quality, royalty-free images to use in your presentations. The photos are sorted into useful categories to make it simple to find what you need. You can also use your own photos from Photos, Adobe Lightroom, and Photo Stream.
Keynote’s simple interface, stylish templates, and powerful features make it easy to build a beautiful slide presentation. The best part is that if you own an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, Keynote comes free as part of the iWork suite. For creating dazzling presentations, Keynote is a fantastic option for any Apple user.
SlideDog – For Mashup Presentations
SlideDog is a unique presentation tool that lets you combine content from multiple sources into a single slideshow. With SlideDog, you can mash up slides, videos, websites, document files and more into a seamless presentation.
This versatile software gives you a blank canvas to work with. You start by importing elements like PowerPoint slides, PDF documents, images, YouTube videos, web pages, and many other formats. SlideDog will automatically format and arrange the elements on your timeline. You can then easily reorder, resize, and style each element to create the perfect flow and look for your presentation.
A major benefit of SlideDog is that it saves you time by allowing you to reuse slides and elements from previous presentations. You can also update presentations easily by just replacing or rearranging a few elements on the timeline. SlideDog’s simple drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create presentations, even if you have no experience with design software.
SlideDog has a variety of useful features for creating mashup presentations:
- Easily change themes, colors, and fonts to match your brand
- Add highlights, text, shapes, images, or callouts to slides
- Record audio or video narration for your entire presentation or individual slides
- Import PDF, PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, video, audio, images and web content
- Share your presentations as videos, interactive web pages or self-playing executables
- Present directly from the SlideDog interface or in full-screen mode
- Sync presentations across devices using SlideDog Cloud
Whether you want to create a dynamic pitch for investors, engage students with an interactive lesson, or boost brand awareness with a multimedia showcase, SlideDog gives you an innovative toolset for crafting memorable presentations. With a simple yet powerful design, SlideDog allows anyone to be a presentation expert.
Visme – For Interactive Presentations
Visme is an online presentation software that allows you to create interactive and engaging presentations. With Visme, you can easily design presentations, infographics, reports, social media graphics and more.
Some of the key features of Visme include:
- A drag-and-drop interface that makes it simple to add, edit, and rearrange elements on your slides. You have access to thousands of free templates, photos, icons, and illustrations to choose from.
- Animations and transitions to help bring your presentation to life. Add animations to objects, text, images, charts and more with just a few clicks.
- Interactive content like quizzes, surveys and data visualizations to actively engage your audience. You can also link between slides and presentations, add audio and video, and embed live websites and social media feeds.
- Real-time collaboration so you can work with teammates on the same presentation at the same time. Share your work and allow others to edit and comment.
- Presenter mode for a smoother presenting experience. Get a preview of your next slide, timer, and notes to help you stay on track.
- Analytics to see how your audience interacts with your presentations. Get insights into what content resonates most with your viewers so you can optimize future presentations.
- The option to download as PDF, PPTX, HTML, or image formats. You can also publish your presentations to the Visme gallery to share with the public or embed on your website.
With an easy-to-use interface, lots of customization options, and powerful features, Visme has everything you need to create a memorable presentation experience for your audience.
Haiku Deck – For Creative Slide Designs
Haiku Deck is a free presentation tool with a simple, intuitive interface and professional design themes to help you create stunning slide decks in minutes. If you want to make eye-catching presentations without being a designer, Haiku Deck is a great option.
Haiku Deck provides 35+ free themes to choose from, with styles ranging from minimal to bold and playful. Each theme comes with a coordinated font and color palette to give your presentation a polished look with zero design experience needed. The themes are also fully customizable, so you can tweak colors, change fonts, add images, and make the theme your own.
One of the best features of Haiku Deck is how it simplifies the design process. You don’t have to spend time picking colors, choosing fonts, or dragging elements into position. Haiku Deck handles the design details for you so you can focus on your content and message. It really streamlines the creative process.
Haiku Deck also has features like animations to bring your slides to life, presenter notes to keep you on track, and analytics to see how your decks are performing. You can present your slideshows right from the Haiku Deck app or export them to share as images or PDFs.
Emaze – For Animated Presentations
Emaze is a presentation software that lets you create animated presentations quickly and easily. With Emaze, you can make your presentations come alive by adding cinematic animations, 3D transitions, and motion graphics.
