Best free presentation software of 2024

Find an alternative to PowerPoint

Best overall

Best for speed, best for functionality, best for collaboration, best user interface.

  • How we test

The best free presentation software makes it simple and easy to create presentations as an alternative to subscribing to Microsoft PowerPoint.

A person doing a presentation on a whiteboard.

1. Best overall 2. Best for speed 3. Best for functionality 4. Best for collaboration 5. Best user interface 6. FAQs 7. How we test

While PowerPoint is the market leader when it comes to presentation software, some people may be unwilling to subscribe to a Microsoft 365 subscription, especially if they don't expect to need to use it very often.

However, there are plenty of great alternatives to PowerPoint available for free that you can use. While these won't have the same advanced features as PowerPoint, they still offer a very competent platform to design most any presentation that you need.

To help you choose, we've listed below the best free presentation software currently available.

Add images to your presentations using the best free photo editor .

Google Apps

<a href="https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Google Workspace : Collaboration + productivity apps There are many different presentation software packages but Google Workspace formerly known as G Suite remains the original cloud office software and one of the best business office suites, offering a huge range of features and functionality that rivals can't match, especially when it comes to presentation software. <a href="https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" data-link-merchant="gsuite.google.com"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Try it free for 14 days .

The best free presentation software of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Prezi website screenshot

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Prezi turns the traditional approach to presentations on its head. Instead of creating slide after slide, this presentation software gives you a single giant canvas. You can add blocks of text or images, or even create miniature slides. During your presentation, you can seamlessly fly around the canvas and zoom in to look at individual chunks of content.

For how complex Prezi seems, it’s impressively simple to use the platform. The only major divergence from Microsoft PowerPoint is that you need to add animated paths from one part of the canvas to another. The tools for this are fairly straightforward, especially if you’ve ever used an animation or video editing software.

Of course, this type of presentation structure isn’t always ideal. Prezi makes it hard to visualize structured data like financials, which can make it difficult to use in business applications. Some viewers also might not appreciate the fly-around animation style that’s inherent to the presentation software.

Read our full Prezi review .

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Canva website screenshot

Canva is perfect for making speedy presentations right in your web browser. This software offers a handful of free layouts to help you get your slideshow started, and it’s easy to customize the templates to fit your needs. There isn’t a huge variety of content elements to add to your presentation, but Canva makes up for this with a searchable library of more than 1 million images you can use.

Your Canva presentations live online, which makes it extremely easy to collaborate. You can invite colleagues to edit your slideshow (although simultaneous editing is not supported) or seamlessly share your finished presentation. However, beware that Canva can’t import presentations from Microsoft Powerpoint or export finished work to a Powerpoint-editable format.

Read our full Canva review .

LibreOffice website screenshot

3. LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and it includes a Powerpoint equivalent called Impress with nearly all of the same functionality. The only big difference you’ll find between the two slideshow creation tools is the LibreOffice lacks some modern features like built-in collaboration and integration with Microsoft OneDrive.

However, Impress does have a few advantages of its own. The software can import files from Keynote, the default presentation software on Mac computers. Plus, there are hundreds of free templates that you can download for free. Even better, there’s no limit on what fonts you can use with Impress, so it’s easy to change the look of your presentation from what Powerpoint typically allows.

On the whole, LibreOffice Impress is about as close as it gets to simply replicating Microsoft Powerpoint for free.

Read our full LibreOffice review .

Google Slides website screenshot

4. Google Slides

Google Slides is part of Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), and it does a nice job of matching a number of PowerPoint’s capabilities. This free presentation software supports embedding videos, creating diagrams, and adding animations to your slides. While the selection of templates is somewhat limited, you can easily import hundreds of additional templates for free or create your own.

Even better, Google Slides supports the collaboration tools users have come to expect from Google. Multiple people can work on a slideshow simultaneously, and there’s a built-in group chat so you can keep track of what everyone is doing. It’s also nice that you can play your presentation in presenter mode, which allows you to preview how it will look to your audience and rehearse timing.

The only downside to Google Slides is that bloated slideshows can experience some loading delays. Also beware that while you can move between Slides and Powerpoint, the conversion often messes with the layout of your slides.

Read our full Google Slides review .

WPS Office Free website screenshot

5. WPS Office Free

WPS Office Free is a Microsoft Office look-alike that fully support PowerPoint files without any layout issues during import. The WPS Presentation tool has all of the same capabilities of PowerPoint, including tons of animations, slide transitions, content effects, and video embedding. The selection of included presentation templates is also very impressive for a free software.

One of the best things about this presentation software is that the user interface will feel incredibly familiar if you’re coming from Microsoft. All of the tools are displayed in a top ribbon, with your slides shown on the left side of the screen for easy navigation. It’s simple to display your presentation right from WPS Presentation, which means there’s no unexpected troubleshooting when it’s time to show off your work.

There’s not much to dislike about WPS Presentation. However, keep in mind that the software is supported by ads. Some users find the ads annoying, but they’re not overly in the way.

Read our full WPS Office Free review .

We've also featured the best free office software .

Best free presentation software FAQs

Which alternative to powerpoint is best for you.

When deciding which alternative to PowerPoint to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. Additionally, free and budget software options can sometimes prove limited when it comes to the variety of tools available, while higher-end software can really cater for every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require.

How we test the best free presentation software

To test for the best free presentation software we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, whether as a download or as an online service. We then tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each software platform to see how useful its basic tools were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced tools.

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .  

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Michael Graw

Michael Graw is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review. 

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presentation tools free software

Top 10 Free Presentation Software for 2022

April 26, 2022

by Alexandra Vazquez

free presentation software

In this post

  • Renderforest
  • Beautiful.ai
  • Personify Presenter

Let me just go ahead and shaaaaare myyyy screeeeen… 

Ok great. Can everyone see this? Today, I’ll be presenting about the best free presentation software for 2022. 

We’ve all been there: struggling to put together the perfect slides for a really important meeting or school project. Bringing a visual aid to the table is necessary to keep your audience engaged. 

But finding the right place to build your presentation is challenging. Are there templates? Are there customization tools? How much is this going to cost me? 

You can use presentation software to create interactive slide decks to elevate your message. Presentation software allows users to build dynamic slides , stay brand consistent, and utilize other forms of media like images and videos. These presentations can be made even more interactive when integrated with audience response systems to construct live polls and quizzes and video conferencing software to make everything digitally seamless. 

Free trials and free basic plans make upgrading your presentations a little easier on the bank. You can start building virtual presentations, adding immersive elements like animations and live participation tools, and collecting audience analytics – without spending a dime. 

What are the best free presentation software solutions for 2022?

  • DocSend 
  • Powtoon 
  • Vyond 
  • Personify Presenter 

Best free presentation solutions

Whether you're creating an instructional onboarding deck or showing off your latest metrics in a team meeting, there is a free presentation solution to fit your needs and wants.

The list below contains real user reviews from the best presentation software category. It’s important to note that in the context of this list, vendors that offer a free trial are also considered to be free . 

To be included in this category, a software must:

  • Provide tools for building presentation slides
  • Offer slide templates and themes
  • Utilize unique slide animations and transitions
  • Allow for users to embed text, audio, images, and videos within the presentation

*This data was pulled from G2 on April 4, 2022. Some reviews may have been edited for clarity. 

