Microsoft Powerpoint Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
Being able to export pp to video files. I do a lot of training, and create videos, PowerPoint makes it easier to create the base and export the video. Then edit the video in magic movie studio, to beef up the sound and add effects. It would be extremely helpful if I could add sound effects on the video, say when I click on a picture or something, and have it sync up correctly when I am recording audio. But as of right now it doesn't blend well and the mixer feels like something from the 90s, it's hilarious how tacky it is. Microsoft is good when they care about something, but it feels like PowerPoint is the bastard child they keep around out of pitt, but don't pay much attention to it, other than feeding it a meal every now and then.

Cons
Glitchy, very glitchy. Poor output processing, if you accidentally save, it will cancel your entire export and not bother asking you if that's what you want or to cancel the save. Love many features, but it feels so old and static. They could offer way cooler intros, outs, and side effects, but they are still stuck in the 1997 to 2003 graphics era. Cheesy effects. I love creating tutorial videos with PP, please give more options for audio sound effects, splicing, and editing. The system now is very 1997ish. So basic!

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10

Pros
PowerPoint is a straightforward tool for making and showing presentations with an interface that is very much "what-you-see-is-what-you-get." It is also the dominant presentation software, meaning that you will probably never find a client or venue that will have problems with any presentation you created in PowerPoint. It is also rather versatile, allowing users to do far more that slide-based presentations. Users can create online slideshows, clickable infographics, and embed original graphics and videos.

Cons
Like all Microsoft products, PowerPoint has it's eccentricities. It could be more user-friendly, which is where some of the competing presentation apps excel. It is absolutely not good for creating original art or illustrations, even though many users seem to think so. If you want original graphics then you should be creating them in some other app (like Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.) and then importing them into PowerPoint.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
PowerPoint can seem to be a bit overpowering when you first start but once you get to grips with the basics, it becomes one of your favorite programs to work with. The trick is to break long paragraphs down to short and powerful points and manipulate it in such a way to keep the audience in suspense. PowerPoint has great tools to assist you with this process. We all know bullet points are extremely boring but PowerPoint’s features are amazing and the audience will not even realize they are being presented with bullet points! PowerPoint “communicates” very well with Word, Excel and Publisher and it is easy to incorporate photos, charts, clip art etc. in your presentation. The animating features are excellent and bring your presentation to life. PowerPoint not only creates beautiful presentations, the program further assist you to time your presentation to the second. One example is to hide a few slides for a shorter presentation. I encourage people to start with something they would like to do for themselves in order to learn the program and a great start is to create a PowerPoint presentation of their photos and eventually make their own video. People quickly learn how to add text, manipulate photos, add sounds or music and before they know it, they are hooked on PowerPoint!

Cons
Like any new program, PowerPoint can seem very overpowering in the beginning and it is a shame that people do not have the time to experiment with the program to discover its full potential. The learning curve seems to take forever and apart from PowerPoint’s help features, there are many excellent training videos and manuals available these days.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
I think the software is very cool and powerful for your personal and business presentation because of: 1. It has a lot of features that you can use to create your presentation - you have layouts with designs, you can add your custom ones too. There are pretty animations that beautify everything. You can add music, video, control it in every way you want and many more. 2. Everything happens very intuitively - you don't need to waste time wondering how to do some operation on your presentation - you just need to trust your intuition and almost everything is there for you. And the final result looks very professional. 3. You do not need to be a designer to have beautiful presentations, because of the cool visions that PowerPoint supports. 4. There is a presenter View which I pretty like - you can watch on your screen the presentation how you want it - with your personal notes and timing, and to project it on another screen in the way the public needs to view it. 5. You can choose to buy it with office 365 - which makes it even more powerful. One great feature for me is that multiple people can work on one file simultaneously which helps in team working a lot. 6. And finally, I think the software can help every person - from small home projects, through student and school purposes, to big business projects.

Cons
Since my work with the software, I didn't have any issues that caused me to dislike the software. I found it very useful, easy to use and creative. And through time the product amazes me with new and new features which make my work looks better.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Simplicity is the major advantage of the software from my view. User interface of the software is greatly designed for the ease of use. Just few clicks needed to add an animation, change a theme, add a slide transition etc. Because of this simplicity, beginners also can make a good presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint. Other main advantage is the animations and slide transitions included in the package. Big amount of animations, templates and slide transitions are comes with the software and we can use them as our need. Using that features we can make a presentation that suits to small children or a presentation that suits for a professional meeting. There is an automatic recovery feature is available in the software that helped me in many time. It saves our presentations automatically while making the presentation. If the power goes out or computer goes off for any reason while making the presentation, we can restore the presentation though we did not save it. Since I am using this software from my childhood, I feel great about the software.

Cons
Though I am using this software for a long time, I did not found any serious issues yet. Microsoft fixes minor issues also with the new versions of software. Price of the software is a considerable disadvantage because there are many free and open source software developed to make presentations in these days. It is good if Microsoft add more animations, slide transitions and templates to PowerPoint. This would help us to make more creative presentations. User interface of older versions of the software does not feel comfortable. Therefore we have to use newer versions to make presentations easily. Auto recovery feature can be improved more to recover all the presentation because now it saves only a part of the presentation.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10