Google Slides is a presentation tool that enables users to create, edit, collaborate, and present. It is free for personal use, and available to businesses via a Google Workspaces subscription.
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Microsoft Powerpoint
Score 7.9 out of 10
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Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation software designed to allow users to create slide-based presentations including video and images, as well as slide transitions and animations.
Google Slides is perfect for teams working on a presentation for a customer, where multiple people can be working on the same presentation at the same time. It is also helpful to see who is currently viewing the presentation and if and what they are currently editing. Google Slides might not be the best solution for all presentations as sometimes a customer requests a live demo.
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.
The popularity for Google Slides among the casual technology tool users is so great that we are not in a position to replace this tool with anything else. Every other tool either doesn't have the popularity, or doesn't match the ease of sharing level of Slides. The training needed to learn a different tool is too great. Google Slides is very easy to pick up and master.
It fairly easy to use and manage, especially if you are already in the Google Suite - however design styling is often lacking and missing - which can be a major draw back if you are presenting to an external party. For those cases I will typically use Keynote or Figma Slides
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.
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.
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
Google Slides works both online and offline, they are free to use if you have a Google account. Easy to share and are supported by most web browsers. A great addition to your arsenal of interactive educational online platforms.
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.
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.
We're switching from microsoft to google and it has had a decently positive ROI due to reduced friction of figuring out and managing sharepoint
The negative impact is that it does not do everything we need for product and design so we do have to supplement it with more specific software
Another positive is that it has reduced the friction in easily creating and sharing PPTs during client-facing meetings making it easier for our bd, sales and product teams to make a positive impact on potential + current clients