DocSend by Dropbox helps companies create and maintain presentations and other important documents. DocSend’s free trial allows users to increase file security, share content within their organization, and track link analytics. 

What users like:

"DocSend is simply a better way to share content with prospective clients, from documents and presentations to video clips and proposals. Prospective clients like the organized access to relevant content. It's quickly become a critical resource for us.”

What users dislike:

“Once you erase a version, you lose all the insights on it. It would be better to have a deposit of everyone reviewing the deck or document and improved version management.”

2. Renderforest

Renderforest is an all-in-one platform that brings presentations to life with graphics, videos, and animations. A free Renderforest plan allows for unlimited mockups, access to over 200,000 stock videos, and free subdomains. 

“Renderforest is one of the best online video software for any of my video projects. Whether it’s an animation, intro project, corporate presentation, or slideshow, Renderforest gives you user-friendly templates that are customizable, and the final product is very professionally done. Since using this platform, the amount of commendation that my projects have received is overwhelming.”

- Renderforest Review , Sherdon F.

“I would like to see more templates and more flexibility in Renderforest.”

Powtoon is a visual communication platform that allows users to animate their presentations. Powtoon offers access to hundreds of presentation templates, brand-consistent slides, and shareable folders with paid options and a free plan.

“The best thing about Powtoon is the user interface. It’s super intuitive and the professionally designed template library is feature-rich with scenes, characters, props, background music, and much more.”

- Powtoon Review , Zuber A.

“The free properties are unique but very limited. It would be great if they added more.”

4. Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai has smart templates to make presentation building a breeze. The Beautiful.ai paid plan options include onboarding guides, collaborative workspaces, viewer analytics, and more. Their free trial lets users get a taste of everything they offer.

“Beautiful.ai makes creating presentations easy. Just finished your slide and want to add another point? Not a problem: you can easily add a bullet or object or chart, and the whole slide magically moves around and realigns for you.”

- Beautiful.ai Review , Anne-Marie M.

“There’s a small learning curve when getting started on the platform. Because the design is automated, some people have trouble with the minor limitations around customization. Be patient and explore the platform in its entirety. Eventually, you'll see that the limitations are extremely helpful in creating congruency and professionalism in your presentations.”

emaze gives users the tools they need to automate the digital presentation building process. The emaze free basic plan includes unlimited PowerPoint importation, widgets, embedding, graphs, contact lists, audience analytics, and more.

“I love the ease of use with emaze, with an added professional look with extra flair. Every template is different, and there are templates for every topic you can think of. The ease of use and editing helps from year to year when I update the same topic.”

- emaze Review , Dianna W.

“I wish there were more templates available for those who are not as creative as others. In addition, when presenting, I wish the bar at the bottom would disappear so that people can’t see how much of the presentation is left.”

RELAYTO is a document experience platform for creating immersive presentations. RELAYTO has sharing, embedding, converting, and auto-generating tools. Qualified users can enjoy these features for free.

“My experience with RELAYTO has been truly eye-opening. The ability to add depth and dimension to presentations truly elevates our status in the eyes of prospects and clients as a company that brings professionalism and real value to them. We know how great our solutions and client services are, yet using other platforms doesn't do the job of conveying that to the client as RELAYTO does.”

- RELAYTO Review , Mike R.

“I have only ever designed for print, so there's a bit of a learning curve, but their support is top-notch. You can book a consultation with an expert on how you want to use the platform. Once over that curve, the results are remarkable.”

Vyond elevates presentations with video. With Vyond, presenters can utilize video animations, character creation, and social media sharing capabilities. Users can sign up for a free trial to see if Vyond is the right fit. 

“Vyond is really easy to learn, making it a great tool for our onboarding team members to learn and use right away. There is a low barrier for entry for new users, so we can rely on Vyond as a useful and result-oriented tool that our new team members can start using right away.”

- Vyond Review , Samantha L. 

“The objects available in the Vyond library are not fully customizable, plus the library is small. You may not always be able to find what you’re looking for. Adding a feature in which users can customize those objects would be a solution to this.”

Knovio is a smart platform for creating on-demand videos and presentations. It offers tools for adding video and audio narration to presentation slides, sharing content collections, and analyzing viewer engagement. The free lite version of Knovio lets users test drive some of these features. 

“Knovio has come quite a long way since I first used it. I love how responsive the company has been to improvement suggestions. I also love that you can edit your recording and replace slides.”

“The analytics are powerful; however, I feel creating custom reports could be improved.”

- Knovio Review , Tim D.

9. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is an audience engagement platform with tools to build interactive presentations, compile data from live polls, and collect insights about user participation. The Mentimeter free plan offers unlimited audiences and presentations. 

“Any presentation created with Mentimeter looks professional and presentable. Mentimeter takes care of the design aspect for you. It's straightforward and extremely easy to use. It's also flexible - I've used Mentimeter for live surveys, quizzes, and training. They've got excellent customer support, too. ”

- Mentimeter Review , Haley S.

“At times, Mentimeter can feel a bit overly simplistic or repetitive. Most Mentimeter presentations tend to look very similar, and the engagement tools are limited to a degree.”

10. Personify Presenter

Personify Presenter is an online platform for integrating audio and video into presentations. It offers tools for recording, live editing, file uploading, and writing for seamless presenting. A 30-day free trial lets users give Presenter a try.

“It’s one of the best presenter tools for business presentations. It consists of preset themes and fonts. It also has a library of images and GIFs which can be added to the slides. The notes function only displays to the presenter of the slides which helps them recall the content if necessary.”

- Personify Presenter Review , Kumar A.

“It doesn't recognize boundaries too well, and the video resolution is a little low compared to HD.”

Next slide, please!

Before you deliver project metrics or show your students what the lesson has in store for them today, consider whether automating your presentation could boost the message. No matter your skill level, presentation software gives you the tools you need to create a unique presentation experience and upgrade the way you share. 

If you have any questions, make sure to drop them in the chat.   

Ready to unmute and wow your audience? Find out how you can elevate a virtual presentation and bring your content to life.

presentation software

The (slide) show must go on!

Create interactive slides, embed multimedia, utilize smart templates, and improve participation in a new way with presentation software.

Alexandra Vazquez photo

Alexandra Vazquez is a Senior Content Marketing Specialist at G2. She received her Business Administration degree from Florida International University and is a published playwright. Alexandra's expertise lies in writing for the Supply Chain and Commerce personas, with articles focusing on topics such as demand planning, inventory management, consumer behavior, and business forecasting. In her spare time, she enjoys collecting board games, playing karaoke, and watching trashy reality TV.

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Google Workspace

An integrated suit of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google AI.

Tell impactful stories, with Google Slides

Create, present, and collaborate on online presentations in real-time and from any device.

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Make beautiful presentations, together

Stay in sync in your slides, with easy sharing and real-time editing. Use comments and assign action items to build your ideas together.

Slides create presentations

Present slideshows with confidence

With easy-to-use presenter view, speaker notes, and live captions, Slides makes presenting your ideas a breeze. You can even present to Google Meet video calls directly from Slides.

