To Use Adobe Presenter or Not to Use...

Rating: 7 out of 10

March 27, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The faculty currently uses Presenter as a way to take our already made PowerPoint presentations and turn them into interactive lessons to use with our students. It allows us to create a flipped classroom environment so we are able to work with specific students to address concerns and troubles as other students are working at their own pace.

Pros

It is very easy for faculty to use. Even those who have limited experience in creating online courses feel comfortable using Presenter.
It allows our faculty to have students working in different areas at the same time so we are able to individualize our instruction to meet student needs.
The quiz feature is fantastic to be able to quickly assess student learning to determine if they are ready to move forward.

Cons

We have faced some difficulty with Presenter and Adobe Flash. Some of our teachers have grown weary of constant messages of not having the correct Flash player, even though it is.
We wish we had the ability to use more than one quiz in a presentation in order to more accurately determine student success, but we are able to see the number of slides viewed along with the quiz score to help determine mastery.

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe that Presenter is a handy tool for anyone who needs to create training experiences or lessons to allow learners flexibility in their learning. It does, however, seem to need updating to produce a more stable platform as Flash is phased out. It is relatively easy to use for those without much experience building online experiences, but some pop-up messages that appear could be troubling for users who are not expecting them.

Verified User

Employee (Education Management company, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

The Pros and Cons of Adobe Presenter

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

April 3, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Adobe Presenter is the rapid development tool used by our government client to create web-based, asynchronous training. We are required to use this tool when developing training products using this delivery method, unless otherwise specified.

Pros

Adobe Presenter makes it easy to create online training if you do not have programming skills.
Adobe Presenter has good tools available to make an interactive training product, such as the Quiz Manager.
Adobe Presenter can support most of the options in an instructional design plan, including the opportunity to let different users explore different learning paths.

Cons

As a Microsoft PowerPoint plug-in, there can sometimes be odd conflicts with the settings used in PowerPoint and how they translate to Adobe Presenter. Often these bugs do not present until the product is published and are difficult to troubleshoot.
SWF files generated when content is published requires a Flash player. This is a problem for some users, particularly those who are viewing content at work and are prohibited from installing anything on their machine. This is also a problem for some mobile devices.

Likelihood to Recommend

Adobe Presenter is a good option for instructional designers who want to develop online training but don't have the budget for a programmer. Most, if not all, of the elements of a good instructional design plan for online training can be accomplished with Adobe Presenter. There are also a lot of good online user forums and tutorials available through Adobe that can help you learn to use the tool properly. Adobe Presenter is not going to be easy for anyone with limited PowerPoint skills or limited patience with troubleshooting. Bugs do arise and it can take a lot of time to track down whether the issue is PowerPoint or Adobe Presenter based and determine a workaround.

Verified User

Consultant (Civil Engineering company, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Adobe Presenter - Not perfect, but it's my "go to" solution for some great reasons!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 21, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Adobe Presenter is an extraordinarily flexible and dynamic solution for creating learning output. At Ebix, Inc., we use it in two ways. One is as a hyper-rapid e-learning development solution for our internal audiences. In this capacity, the quality of output is excellent, though not at the level of, say Captivate or Storyline. It's advantage, however, is its speed. I developed a method for creating interactive on-demand e-learning training that goes from storyboard to final output in an unheard of 5-10 hour development turnaround. This creates obvious advantages, among them creating a multiplier effect that dramatically cut training costs while improving the efficiency of our training development resources.

The second use is external. We're able to create on-demand help that we can publish to HTML that has built-in Responsive Web Design capability. This means clients can view our training on any device of any size, anywhere they have an internet connection, and it looks great. Also, because it is originally built in PowerPoint (Presenter installs as an add-in), we can be more creative and engaging in our help content versus standard help modules.

Pros

Because it integrates with PowerPoint, it is possible to go from planning outline to storyboard to final output withing a single document and as part of a seamless and logical design process.
Its ability to create videos that capture screens along with web-cam recordings, then edit them within the solution means higher level training recordings can be created versus, say a recorded WebEx training session.
Presenter's ability to create quiz elements similar to Adobe Captivate, add interactions, and interface with Adobe's LMS means it is capable of functioning as a complete e-learning development environment. .
If up front cost is a consideration, Presenter wins hands down over many better known training development and e-learning solutions.