To get started, simply select a theme or template to base your presentation on. Emaze offers stylish templates for business presentations, school projects, personal stories, and more. You can then add your content, including text, images, videos, shapes, charts, and icons. Emaze has a built-in search tool to find free stock photos, videos, and icons to incorporate into your presentation.
Emaze’s easy-to-use timeline editor gives you precise control over the timing of your animations and transitions. Simply drag and drop the animations onto the timeline to determine the order and duration. You can also tweak the speed, delay, and duration of each effect right within the timeline interface.
Emaze allows you to present your creation in a few different ways. You can present directly within Emaze using their online presentation viewer, embed your presentation into a website or blog, or download your presentation as a video to share on social media and video hosting platforms.
PowToon – For Animated Video Presentations
PowToon is an animated video and presentation software. It allows you to create animated explainer videos, video presentations, and video ads in just a few clicks.
With PowToon, making an engaging animated video is easy. You don’t need any design or tech skills. Simply pick from the pre-made animated scenes, characters, and video templates to get started. Add your own images, logos, text, and voiceovers to customize the video. You have full control over customization to produce high-quality results.
PowToon’s library includes animated characters, scenes, props, and music that you can include in your videos. You can also upload your own images, photos, and logos to incorporate into the animations. With the text editor, easily add speech bubbles, titles, and captions. You can also record your own voiceover or add free music and sound effects. Once your video is complete, you can download it as an MP4 video file to use on your website, blog, or social media. You can also share it directly on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn from within the PowToon editor.
Some of the main features of PowToon include:
- Professionally designed video templates, scenes, props, and characters
- Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
- Customize with your own images, logos, text, and voiceover
- Animated characters and scenes
- Free music, sounds, and voiceovers
- One-click sharing to social media and video sites
- Collaborate in real-time with team members
- Analytics to see how your videos are performing
Whether you want to create an explainer video for your business, a fun video invitation, an educational animation, or just a short story, PowToon makes it easy to produce a professional-looking animated video in no time. With its simplicity and powerful features, PowToon is a great free tool for creating engaging video content.
Slidesgo – For Minimalist Presentations
Slidesgo is a presentation package with minimalist and simple templates suitable for all types of presentations. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use software without an overload of design options, Slidesgo is a great choice.
With Slidesgo, you’ll find templates with minimal elements, neutral color palettes and clean layouts. The simplistic designs make the templates versatile and suitable for business as well as educational presentations. You can easily customize the templates by adding images, changing fonts or switching colors to match your company’s branding. Even with the minimal designs, the templates still look professional and polished.
To get started with Slidesgo, you simply sign up for a free account on their website. You’ll then have access to over 20,000 free templates to choose from. The templates are categorized based on the purpose like business, marketing, education etc. which makes it easy to find the right template for your needs.
If you use Google Slides or PowerPoint, you can also download the Slidesgo templates and edit them in the software you prefer. The templates will retain the minimalist style but give you access to more advanced features for customization and animations.
Prezentar – For Quick Presentations
Prezentar is a presentation tool perfect for when you need to throw together a quick slideshow. With an intuitive interface, you can have a basic presentation up and running in just a few minutes. Simply select a template, add your content to the slides, pick transitions, and you’re done. You don’t need any advanced design skills or have to waste time fiddling with complicated formatting options.
Prezentar comes with over 50 modern templates to choose from, so your quick presentation can still look polished. The templates feature professional layouts, color schemes and font pairings. You just need to fill in the text boxes and you’ll have a presentation that looks like it took hours to design.
While Prezentar focuses on simplicity, it does allow you to enhance your presentations by adding images, icons, shapes, and even video or audio clips. You can search their library of free media or upload your own files. The drag and drop interface makes placing media on your slides a breeze.
For creating and delivering a fast, lightweight presentation, Prezentar is a fantastic free option. While it may lack some of the advanced features of PowerPoint, for most basic presentations it provides an easy to use and capable alternative.
Slidebean – For Branded Presentations
Slidebean is a slick presentation tool designed for creating branded and stylish slide decks. If you want to quickly make a good-looking presentation for your company or clients, Slidebean is a great choice.