Slides present with confidence

Seamlessly connect to your other Google apps

Slides is thoughtfully connected to other Google apps you love, saving you time. Embed charts from Google Sheets or reply to comments directly from Gmail. You can even search the web and Google Drive for relevant content and images directly from Slides.

Slides connect to Google apps

Extend collaboration and intelligence to PowerPoint files

Easily edit Microsoft PowerPoint presentations online without converting them, and layer on Slides’ enhanced collaborative and assistive features like comments, action items, and Smart Compose.

Slides connect to Google apps

Work on fresh content

With Slides, everyone’s working on the latest version of a presentation. And with edits automatically saved in version history, it’s easy to track or undo changes.

Design slides faster, with built-in intelligence

Make slides faster, with built-in intelligence

Assistive features like Smart Compose and autocorrect help you build slides faster with fewer errors.

Stay productive, even offline

Stay productive, even offline

You can access, create, and edit Slides even without an internet connection, helping you stay productive from anywhere.

Security, compliance, and privacy

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Secure by default

We use industry-leading security measures to keep your data safe, including advanced malware protections. Slides is also cloud-native, eliminating the need for local files and minimizing risk to your devices.

Encryption in transit and at rest

All files uploaded to Google Drive or created in Slides are encrypted in transit and at rest.

Compliance to support regulatory requirements

Our products, including Slides, regularly undergo independent verification of their security, privacy, and compliance controls .

Private by design

Slides adheres to the same robust privacy commitments and data protections as the rest of Google Cloud’s enterprise services .

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You control your data.

We never use your slides content for ad purposes., we never sell your personal information to third parties., find the plan that’s right for you, google slides is a part of google workspace.

Every plan includes

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Collaborate from anywhere, on any device

Access, create, and edit your presentations wherever you are — from any mobile device, tablet, or computer — even when offline.

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Get a head start with templates

Choose from a variety of presentations, reports, and other professionally-designed templates to kick things off quickly..

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Presentations that move audiences

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content quicker than ever before.

Prezi is good for business

Keep teams engaged and customers asking for more

presentation tools free software

Prezi is smart for education

Make lessons more exciting and easier to remember

presentation tools free software

Millions of people — from students to CEOs — use Prezi to grab attention, stand out, and capture imaginations

presentation tools free software

The most engaging presentations happen on Prezi

presentation tools free software

Create with confidence

Professionally designed templates.

Choose from hundreds of modern, beautifully made templates.

Millions of reusable presentations

Focus on your own creativity and build off, remix, and reuse presentations from our extensive content library.

Real creative freedom

Open canvas.

Create, organize, and move freely on an open canvas. Create seamless presentations without the restrictions of linear slides.

Ready-made asset libraries

Choose from millions of images, stickers, GIFs, and icons from Unsplash and Giphy.

presentation tools free software

A presentation that works for you

Present in-person.

Have the confidence to deliver a memorable presentation with presenter notes and downloadable presentations.

Present over video conference

Keep your audience engaged by putting yourself in the center of your presentation.

Your own ideas, ready to present faster

Prezi AI is your new creative partner. Save time, amplify your ideas, and elevate your presentations.

The specialists on visual storytelling since 2009

From TED talks to classrooms. In every country across the world. Prezi has been a trusted presentation partner for over 15 years.

*independent Harvard study of Prezi vs. PowerPoint

See why our customers love us

Prezi is consistently awarded and ranks as the G2 leader across industries based on hundreds of glowing customer reviews.

Prezi powers the best presenters to do their best presentations

5 Top-Rated Free Presentation Software

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Barkha Bali

Presentations are a means of effective visual communication, whether you are conducting an employee training session or pitching an idea or a product to a client. Yet, many fail to leave an impact due to lackluster design layouts and visuals. Solution? Presentation software to create engaging slides, visualize data better, and improve content narratives.

However, presentation tools can be costly, so we suggest starting with a free plan to explore product capabilities, identify the features you need, and test multiple tools without a purchase commitment. This article highlights five top-rated free presentation software, in alphabetical order, based on verified software reviews. Read more .

We've categorized these products into dedicated presentation tools and graphic design suites with presentation-making features. Irrespective of their classification, all tools offer key presentation software features, including a media library, collaboration tools, slide optimization, and data visualization.

Canva is a graphic design suite with presentation-making capabilities. It offers pre-built presentation templates that can be customized using different color schemes, logos, and photos. It lets you add audio files, videos, and animations to make your presentations engaging. It also offers an AI writing assistant and AI-powered design tools to create and visualize presentation design ideas for various elements, including headlines, captions, body text, and images. 

Canva's free version offers over a million free stock photos, graphics, videos, and audio files, making it a helpful resource for creating presentations. It also includes a wide selection of free fonts. Upgrade to a paid version if you want to upload custom fonts or access an extended library of media assets.

Customizable designs: Upload photos, company logos, and other branding elements to customize pre-built presentation templates. You can add as many slides as you want and experiment with animations, videos, audio, fonts, and color schemes for an engaging presentation.

Built-in social sharing and presentation mode: Share presentations on various social media platforms, including Facebook and LinkedIn, directly from within Canva. You can also use a built-in presentation mode to present your slides in a full-screen view.

Real-time collaboration: Invite teammates to collaborate on presentations by letting them leave comments or suggestions, make changes, and add elements such as images and icons.

Customer support options: Query forms and knowledge base

Who should consider Canva?

Canva is worth considering for businesses that want a graphic design suite that also creates engaging presentations. Besides its customizable media library, Canva offers multiple AI tools—Magic Design, Magic Edit, and Magic Write—to simplify the presentation creation process. Magic Design and Magic Edit let users visualize presentation design ideas and add or replace elements from an image. Magic Write, an OpenAI-powered text generator, enables users to draft various types of content, including presentation content ideas and social media captions.

Canva

Trial/Free Version

  • Free Version

Cost to upgrade

Device compatibility, 2. decktopus.

Decktopus is a presentation generator that leverages AI to create engaging, professional presentations. You simply add a prompt, such as “project report for SEO campaign,” and click the generate-my-presentation button. You can even customize the auto-generated presentation decks with pre-installed themes, fonts, and colors. Decktopus also lets you add unlimited members to view and edit your presentation slides. 

Under the free plan, you receive 100 AI credits, which are refilled monthly, to access AI features. Auto-generating one presentation deck costs 30 credits. If you exhaust your monthly credits, you can continue creating presentations using the pre-installed templates available to all users, or you can upgrade your pricing plan to access more AI credits.

Rehearsal screen: Use a built-in rehearsal mode to practice and rehearse presentations before delivering them to an audience. This feature helps improve preparation so you’re more confident and polished in your delivery.

History versioning: Access and review previous versions of your presentations to track and compare changes made over time.

Presentation notes: Add additional context, reminders, or speaking points to your presentation slides. These notes are for your reference and not visible to the audience during the presentation.

Customer support options: Help articles, live support, and email

Who should consider Decktopus?

Decktopus is a suitable option for businesses that want an automated presentation maker. It analyzes the presentation topic, audience, and goals to make AI-driven content suggestions and slide designs. It also includes AI tools for generating images, icons, and list items to enhance the overall presentation creation process.

Decktopus

Create a list of “must-have” versus “good-to-have” features based on your presentation needs. For instance, if you want to add high-quality images and media assets to your presentations, look for a multimedia stock library. However, if you want to work on presentations with your teammates, collaboration features such as real-time editing and version control are crucial. Outlining your requirements will help you choose a tool that aligns with your specific presentation objectives.