Cons

Among its strengths, Presenter is outstanding at demonstrating software. However, it has zero native simulation capability. For that, you also need Captivate. While it's designed to work with that solution, I've yet to find an efficient application in a real-world training environment.
Presenter is a deceptively unintuitive solution. If you know PowerPoint (and who doesn't?), it feels like home. However, it has nuances that aren't readily obvious. For example, it's video recording capability is both built into the PowerPoint add-in and is accessible as a standalone. How they behave is similar but not identical..
Support is surprisingly weak. The version I have is once removed from the latest. I recently discovered that it has a bug. I was surprised to learn that reporting it to Adobe is impossible since the web page where this occurs does not include Presenter as an option. Are they aware and was it corrected? I don’t know. Fortunately, it's not critical, but it does raise several concerns.
Training and on-demand help is also weak. While there are some standalone videos and other help resources on the internet, what’s freely available isn’t complete. As a result, ramp up took several months longer than it should have. Much of my learning was through experimentation and web searches. Those searches were at times frustrating since the community of users doesn't appear to be as great as other training development solutions. The best training I found was on Lynda.com. I highly recommend either Lynda or a similar site if you get Adobe Presenter.

Likelihood to Recommend

Its strength is its ability to develop on-demand content quickly. If good, fast and affordable are your main check boxes, this could be just what you need.

On the other hand, this is not your stop for "spit and polished" deliverables. Storyline and Captivate this is not. That said, Adobe Presenter is one of the most flexible, affordable and (once you understand it) easy to use solutions on the market, making it a 9.5 out of 10 when it comes to bang for the buck.

Ronald Ray

Sr. Instructional Designer, Training Coordinator and Client Services Manager at Ebix, Inc. (Computer Software, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

To Use Adobe Presenter or Not to Use...

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

March 27, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

It is very easy for faculty to use. Even those who have limited experience in creating online courses feel comfortable using Presenter.
It allows our faculty to have students working in different areas at the same time so we are able to individualize our instruction to meet student needs.
The quiz feature is fantastic to be able to quickly assess student learning to determine if they are ready to move forward.

Cons

We have faced some difficulty with Presenter and Adobe Flash. Some of our teachers have grown weary of constant messages of not having the correct Flash player, even though it is.
We wish we had the ability to use more than one quiz in a presentation in order to more accurately determine student success, but we are able to see the number of slides viewed along with the quiz score to help determine mastery.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Employee (Education Management company, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

The Pros and Cons of Adobe Presenter

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

April 3, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Adobe Presenter makes it easy to create online training if you do not have programming skills.
Adobe Presenter has good tools available to make an interactive training product, such as the Quiz Manager.
Adobe Presenter can support most of the options in an instructional design plan, including the opportunity to let different users explore different learning paths.

Cons

As a Microsoft PowerPoint plug-in, there can sometimes be odd conflicts with the settings used in PowerPoint and how they translate to Adobe Presenter. Often these bugs do not present until the product is published and are difficult to troubleshoot.
SWF files generated when content is published requires a Flash player. This is a problem for some users, particularly those who are viewing content at work and are prohibited from installing anything on their machine. This is also a problem for some mobile devices.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Consultant (Civil Engineering company, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Adobe Presenter - Not perfect, but it's my "go to" solution for some great reasons!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 21, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Because it integrates with PowerPoint, it is possible to go from planning outline to storyboard to final output withing a single document and as part of a seamless and logical design process.
Its ability to create videos that capture screens along with web-cam recordings, then edit them within the solution means higher level training recordings can be created versus, say a recorded WebEx training session.
Presenter's ability to create quiz elements similar to Adobe Captivate, add interactions, and interface with Adobe's LMS means it is capable of functioning as a complete e-learning development environment. .
If up front cost is a consideration, Presenter wins hands down over many better known training development and e-learning solutions.

Cons

Among its strengths, Presenter is outstanding at demonstrating software. However, it has zero native simulation capability. For that, you also need Captivate. While it's designed to work with that solution, I've yet to find an efficient application in a real-world training environment.
Presenter is a deceptively unintuitive solution. If you know PowerPoint (and who doesn't?), it feels like home. However, it has nuances that aren't readily obvious. For example, it's video recording capability is both built into the PowerPoint add-in and is accessible as a standalone. How they behave is similar but not identical..
Support is surprisingly weak. The version I have is once removed from the latest. I recently discovered that it has a bug. I was surprised to learn that reporting it to Adobe is impossible since the web page where this occurs does not include Presenter as an option. Are they aware and was it corrected? I don’t know. Fortunately, it's not critical, but it does raise several concerns.
Training and on-demand help is also weak. While there are some standalone videos and other help resources on the internet, what’s freely available isn’t complete. As a result, ramp up took several months longer than it should have. Much of my learning was through experimentation and web searches. Those searches were at times frustrating since the community of users doesn't appear to be as great as other training development solutions. The best training I found was on Lynda.com. I highly recommend either Lynda or a similar site if you get Adobe Presenter.

Likelihood to Recommend

Its strength is its ability to develop on-demand content quickly. If good, fast and affordable are your main check boxes, this could be just what you need.

Ronald Ray

Sr. Instructional Designer, Training Coordinator and Client Services Manager at Ebix, Inc. (Computer Software, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Adobe Presenter Reviews & Insights