Slidebean offers over 150 professional presentation templates to choose from. The templates feature bold graphics, photos, and charts on eye-catching layouts. Just select a template and add your content titles, bullet points, images, charts, or whatever you need. Slidebean does the heavy lifting of making your slides look polished and cohesive.
With Slidebean, you have options to match your company’s brand. You can fully customize the template colors to your brand palette. You can also add your logo and brand fonts to create a seamless brand experience in your presentation. These branding features allow you to craft a presentation that aligns with and reinforces your company’s visual identity.
Slidebean also offers a selection of graphs, charts, illustrations, and photos within the editor. You have options to add video, gifs, tables, and code snippets as well. Slidebean allows you to present directly from their site, or you can download your presentation as a PDF or PPTX file. They offer both free and paid plans, with the option to upgrade for additional storage, advanced features, and support.
FlowVella – For Interactive Presentations
FlowVella is a powerful presentation app that lets you create interactive presentations. It allows you to add multimedia content like images, gifs, videos, and animated elements to bring your presentations to life. The interactive features provide an engaging experience for your audience.
FlowVella comes with a variety of templates to choose from to get you started. You can then fully customize the templates by changing fonts, colors, and layouts. Add your brand elements like logos to make the presentation look professional. The simple drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to rearrange slides and add multimedia content.
Gain valuable insights into how your audience is engaging with your presentations. FlowVella provides analytics to show you which slides are most viewed and how long viewers spend on each slide. See where people enter and exit your presentation. Use this data to make improvements to your presentations and increase audience engagement.
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite developed by The Document Foundation. It includes applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases, and more. Compatible with many file formats like Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is a great free alternative for productivity software.
LibreOffice Writer is the Word processing component. It allows you to create and edit text documents like letters, resumes, newsletters, and books. You have access to features such as auto-complete, auto-format, and styles to easily format your documents. You can also add images, tables, comments, footnotes, endnotes, and more. Files can be exported to PDF, EPUB, and other formats.
LibreOffice Calc is a spreadsheet application. It has a familiar grid layout where you can enter and calculate data. It includes over 300 functions for tasks like averaging numbers, finding percentages, and looking up values. You can create charts and graphs to visualize your data. Calc also has pivot tables, database ranges, and other features useful for data analysis.
LibreOffice Impress is used to create presentations. You can choose from many templates to get started and then add text, images, shapes, charts, and other media to your slides. Impress includes slide transitions and animations to make dynamic presentations. You can even embed or link to Calc spreadsheets and charts in your presentations. Presentations can be exported to PDF, HTML, and video formats to share online or present without Impress.
LibreOffice Draw lets you create vector graphics like diagrams, flowcharts, maps, and more. You have access to various drawing tools like lines, shapes, text, and connectors. Draw files can be exported to bitmap and vector image formats to use in other documents or shared separately.
Showpad
Showpad is an online presentation software used to create and share interactive presentations, documents, and training materials. With Showpad, you can build gorgeous pitch decks, client presentations, training materials, and more all in one place.
Showpad is very easy to use. You don’t need any design experience to create beautiful and impactful presentations. Showpad provides pre-designed templates and themes to get you started. You can then customize the fonts, colors, and layouts to match your brand and preferences. Showpad also has an intuitive drag and drop interface, so adding, reordering and editing slides is simple.
Showpad isn’t just for presentations. You can also upload and organize all your sales and marketing collateral in one place – things like datasheets, case studies, training videos, and more. Everything is neatly organized so you and your team can quickly find what you need.
Showpad integrates with many popular business tools like Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365, and G Suite. Your data and files are encrypted at rest and in transit, and Showpad is compliant with major security standards like ISO 27001 and GDPR.
Conclusion
So there you have it, 16 of the most popular and efficient presentation packages and software options to help you create stunning slides, wow your audience, and knock your next talk out of the park. From industry stalwarts like PowerPoint and Keynote to up-and-comers like Prezi and Visme, you’ve got plenty of excellent choices. The key is finding the one that aligns best with your personal presentation style and needs. Don’t be afraid to test some of them to see which one feels like the best fit.
With the right presentation software, you’ll be ready to deliver your ideas with clarity, visual impact, and confidence.