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a dedicated presentation tool from the Google Workspace suite. It lets you create and sync slides, share them with your teammates, add comments, and assign action items to team members. It offers assistive features such as Smart Compose, an intelligence tool that provides suggestions to build slides faster, and autocorrect, which removes spelling or formatting errors. It also provides an offline mode to access, create, and edit slides without an internet connection.

Every plan within Google Workspace includes access to Google Slides, and all the features of Google Slides are available in the free plan. However, if you require additional cloud storage space or 24/7 online support, you’ll have to upgrade to a business plan.

Live captions: Incorporate live captions in your Google Slides presentations. This feature allows your audience to easily understand the presentation content.

Presenter view: Use the presenter view to present slides during meetings, reference speaker notes, showcase text to viewers, and access live captions for audio content. You can also integrate the software with third-party video conferencing platforms to present slides during online conferences.

Real-time editing: Invite teammates to collaborate on slides and make real-time changes. Any changes made to the slides are automatically synced in the version history.

Customer support options: Knowledge base and community forum

Who should consider Google Slides?

Businesses that already use the Google Workspace suite can leverage Google Slides' presentation capabilities. Google Slides can be integrated with other Google Apps, such as Sheets and Gmail, to allow users to embed data charts, reply to comments, and search for relevant content and images directly from Slides.

Google Slides

Google Slides

4. piktochart.

As a graphic design suite, Piktochart provides pre-installed templates, fonts, graphics, and design elements that can be customized to create professional-looking presentations. You can directly integrate external web content, such as websites or online resources, into your presentations. You can download the presentations you create in the PPT or PNG format and share them on social media or with your stakeholders via email. 

Piktochart's free version allows up to four users to build up to five projects. If you have a larger team or want no limit on the number of projects you can create, consider upgrading to a paid plan. With a paid plan, you can also add unique fonts and color schemes, ensuring your presentations reflect your brand's voice and visual identity.

Collaboration tools: Invite your team members to collaborate and co-annotate on presentation slides. This feature facilitates quick feedback and communication among team members working on the same project.

Templates and assets: Choose from unlimited, customizable templates, stock photos, illustrations, and Piktochart icons to create visually appealing presentations.

Data visualization: Leverage data charts and maps to visualize data and highlight focus areas in your presentations. You can also directly import dynamic data from Google Sheets into your presentations.

Customer support options: Email and knowledge base

Who should consider Piktochart?

Piktochart is worth considering for businesses that have to present complex or large data sets and are looking for a presentation tool with data visualization and analytics capabilities. By allowing users to import data through copy-pasting, uploading CSV/Excel files, or integrating Google Sheets, Piktochart helps break down complex data into easily understandable infographics or visualizations.

Piktochart

Prioritize presentation software tools offering offline access. With this capability, you can continue working on your presentations without internet access. This feature ensures you don’t face interruptions or productivity setbacks due to internet outages or when you’re traveling to places with limited connectivity.

Xtensio is another graphic design suite with features to create presentations. It’s a collaborative platform that allows you to create, share, and edit presentations with team members. All edits are saved and synced in real time across devices. You can generate a shareable link for your presentation and share it with stakeholders. You also get access to a library of free stock photos, icons, and images to add to your slides.

Under its free version, Xtensio offers access to all its customizable templates. If you want to remove the Xtensio branding from your presentations, consider upgrading. With a paid plan, you can also convert any active presentation into a team template, ensuring consistency and speeding up content creation for your team.

Custom color palette: Add your brand colors and fonts (or your client’s) to set up your team’s shared style guide. This feature helps ensure brand consistency and improve visual communication across teams. 

Presentation embedding: Embed your created presentations onto your website. This feature allows website visitors to access and interact with your content, enhancing engagement.

Duplicate sections and modules: Create and save a copy of individual presentation elements, sections, and modules. This feature eliminates the need for creating new sections and formatting them for every presentation, saving time and maintaining consistency.

Customer support options: Knowledge base and email

Who should consider Xtensio?

Businesses looking for a presentation tool that offers multiple sharing options can consider Xtensio. The software offers shareable presentation links and the ability to embed presentations onto websites, enabling businesses to share their presentations with team members, stakeholders, clients, and the public.

Xtensio

What is the cost to upgrade from free presentation software to a paid one?

Presentation software upgrades can be as low as $4.99 per user, per month, or increase up to $99+ per month, depending on various factors—features, number of users, number of presentations, templates, and more. Most presentation platforms typically include the following subscription plans:

Free trials: No-cost plans range from 14 to 30 days, giving users access to all or limited software features. These are ideal for businesses that wish to try out a tool before purchasing it.

Free versions: Free software plans offer access to a limited number of basic features, such as presentation templates. These are suitable for small businesses or individuals on a budget.

Entry-level plans: Start at $4.99 per user, per month, and offer limited features. They are suitable for small businesses or teams with basic presentation-making requirements such as pre-installed templates, collaboration tools, and presentation mode.

Mid-tier plans: Range from $11 to $59 per month and offer features such as unlimited custom online presentation templates, customizable branding, extra cloud storage, and redesigning tools. These are ideal for businesses that have outgrown basic presentation solutions but don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools.

High-end plans: Advanced plans can cost more than $99 monthly and offer unlimited presentation features, AI tools, unlimited storage, 24/7 customer support, and more. These are ideal for cross-functional businesses with multiple teams and departments that need a customized presentation solution.

Hidden costs associated with presentation software

Besides the software license price, additional costs associated with online presentation software include data migration, training, integration, hardware and IT, and maintenance/upgrades. Small businesses should budget for these additional expenses when considering a new tool.

Frequently asked questions when selecting free presentation software

What are the limitations of the free plan?

A free presentation app may have limitations on the number of users, storage space, and number of editable templates. Ensure you can work with these limitations, but if they hinder your workflow or collaboration needs, consider upgrading to a paid version.

Is the software downloadable, or is it accessible online?

Your decision between downloadable software and web-based applications should be based on your requirements. If you prioritize advanced features and performance, opt for downloadable software. However, if convenience, cross-platform compatibility, and quick access are important to you, a web-based application would be a more suitable choice.

Does the presentation solution support real-time collaboration?

If you have a cross-functional team with multiple stakeholders, look for presentation software that offers collaboration capabilities, such as shareable links, co-editing, and commenting. This functionality will help your team make changes in real time and reduce the chances of inconsistencies via instant content feedback.

Methodology

We selected the five products with the highest ratings to feature in this article. To be considered for this list, products must:

Have at least 20 unique product reviews published on Capterra within the past two years, with an average rating of 3.0 or higher (as of July 31, 2023).

Offer a free, stand-alone software version (not a trial version where you must purchase the product after a limited time).

Meet our presentation software market definition: “Presentation software helps ministers, salespeople, marketing employees, and other professionals with creating and conducting presentations.”

The “most affordable” tool is identified based on the lowest pricing a vendor offered on their website in terms of cost to upgrade as of July 31, 2023.

Product research for this article was contributed by Himanshi Arora .

