By Tammie Caldwell


Any form of presentations, be it idea pitches or sales presentations have been done mostly by means of PowerPoint since it was launched by Microsoft. Businesses have had no programs better than PowerPoint.

Prezi: When it comes to nonlinear presentations, Prezi is an excellent web app that comes in handy. Not only is it simple to use, but also comes with an interface that still preserves the traditional slide layout most users are familiar with while giving one the simple tools required for formatting text and doing much more. Being a web app, Prezi offers the flexibility of being able to access an individuals work from any computer, and collaborate with others on the same presentation.

GoAnimate : Hand-animated videos consume lots of time to make since they are difficult to make. On the other hand, expensive equipment might also be necessary to get the job done. GoAnimate proves to be a useful software in such situations. Not only will it offer the user with film like animation effects, but also cuts down the cost and time needed to make professional presentations.

With the much needed audio support, GoAnimate can also produce characters which are given dialog using voice recordings of the user, or commercially available recordings through professionals offering similar services. Built-in lip sync gives characters more life. Music and sound effects offer more creative ways of getting presentations to be more interesting and interactive.

VideoScribe: At first only a small market segment was expected to embrace this software. However, it has gained so much support as in the name of the popularly known whiteboard animations across the Web.

Pre-drawn and pre-animated images are presented to the user for assembling in a manner that he or she likes in order to create a presentation which ends up into a slick little animation. GoAnimate presentations results in a cartoon-style video while VideoScribe uses the same graphics to come up with a draw on-screen like presentation, whereby a real hand sketches the graphics as one goes along. This creates a feeling of someone sketching a presentation.

VideoScribe is incredibly simple to use and its presentations can be likewise created easily. As the user simply drags and drops pre-made graphics into the storyboard, the presentation gets generated by the software. Given a few minutes, one has a ready-made presentation for the audience.

Powtoon: With Powtoon, one looks forward to inspire an audience with a great pitch, emotional hooks and a story. With animated characters, one uses a story telling rather than fact telling. Most importantly, with a few modifications a user can create short animated video clips for use during presentations. So with the ease of learning how to use it, this software is a great relief to businesses and individuals in need of creating presentations that are different and engaging.

Google Docs: Most individuals have a Google account which is free as well as Google Docs. Considering the ability to collaborate with others on the same projects is also very convenient for one to complete working on presentations in cases where teamwork is vital. Presentations can also be easily customized with images and text as well as importing of slides and videos. Sharing presentations with other people for downloading is also an option. Lastly, since importing PowerPoint files is n option, the work of recreating presentations already in PowerPoint will not be necessary.




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