Best Presentation Software 2023 : Compare, Reviews & Pricing | TEC

What is Presentation Software?

Presentations were a corporate art form long before the advent of modern computing. Surprisingly, the first practical uses of projection technology were not reserved for motion pictures—the technology was also applied to collegiate lectures and business presentations. As the technology evolved, presentations weren’t far behind. Slides, transparencies, and simple video editing made these productions more dynamic, captivating, and informative.

These days, when we think of professional presentations, we expect features such as animated slide transitions and rich media content. This wasn’t possible until computers became quite sophisticated, allowing software suites to take advantage of such visual power.

Presentation software is actually a lot more important than people may think. Whether you are reporting to stakeholders, making a sales pitch, presenting a new idea to your boss, or introducing something to your team, communication is key. Raw data and plain graphs simply don’t communicate the point to everyone. Many people are very visually-oriented (a trend that’s increasing) and a lively graphical presentation can get everyone on the same page. By finding the best presentation software for your needs, you’ll be able to create exciting and captivating presentations and win over your audience.

History and Development of Presentation Software

The modern presentation app has its roots in a mix of older high-tech processes. When office software and the computers running it first became powerful enough to present decent graphics, all sorts of charts and early digital imagery became possible. Commercial printers (a major step above the dot matrix printers most remember from a few decades ago) earned their high price point by transferring these spectacles to transparencies. At that point, the tried and true method of projection would take over.

It wasn’t long before this wasn’t enough though. Once VGA graphics (high-resolution video) became standard, the digital projector eliminated the old-fashioned slide or transparency projector. This allowed skilled computer users of the business world to sequence simple but effective digital presentations right out of the tools they used to make the graphics and charts.

Around this same time, multimedia became a focus of the more high-end PCs. It wasn’t long before dynamism was married to high-end office software to make the first real solution model for modern presentations.

These weren’t the powerhouse applications we all know and love today, of course. They couldn’t produce the high-end video and animated sequences that are so common and easy to produce today. But the foundations were there and it was just a matter of time before computers became powerful enough for the presentation tool to evolve into what we know today.

Problems Solved by Presentation Software

We touched very briefly on why presentation platforms are so important, but let’s expand on that. More often than not, when a presentation is being given, not all members of the audience are experts in the topics being discussed. Even if everyone is part of the same project, at least some will be specialized in a particular aspect. When the presenter is just trying to convey raw data (and jargon), it’s going to go over someone’s head every time.

Visualizing this information in something of a documentary or lecture style helps make it digestible for those who otherwise find the concepts very foreign. There’s something about a step-by-step visual presentation that puts the mind at ease when being confronted with difficult or simply unusual ideas.

Along with this, not everyone learns the same way. This problem of different thought and learning styles is a real hurdle in education, but that obstacle is just as present in the business world, as well. Presentations are a great mixed media solution that can abate this problem. Combining visuals with organized data points in an orderly sequence can help different minds all reach the same place at the end.

There’s also something to be said for reducing how dry and tedious a presentation would otherwise be—very few people enjoy sitting and listening to someone drone on monotonously. A dynamic and engaging presentation can attract and retain everyone’s attention.

Key Features & Functions of Presentation Software

Let’s look at the core features that any presentation software product needs to have in order to get the job done.

All presentation software needs to have a slide timeline, first and foremost. This is representation of the individual “pages” of the presentation—what used to be a given transparency print-out. A visual interface needs to be available to order these slides and to edit them directly. Drag-and-drop functionality can help you easily reorder the timeline.

Any given slide needs to be able to compile mixed media. RTF (rich text format) is a bare minimum requirement for the text capabilities. This allows bullet points, mixed fonts, font styles and colors. Formatting like this allows data to be displayed in a way that works well with eye tracking, emphasis, and organization.

Digital images of any standard format should be easily imported and placed in the right slides. Most of today’s presentation apps support basic imaging editing functions like resizing, cropping, and rotating.

Basic transitions from one slide to the next are also very critical as they prepare the audience on a subconscious level for new information to take in. Simply jumping from one slide to the next is jarring on levels people don’t necessarily realize outright—regardless, the effects are the same. Animating the transition with a fade, slide, splash, etc., can provide visual continuity and boost engagement.

These are just the basics. More advanced features are necessary to take your software and the resulting presentations to the next level.