Note : Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Capterra’s presentation software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the Capterra directory that offer them. Only products with publicly available pricing information (as of July 31, 2023) were considered for pricing calculation.

Was this article helpful?

About the author.

Barkha Bali profile picture

Barkha Bali is a writer at Capterra, providing expert insights to help small businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing user reviews data for the highest rated products in relevant software categories. She has worked in finance, lifestyle, education, and medical. With expertise in marketing and content strategy, Barkha’s work has been featured in Medium and educational websites. When not working, she can be found re-watching “The Office” or “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

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The best presentation software

These powerpoint alternatives go beyond the basics..

Hero image with logos of the best presentation software

The latest presentation apps have made it easier than ever to format slides and create professional-looking slideshows without giving off a "this is a template" vibe. Even standard PowerPoint alternatives have updated key features to make it easier than ever to collaborate and create presentations quickly, so you can spend more time prepping for your actual presentation.

If, like me, you've been using Google Slides unquestioningly for years, it's a whole new world out there. The newest crop of online presentation tools go way beyond the classic slideshow experience, with new features to keep your audience's attention, streamline the creation process with AI, and turn slide decks into videos and interactive conversations.

I've been testing these apps for the past few years, and this time, I spent several days tinkering with the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

Beautiful.ai for AI-powered design

Prezi for non-linear, conversational presentations

Powtoon for video presentations

Genially for interactive, presenter-less presentations

Pitch for collaborating with your team on presentations

Zoho Show for a simple presentation app

Gamma for generative AI features

What makes the best presentation app?

How we evaluate and test apps.

Our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. Unless explicitly stated, we spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog .

When looking for the best presentation apps, I wanted utility players. After all, slideshows are used for just about everything, from pitch decks and product launches to class lectures and church sermons. With that in mind, here's what I was looking for:

Pre-built templates. The best presentation tools should have attractive, professional-looking templates to build presentations in a hurry.

Sharing and collaboration options. Whether you plan to share your webinar slides later, or you just want to collaborate with a coworker on a presentation, it should be easy to share files and collaborate in real-time.

Flexibility and customization options. Templates are great, but top presentation apps should enable you to customize just about everything—giving you the flexibility to build exactly what you need.

Affordability. Creating compelling presentations is important, but you shouldn't have to bust your budget to make it happen. With capable free tools on the market, affordability is a top consideration.

Standalone functionality. There's no reason to use multiple tools when one can do it all, so I didn't test any apps that require and work on top of another presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Familiar, deck-based UI. For our purposes here, I only tested software that uses slides, with the familiar deck-based editor you expect from a "presentation" tool (versus, for example, a video creation app).

While many apps now offer AI features in one way or another, I found many of these features to be lacking still—they're often slow, struggle to pull in relevant imagery, and yield wildly inconsistent designs. For that reason, I opted not to make AI features a strict requirement (for now!), and I've still included apps that don't offer AI. (Of course, if you opt for one of those, you can still easily get AI-generated images from a separate tool and copy them into your presentation app of choice.)

Beyond that, I also looked for presentation apps that brought something unique to the table—features above and beyond what you can get for free from a legacy solution like PowerPoint or Google Slides. (And I opted not to test any brand new apps that are still in beta, since there are so many established options out there.)

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

I created a new deck, scanning through all available templates, noting how well-designed they were (and which were free versus paid).

I added new slides, deleted slides, edited text and images, and played around with other content types.

I changed presentation design settings, like color schemes and background images.

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

After my first round of testing, I went back into the top performers to test any unique or niche features like AI, brand settings, interactive content, and more. With that, these are the best presentation apps I found—each one really brings something different or radically easy to the table.

The best presentation software: at a glance

The best free presentation software, canva (web, windows, mac, android, ios).

Canva, our pick for the best free presentation app

Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

The Magic Design AI tool is still inconsistent and not super impressive

Canva offers one of the most robust free plans of all the presentation apps I tested. The app delays account creation until after you've created your first design, so you can get started building your presentation in seconds. Choose from an almost overwhelming number of beautiful templates (nearly all available for free), including those designed specifically for education or business use cases.

Anyone who's accidentally scrolled too far and been bumped to the next slide will appreciate Canva's editor interface, which eliminates that problem altogether with a smooth scroll that doesn't jump around. Choose from a handful of preset animations to add life to your presentations, or browse the library of audio and video files available to add. And Canva also has a number of options for sharing your presentation, including adding collaborators to your team, sharing directly to social media, and even via QR code.

Present directly from Canva, and let audience members submit their questions via Canva Live. Once you share a link to invite audience members to your presentation, they can send questions for you to answer. As the presenter, you'll see them pop up in your presenter view window, so you can keep the audience engaged and your presentation clear. Alternatively, record a presentation with a talking head bubble—you can even use an AI presenter here—to share remotely.

Canvas has added a number of AI-powered tools , but I wasn't super impressed by them yet. When I asked the Magic Design tool to generate a presentation from scratch, for example, the result was a bunch of unrelated images, inconsistent design, and surface-level copy. These features will likely improve in time, but for now, you're better off starting from one of Canva's many great templates.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $119.99/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

The best presentation app for AI-powered design

Beautiful.ai (web, mac, windows).

Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

Generative AI features aren't great yet

If you're like me, editing granular spacing issues is the absolute worst part of building a presentation. Beautiful.ai uses artificial intelligence to take a lot of the hassle and granular design requirements out of the presentation process, so you can focus on the content of a presentation without sacrificing professional design. If I needed to make presentations on a regular basis, this is the app I'd use.

Many apps have recently added AI design features, but Beautiful.ai has been doing it for years—and they've perfected the UX of AI design, ensuring the tool's reign as the most streamlined and user-friendly option for AI design.

The editor is a little different from most presentation apps, but it's still intuitive—and you'll start off with a quick two-minute tutorial. When creating a new slide, scroll through "inspiration slides" to find a layout you like; once you choose, the app will pull the layout and automatically adapt it to match the design of the rest of your presentation.

With 10 themes, several templated slides, over 40 fully-designed templates, and 23 different color palettes to choose from, Beautiful.ai strikes a perfect balance between automation and customization.

While Beautiful.ai doesn't offer a free plan, paid plans are reasonably priced and offer sharing and collaboration options that rival collab-focused apps like Google Slides. And speaking of Google, you can connect Beautiful.ai with Google Drive to save all your presentations there.

Note: I did test the newly released generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) and felt it wasn't much to write home about. It's great for adding individual slides to an existing presentation—automatically choosing the best layout and matching the design to the rest of the deck—but as with most other apps, it struggled to generate a quality presentation from scratch.

Beautiful.ai pricing: Plans start at $12/month for unlimited slides, AI content generation, viewer analytics, and more. Upgrade to a Team plan for $40/user/month to get extra collaboration and workspace features and custom brand controls.

If you're a founder looking for an AI presentation tool for your pitch deck, Slidebean is a great Beautiful.ai alternative for startups. The app offers a number of templates; a unique, content-first outline editor; and AI design help that you can toggle on or off for each slide. I didn't include it on the list mainly because of the price: the free plan is quite limited, and the paid all-access plan starts at $228/year.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

Prezi (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Prezi interface

Prezi pros:

Doesn't restrict you to standard presentation structure

Lots of customization options

Prezi Video lets you display a presentation right over your webcam video

Prezi cons:

Steep learning curve

Struggling to squeeze information into a basic, linear presentation? Give Prezi a try. Unlike nearly all other presentation apps on the market, Prezi Present doesn't restrict the structure of your presentation to a straight line. The editor focuses on topics and subtopics and allows you to arrange them any way you want, so you can create a more conversational flow of information.

