Adobe Express vs. Microsoft Powerpoint

I needed to create quarterly safety training posters. In the past, I have used Canva. But in Canva's free version, your options are limited. So off to AE I went. I was able to find four templates to help me create my four posters. I found templates that looked like a movie poster, and the results were so professional looking. It was easy to add my own pictures from my computer to further personalize the posters. I loved them so much I made them into movie poster size printouts, sprayed some liquid glue on a styroboard, and hung them up around our offices. Our employees loved them too, and it drummed up more people to attend my sessions.

Incentivized

Well suited for: Business presentations, storyboarding, instructor-led training, content slide creation for courseware, interactive kiosks and slideshows, logo design, posters, scalable PDF text, multimedia integration. Not well suited for: 3D object manipulation, layer editing, object trigger programming, complex graphic themes, advanced audio editing, advanced video editing, advanced photo editing, 3D modeling.

Incentivized

• Out-of-the-box templates save a lot of time and effort for designers and new users.
• Collaboration to share resources and monitor task status centrally.
• Great design elements bring a wow factor to digital content.
• Single design tool for all types of content design.

Incentivized

• Powerpoint is excellent for structuring your ideas as you before you present them
• Powerpoint should be used as s skeleton for your presentation for maximum effectiveness, rather than just "reading off the slides"
• Powerpoint on a high DPI system with screencasting software and microphone allows you to record a high resolution product demonstration video quickly.

Incentivized

• Canva has a better interface, in my opinion... I like that this one is friendly to Adobe users, but I would likely recommend Canva to someone who's never used design software for a complete beginner.
• Removing the background from images doesn't always work well. I almost always need to switch to Photoshop for this.
• The touch screen interface could be better; graphics on mobile apps are tough in general but specifically, the iPad interface could use some improvement.

Incentivized

• Smart Art can really improve its graphs
• Tables should be defaulted to redistribute columns and rows
• Sometimes the links to Excel files get lost and I never understood why
• I wish there was an easier way to save graph templates and defaults in a same presentation

Incentivized

I use it daily for almost all my marketing needs. So far it is the program that has the most and best to offer for what I need and is the easiest to use

Incentivized

The overall usability of the software was strong. The application, especially relative to other Adobe services like Photoshop that can demand a lot of knowledge and skill, was highly easy to use. At the same time, that also speaks to the somewhat limited amount of customization opportunities that allow content designers to truly create content that is dynamic, engaging, and different than the standard stuff that floods our vision every day.

Incentivized

Microsoft Powerpoint is a strong tool specially when it comes to giving presentations and visually presenting ideas. It is a great tool to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical management and staff members, helping to present ideas in a clear and concise way. But when it comes to internal usage, Microsoft Powerpoint needs to be used along with a host of other tools to present details and adding diagrams

I've never had any issues with its availability. As it is installed on my machine, it's ready when I need it, online or offline. Creating large slide decks with complex elements like video and audio doesn't affect its stability. The only limitation would be the capability of your own computer, as far as I can tell.

Incentivized

The performance is very strong. It loads reasonably quickly. Large presentations load relatively quickly too, given their complexity, and once loaded each slide is readily available. It's easy to scroll up and down through your slide deck and go to the slide you want. Videos, pictures and music all load on demand, controllable by clicks.

Incentivized

Because adobe is so widespread the community support is amazing. I have never actually used adobe support short of their website, but I go to youtube a lot to get my questions answered. You can google any problem you have and not have any issues finding an answer. In my opinion, community support is much more meaningful and helpful than support directly from the company

Incentivized

I have never had to use the actual support. Most of my questions are "how to" questions and there is a rich internet full of users sharing their tips and tricks with this application. Sometimes I find the answers on Microsoft support site but often I don't

Incentivized

For users already in the Adobe ecosystem, Adobe Express is a great tool to consider for it's modern, professional templates, impressive stock image library and the easy drag-and-drop tools. I mostly do most of my work on desktop, but I know Canva is generally better for mobile usability and its got more third-party integrations that may be important to some users.

Incentivized

Canva: The animations and effects are very limited and hard to customize unless you are a Canva Expert. Too many of the items are only available to premium subscribers (which can be highly frustrating). Some of the stock images, icons, etc., will be copied to your presentation. But when you go to download the presentation, Canva puts one of those annoying watermarks on the image, icon, or stock photo. Adobe Express: Although it is a free service like Canva, it still has the annoying issue with only paid users have access to the premium content. But with Express, the design options are almost limitless. Text is so easy to edit and create stunning text moments. Express does offer animations and effects, but most are only available to premium members (requires a monthly fee). Prezi: What I thought was going to be an amazing presentation creator falls so far from the mark that I hardly ever use it. The learning curve is very steep, and it does not offer all the bells and whistles that Microsoft Powerpoint offers.

Incentivized

Scaling up use of Microsoft Powerpoint would be a simple case of buying further licences. The software is intuitive and therefore training demands from scaling it to more departments or more individuals would be relatively straightforward. Google Slides may be easier to share among those organisations that use Google's suite of apps, however.

Incentivized

• It has allowed us to complete more demos and projects in less time by being so flexible.
• It has positively impacted our efficiency in delivering creatives such as YouTube thumbnails, event poster designs, Instagram story posts, etc to clients in a timely manner no matter where work takes us.
• I would say the ROI has been seeing more projects completed and invoiced per month. I would estimate overall a 20% increase in volume on deliverables.

Incentivized

• Microsoft has made it easier through the years with upgrades to make presentations quicker and better for us.
• Flexibility to use wide screen views has enhanced our ablate to share more information on fewer slides.
• There have not been any negative impacts on my business at all.

Incentivized