Let’s explore some must-know and must-try PPT makers and find the best slideshow maker that satisfies your needs.
ActivePresenter – Best Slideshow Maker with Interactions for eLearning Purposes
- Compatibility: Windows, macOS
ActivePresenter, an all-in-one eLearning authoring tool, has proved its powerful position as a slideshow maker. So, if you are familiar with editing content in slide-based format, ActivePresenter is no doubt your best choice. Because it can excellently fulfill the role of creating visually engaging presentations just like how PowerPoint can. It even exceeds your expectations for other outstanding eLearning features with ready-made eLearning questions, feedback messages, and a variation of built-in interactions.
Imagine if you present your slides and your viewers can interact with it. It is definitely becoming a trend in both education and training. In other words, far beyond a PPT maker, ActivePresenter is the one tool anyone needs to successfully design and deliver their content to whom may concern.
ActivePresenter strength when it comes to designing slides is the versatility of input and output formats as well as customizing options. You can import PowerPoint, image, screenshot, audio, video, YouTube video, web object, 3D model, closed caption, and question file into your presentation.
Then, export your presentation to PowerPoint if you want normal navigation, to media and document file types to store and deliver, and to eLearning formats to upload on other platforms for interacting and tracking purposes. There are a number of annotations and interactions to help you express your ideas on the slide, too. And, recording screen with webcam and voice options are definitely plus points that make ActivePresenter a great deal at a reasonable price.
Pricing
| Free edition: watermarked output | For personal, educational, and non-commercial purposes |
| Standard edition: $199/ lifetime license | For high-quality media and document editing and exporting |
| Pro edition: $399/ lifetime license | For interactive eLearning courses creation with all features unlocked |
| EDU Pro edition: $199/ lifetime license | Special Pro edition offer for individuals/ organizations in the education field |
Microsoft PowerPoint – Best Slideshow Maker for Beginners
- Compatibility: Windows, macOS
PowerPoint is not a strange name in the field of designing slides. Almost everyone knows how it has changed the life of trainers and learners. With its integration to Microsoft (MS) suite in 1989, together with other applications like MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook, and so on, this suite has always been the ultimate combo trusted by worldwide users for decades.
Each application in the suite is focused on developing intensively. With PowerPoint, as a presentation program, it’s all about how to help users create more engaging and vivid virtual slides. Therefore, users have a range of multimedia customizations for their slide project.
Despite fewer options than ActivePresenter, basic editing techniques with video, audio, voice-over, and animation can still be achieved smoothly in PowerPoint. Furthermore, the large number of handy and beautiful available templates is another big strength. Generated from the third-party or marketplaces, there are diverse templates with different styles and purposes. This helps users reduce a step in the creation process. And, with its aging popularity, almost everyone knows how to open, use, view, and edit a PowerPoint presentation. Therefore, users can easily distribute and share with team members and collaborators.
However, because of PowerPoint’s long-standing presentation software, many users may feel bored and not creative if they continue using it. It has become a familiar and so-so option, not a breakthrough when it comes to scoring points to a certain group of people. The price of a stand-alone PowerPoint program is not quite economical, so most users will choose to purchase the whole Microsoft suite. However, later, they may find compatibility issues confusing. For example, the newer version of PowerPoint won’t open on older computers.
Pricing
Prezi – Convenient PPT Maker with Motion, Zoom, and Spatial Effects
- Compatibility: Web browser
What makes Prezi stand out among PPT maker software is the non-linear navigation behavior. Instead of adding one slide after another, a project is logically created in sections, just like a mindmap.
And, like ActivePresenter, Prezi is ideal if you are looking for an interesting interactive way to give a presentation. While ActivePresenter offers a wide range of interactions like buttons, sliders, dropdowns, and so on to connect slides and objects, Prezi makes slide navigation smooth by using zoom-in and zoom-out movements.
Also, Prezi can be integrated to popular platforms like Slack, Zoom, and Google Meet. This makes it quick and simple to share projects with teams and collaborators. So, if you just seek for a seemingly fun and easy-to-create slideshow maker, Prezi is what you need at a very reasonable price.
On the contrary, if you want a more specialized or multi-functional PPT maker, Prezi is not a good choice. Despite the new feature added – Prezi Design, Prezi is still a limited tool in terms of customization and data visualization compared to other tools. Furthermore, though the output made by Prezi seems logical and flowing, the creation of it requires much in-advance logical brainstorming and organization. So, if you have got used to the flow of adding slides and objects, it’s better to stick with ActivePresenter and PowerPoint.
Pricing
| Basic: Free | Create and share up to 5 projects |
| Standard: $5/ month | For personal use |
| More: $12/ month | For visual communication experts |
| Premium: $16/ month | For professionals |
Canva – Powerful PPT Maker with Ready-made Templates
- Compatibility: Web browser
Canva has been a truly famous tool among content creators for its multi-purpose performance. Not only succeeding as a convenient slideshow maker, Canva also lets users design a wide range of visual items like social media content, simple videos, banners, or posters. In terms of a PPT maker, while PowerPoint focuses exclusively on professional slideshows, Canva offers more variety.
With a huge library of eye-catching templates, divided into many sections, Canva will win anyone’s heart for the diversity and simple-to-use interface. Especially, working on the drag-n-drop behavior, Canva is totally an ideal choice for the very beginners and anyone loving to create quick and visually appealing slides. From texts, photos, videos, elements, and more, the huge asset library of ready-made styles and types is no doubt a great advantage of Canva over machine-based slideshow makers. And, just a few drag-n-drop movements, the work is done.
However, when it comes to the advanced and detailed usage of features, Canva might not satisfy fastidious users. Why? Because you may find that Canva includes any editing functions you want, from background removing, to recording voice, or drawing. However, there are no advanced options to level up or edit those items to details. All editing options are very basic and instant, which makes it easy for beginners. And, the all-in-one interface may look fun and appealing at first. However, it can become a confusing factor preventing users from using.
Pricing
| Canva Free | Design anything with limited library |
| Canva Pro: $12.99/ month or $119.99/ year for 1 person | For individuals with unlimited access to premium content |
| Canva Pro for Team: $14.99/ month or $149.9/ year for the first 5 people; | All Pro features included with the allowance for team collaboration |
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