With the structural flexibility, you still get all the same customization features you expect from top presentation software, including fully-editable templates. There's a learning curve if you're unfamiliar with non-linear presentations, but templates offer a great jumping-off point, and Prezi's editor does a good job of making the process more approachable.

Plus, Prezi comes with two other apps: Prezi Design and Prezi Video. Prezi Video helps you take remote presentations to a new level. You can record a video where the presentation elements are displayed right over your webcam feed. Record and save the video to share later, or connect with your video conferencing tool of choice (including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet) to present live.

Prezi pricing: Free 14-day trial and a free plan that includes up to 5 visual projects; paid plans start at $5/month and include additional features like private presentations and Prezi Present.

The best presentation app for video presentations

Powtoon (web, ios, android).

Powtoon pros:

Timing automatically changes based on the content on the slide

Can toggle between slideshow and video

Can orient presentation as horizontal, vertical, or square

Powtoon cons:

Limited free plan

Powtoon makes it easy to create engaging videos by orienting the editor around a slide deck. Editing a Powtoon feels just like editing a presentation, but by the time you finish, you have a professional video. 

You can edit your slides at any time, and when you hit play, a video plays through your deck—the feel is almost like an animated explainer video. Each slide includes the animations you choose and takes up as much time as is needed based on the content on the slide. Powtoon figures the timing automatically, and you can see in the bottom-right of the editor how much time is used on your current slide versus the total presentation. If you ever want to present as a slide deck, just toggle between Slideshow and Movie.

You'll likely need to subscribe to a paid plan to get the most out of Powtoon—like creating videos longer than three minutes, downloading them as MP4 files, and white-labeling your presentations—but doing so won't break the bank. Plus, you'll unlock tons of templates complete with animations and soundtracks.

One of my favorite Powtoon features is the ability to orient your video: you can choose horizontal orientation (like a normal presentation) or opt for vertical (for mobile) or square (for social media). When your presentation is ready, you can publish straight to YouTube, Wistia, Facebook Ads, and any number of other locations.

Powtoon pricing: Limited free plan available; paid plans start at $20/month and include white-labeling, priority support, additional storage, and more.

The best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially (web).

Genially, our pick for the best presentation app for interactive presentations

Genially pros:

Don't need a presenter (it's interactive)

You can set universal branding guidelines

Unlimited creations on the free plan

Genially cons:

Free plan has some limitations worth looking into (e.g., can only make public presentations)

While many presentation apps are built for presenter-led decks, Genially 's interactive features and animated templates make it easy to build a self-led presentation. A variety of interactive buttons allow you to show viewers additional context on hover, have them skip to any page of your deck, and let them navigate to external links.

This presentation program offers a bunch of searchable templates, including some for business proposals, reports, social media presentations, and more (though most of those are available on premium plans only). Genially also includes Smart blocks —templated blocks of content for elements like data visualizations and image galleries.

My favorite feature is the brand settings. Premium users can set universal branding guidelines that include your logo, color scheme, fonts, images, and backgrounds, among other options. Think of them like a custom template, created and customized by you, that the whole team can use. Once set, your team can easily create on-brand presentations that automatically apply your brand settings, without even thinking about it.

Plus, Genially supports additional content like training materials, infographics, and interactive images—all subject to your brand presets.

Genially pricing: Free plan available with unlimited creations and views and access to templates; paid plans start at $7.49/month and include additional download options, privacy controls, offline viewing, premium templates, and more.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

Pitch (web, mac, windows, ios, android).

Pitch, our pick for the best presentation software for collaborating with your team

Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Start live video calls straight from decks

Pitch cons:

User interface is a little different than you're used to

Need to collaborate on presentations with your team? Pitch is a Google Slides alternative that gets the job done. As far as decks go, Pitch includes all the beautifully-designed templates, customizability, and ease of use you expect from a top-notch presentation tool. But the app really shines when you add your team.

The right-hand sidebar is all about project management and collaboration: you can set and update the status of your deck, assign entire presentations or individual slides to team members, plus comment, react, or add notes. Save custom templates to make future presentations even easier and faster.

You can also invite collaborators from outside your company to work with you on individual decks. And if you opt for a paid plan, Pitch introduces workspace roles, shared private folders, and version history.

The "Go live" feature is a personal favorite—with just a click on the camera icon in the top-right, you can start a live video call. Any team members who open the presentation can hop in and collaborate in real-time. 

Pitch pricing: Free plan offers unlimited presentations, custom templates, and live video collaboration; paid plans start at $8/user/month for additional workspace features, presentation analytics, and more.

The best simple presentation app

Zoho show (web, ios, android, chrome).

Zoho Show, our pick for the best simple presentation app

Zoho Show pros:

Simple and easy to use

Version history and ability to lock slides

Completely free

Zoho Show cons:

Templates are pretty basic

If you're looking for a simple, yet capable presentation app that's a step up from Google Slides, Zoho Show is a great option. It's completely free to use, offers a clean, intuitive editor, and includes a number of great templates.

While the handful of "Themes" offered are on the basic side, Zoho templates boast a more modern and professional design than much of what Google Slides or PowerPoint offer. And I love that you can set the font and color scheme for the whole template, right from the start.

The app doesn't skimp on collaboration or shareability either. You can invite collaborators via email or shareable link, and comments and version history make it easy to work together on presentations. Once you're ready to share, you can even broadcast your presentation to a remote audience right from within Zoho. Plus, you can one-click lock slides to prevent any more editing or hide individual slides to customize your presentation for different audiences.

You can even connect Zoho Show to Zapier , so you can do things like automatically create a presentation when something happens in one of the other apps you use most.

Zapier is the leader in workflow automation—integrating with 6,000+ apps from partners like Google, Salesforce, and Microsoft. Use interfaces, data tables, and logic to build secure, automated systems for your business-critical workflows across your organization's technology stack. Learn more .

Zoho Show pricing: Free

The best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma (web).

Gamma, our pick for the best presentation app for generative AI

Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Chatbot-like experience

Can still manually edit the presentation

Gamma cons:

Not as much granular customization

I tested a lot of apps claiming to use AI to up your presentation game, and Gamma 's generative features were head and shoulders above the crowd.

Simply give the app a topic—or upload an outline, notes, or any other document or article—approve the outline, and pick a theme. The app will take it from there and create a fully fleshed-out presentation. It's far from perfect, but Gamma produced the most useful jumping-off point of all the AI presentation apps I tested. 

Here's the key: Gamma is much more geared toward the iterative, chatbot experience familiar to ChatGPT users. Click on the Edit with AI button at the top of the right-hand menu to open the chat, and you'll see suggested prompts—or you can type in your own requests for how Gamma should alter the presentation.

Once you've done all you can with prompts, simply close the chat box to manually add the finishing touches. While you do sacrifice some granular customizability in exchange for the AI features, you can still choose your visual theme, change slide layouts, format text, and add any images, videos, or even app and web content.

Gamma pricing: Free plan includes unlimited users, 1 custom theme, 400 AI deck credits, and basic view analytics; upgrade to the Pro plan ("coming soon," as of this writing) for $10/user/month to get additional AI credits, advanced view analytics, custom fonts, and more.

What about the old standbys?

You might notice a few major presentation players aren't on this list, including OGs Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides. These apps are perfectly adequate for creating basic presentations, and they're free if you have a Windows or Mac device or a Google account.

I didn't include them on the list because the presentation space has really developed in the last several years, and after testing them out, I found these behemoths haven't kept pace. If they weren't made by Microsoft/Apple/Google, I might not even be mentioning them. They're pretty basic tools, they're behind the curve when it comes to templates (both quantity and design), and they don't offer any uniquely valuable features like robust team collaboration, branding controls, video, and so on.

Some of these companies (think: Microsoft and Google) are openly working on some pretty impressive-sounding AI features, but they haven't been widely released to the public yet. Rest assured, I'm watching this space, and the next time we update this article, I'll retest tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides to see what new features are available.

In any case, if you're reading this, you're probably looking for an alternative that allows you to move away from one of the big 3, and as the presentation platforms featured above show, there's a ton to gain—in terms of features, usability, and more—when you do.

Related reading:

8 Canva AI tools to improve your design workflow

The best online whiteboards for collaboration

How to share a presentation on Zoom without sharing your browser tabs and address bar

This post was originally published in October 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez. The most recent update was in May 2023.

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Kiera Abbamonte

Kiera’s a content writer who helps SaaS and eCommerce companies connect with customers and reach new audiences. Located in Boston, MA, she loves cinnamon coffee and a good baseball game. Catch up with her on Twitter @Kieraabbamonte.

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5 Best Free Presentation Software Programs

PowerPoint not required

Using free presentation software to create or edit presentations doesn't have to mean cutting corners on features or using a clunky interface that doesn't work the way it should. There are plenty of free presentation software programs have just as much to offer as Microsoft PowerPoint but you won't have to pay a dime for them.

Many similar features include easy to use slide design and transition effects, tabbed interfaces, spell check, free templates, and much more. You really can create exactly the presentation you want with these free programs.

WPS Office Presentation

WPS Office is a collection of office tools, one of which is a slideshow maker. It works a lot like MS PowerPoint and other full-featured slideshow makers, meaning there are lots of professional tools at your fingerprints.

There are premade templates you can load from directly inside the program, or you can of course start a blank slideshow. Lots of popular file formats are supported, so you can import PDFs, PPTX, POTX, XML, and even PowerPoint addin files. PDF is also supported when exporting, but regular presentation formats are, too, like Microsoft's and WPS' custom formats, plus some video and image file formats.

This program is super smooth, and the overall design and tabbed browsing makes it very modern. It has all the features you'd expect in a great slideshow builder, like transitions, animations, color schemes, Slide Master editor, OCR, and cloud access.

You can use this program as a guest, but if you make a free account, you'll get cloud storage for your files, free templates, and more.

It works with Windows, Linux, and macOS.

OpenOffice Impress

Multi monitor support.

Compatible with all OpenDocument compliant apps.

Open or save in PowerPoint format.

Lacks advanced PowerPoint features.

OpenOffice Impress is chock-full of all the features you need to build a great presentation. A simple wizard can walk you through setting up the initial backgrounds, slide design, and transition effects if you’d rather not start with a blank canvas.

There are extra features that include drawing tools, animation, text effects, and multiple monitor support, plus free templates and extensions, as well as automatic spell check and support for macros.

Overall, if you're looking for a free alternative to PowerPoint, this is the program you should choose. It even supports the popular PPTX and PPS files used in MS PowerPoint.

You can use it on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Integrates multiple files into one presentation.

Live chat and audience feedback functionality.

Screen sharing feature.

Requires monthly subscription.

Additional software required to view external media formats.

SlideDog is a bit different than these other presentation programs because it's built for presenting files rather than building and presenting.

It works by creating a playlist of media like video, images, PDFs, and PowerPoint files. The presenter can easily add all of these files to a playlist and then use SlideDog to display it in front of an audience.

SlideDog is a great way to organize a presentation if you want something more than the normal "slide after slide" look, which is how most presentation software work.

Pro features include watermark removal, dual screen mode, and live sharing with polls.

SlideDog supports Windows 7 and later editions.

SlideDog is free to use but because there's also a SlideDog Pro version, you don't have access to features like using your own background image, looping the slideshow, sharing with a live audience, and controlling your presentation from your phone.

Express Points Presentation Software

Intuitive user interface.

Easy to import PowerPoint presentations.

Lacks many features of similar apps.

Outdated user interface.

Can't save or export as a PowerPoint file.

Express Points Presentation Software has nothing near the exhaustive features that the above programs have, but it can still function well as a presentation program, especially if you've already tried the above and want a fresh look at a different program.

Options and features are organized nicely in this free presentation program and are easy to access while working. Included are templates, text formatting, primary slides, transitions, image effects, and the ability to add audio.

You can insert audio from a microphone directly into a slide, open Microsoft PowerPoint’s PPTX files, and autosave presentation files as often as every minute. It can export to several video file formats or upload directly to YouTube, Facebook, or Flickr (or save to PDF or a project file).

This program works on Windows (XP and newer) and macOS (10.5 through 10.14).

Apple Keynote

Many advanced features.

Compatible with PowerPoint.

Integrated with Apple iCloud.

Easy to use.

Only available for Apple devices.

Limited toolbar controls.

Apple Keynote is a free presentation software app for iOS and Mac users that allows for easy collaboration so the whole team can easily work together on creating that next presentation.

There are themes, slide transitions, object effects, text effects, and a whole handful of other tools in Apple Keynote.

Apple Keynote supports opening and saving to MS PowerPoint formats (PPTX and PPT). You can also export your Keynote presentation to PDF, a movie file, HTML, and an image file format.

Download For:

Other Presentation Making Resources

You may also want to consider a free online presentation maker , which will allow you to work on your PowerPoint from anywhere. Since they run in your web browser, you don't have to download anything to your computer to make them work.

If you're only looking to view or present a slideshow, and not make any changes, consider using the free PowerPoint Viewer . It's a really simple program from Microsoft that does just as it seems: it lets you open a presentation file but not do any editing to it.

You can add more interest to your presentation with presentation templates and presentation backgrounds . When you add these items to your presentation, you can make it really unique and relevant for the topic.

You also might want to consider downloading a free alternative to Microsoft Office , many of which include more than just a presentation creator. They not only provide a way to replace PowerPoint with a free tool but also Word, Excel, and Access.

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Make interactive presentations

Create show-stopping presentations and clickable slide decks with Genially’s free online presentation builder. Leave boring behind and tell a story that’s interactive, animated, and beautifully engaging.

Logo of the company Aon, client of Genially

INTERACTIVE CONTENT

A presentation that works like a website

Engage your audience with interactive slides that they can click on and explore. Add music, video, hotspots, popup windows, quiz games and interactive data visualizations in a couple of clicks. No coding required!

NO-CODE ANIMATION

Make your slides pop with animation

Bring a touch of movie magic to the screen with incredible visual effects and animated page transitions. Add click-trigger and timed animations to make any topic easy to understand and captivating to watch.

Image of the Genially tool showing the insertion of multimedia elements from Spotify, Google Maps and Youtube

INTEGRATIONS

Live from the world wide web

Embed online content directly in your slides for a media-rich interactive experience. From YouTube and Spotify to Google Maps and Sheets, Genially works seamlessly with over 100 popular apps and websites.

Image of the Genially tool showing free libraries of backgrounds, color palettes, vector graphics, images, charts, graphs, maps and smartblocks.

TEMPLATES & TOOLKIT

Genius design tools

With Genially, anyone can create a polished and professional presentation. Choose from over 2000 pre-built templates, or create your own design using the drag-and-drop resources, color palettes, icons, maps and vector graphics.

Image of a Genially interactive presentation

ONLINE PLATFORM

Safe and sound in the cloud

Because Genially is online, you can relax knowing that your slides are always up-to-date. There’s no risk of forgetting to save changes or accessing the wrong file. Log in from anywhere, collaborate with your team, and make edits in real time.

All-in-one interactive presentation maker

Real-time collaboration.

Co-edit slide decks with others in real time and organize all of your team projects in shared spaces.

Multi format

Present live, share the link, or download as an interactive PDF, MP4 video, JPG, HTML, or SCORM package.

Engagement Analytics

See how many people have viewed and clicked on your slides and keep tabs on learner progress with User Tracking.

Import from PPTX

Give your old decks a new lease of life by importing PowerPoint slides and transforming them with a little Genially magic.

Keep content on-brand with your logo, fonts, colors, brand assets, and team templates at your fingertips.

Quiz & Survey Builder

Use the Interactive Questions feature to add a fun quiz to your slides or gather feedback from your audience.

Beautiful templates

Make your next deck in a flash with Genially’s ready-to-use slides.

Interactive OKR Presentation template

OKR Presentation

Interactive School Notebook Presentation template

School Notebook Presentation

Interactive Animated Sketch Presentation template

Animated Sketch Presentation

Interactive Minimal presentation template

Minimal presentation

Interactive Land Of Magic Presentation template

Land Of Magic Presentation

Interactive Onboarding presentation template

Onboarding presentation

Interactive Visual Presentation template

Visual Presentation

Interactive Animated chalkboard presentation template

Animated chalkboard presentation

Interactive Online Education Guide template

Online Education Guide

Interactive Terrazzo presentation template

Terrazzo presentation

Interactive Startup pitch template

Startup pitch

Interactive Historical presentation template

Historical presentation

THEMES FOR EVERYONE

Interactive presentation ideas

From classroom materials to business pitches, make an impact every day with Genially.

A photograph with 7 children of different nationalities in a school classroom with a laptop making a presentation

Education presentations

Photograph of 3 people gathered together talking about a report with a tablet

Pitch decks

Photograph of 4 people in an office using a laptop to make a company presentation

Business presentations

Photo of 1 girl with a mac computer doing a slideshow

Thesis defense

Reviews from people rating the tool genially

Share anywhere

Present live

From the front of the room or behind a screen, you’ll wow your audience with Genially. Heading off grid? Download in HTML to present dynamic slides without WiFi.

Share the link

Every Genially slide deck has its own unique url, just like a website! Share the link so that others can explore at their own pace, or download an MP4 video slideshow or PDF.

Post online

Embed the slides on your website or post them on social media. Upload to Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, Moodle or any other platform.

Composition of an eye surrounded by image icons to illustrate the Genially method; interactive visual communication

The benefits of interactive slides

🗣️ Active participation An interactive slide deck gives your audience cool things to click on and discover, boosting learning and engagement.

👂 Multi-sensory experience Audio, video, animations, and mouse interactions make your content immersive, entertaining and accessible.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People-friendly format Pop-ups and embeds condense more material into fewer slides so you can break information down into digestible chunks.


🎮 Gamification Games, quizzes and puzzles make information more memorable and enable you to gather feedback and check understanding.

How to make an interactive presentation

With Genially’s easy-to-use presentation platform, anyone can make incredible visual content in moments.

Choose a template or a blank canvas

Create content starting from a Genially template

Get stunning results in less time with a ready-made template. Feeling creative? Design your own slides from scratch.

Customize the design

Add animations and interactions

Resources to become a pro presentation creator

Image showing the interactivity of the Genially tool

How to create an interactive presentation: Get started in Genially.

Image showing a presentation about the Genially tool

How to present data without sending your audience to sleep.

Image showing how the Genially tool is no-code

No-code animation: Bring your slides to life with cinematic visual effects.

Neon image talking about storytelling in Genially

The art of digital storytelling: Engage and thrill on screen.

Genially in a nutshell

How do I make a presentation interactive and how does Genially work? Find the answers to all of your slide-related questions here!

What’s an interactive presentation?

Interactive slides contain clickable hotspots, links, buttons, and animations that are activated at the touch of a button. Instead of reading or watching passively, your audience can actively interact with the content.  

Genially’s interaction presentation software allows you to combine text, photos, video clips, audio and other content in one deck. It’s a great way to condense more information into fewer slides. 

If you’re a teacher, you can share multiple materials in one single learning resource. Students can create their own projects using digital media and online maps. For business or training, try embedding spreadsheet data, PDFs, and online content directly in your slides. 

An interactive slide deck is more user-friendly than a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or Google Slides document. That’s because you can break information down into chunks with pop-ups, labels, voiceovers and annotated infographics.  

The other benefit of interactive content is increased engagement. It’s easier to keep your audience’s attention when they’re actively participating. Try Genially’s presentation software and free slideshow maker to see how it’s better than other presentation websites. You won’t go back to standard presentation apps!

How do you make a clickable slide?

The best way to make slides clickable is to use Genially’s free interactive presentation program. Design your slide then apply an interaction. In a couple of clicks, you can add popup windows, hyperlinks, close-up images, games, animations, multimedia and other content. 

Choose from the library of hotspot buttons and icons to show people what to click on. Go to Presenter View to get a preview and see how your content will appear to your audience.

How do I create presentations that look professional?

You’ve got a deadline looming and you’re staring at the screen with a blank presentation. We’ve all been there! Starting a presentation design from scratch is tricky, especially if you’re short on time. 

Genially’s free online presentation maker has over 2000 ready-to-use templates for professional slide presentations, photos slideshows, and more. Each slide design has been created by our team of top graphic designers. No need to worry about fonts, centering images, or designing a matching color scheme. It’s all done for you. 

Start by browsing our layouts and themes for education, business and then customize with your own text and images.

How do I share or download my slides?

Because Genially is a cloud based presentation software, you can simply share the link to your slides. Like other online presentation tools, there are no files to download or store on your computer. Everything is saved online.  

When you publish your slide deck, it gets its own unique url, just like a website. Share the link with others to let them explore the content in their own time. If you’re presenting live, just click the Present button. 

You can also embed your presentation on your website, company wiki, or social media. Genially is compatible with WordPress, Moodle, Google Classroom, and other platforms. If you use an LMS, you can also download your interactive design slides in SCORM format.

For slideshow videos and slideshows with music, share online or download as an MP4 video. Check out our free slideshow templates for ideas.

Can I make a free presentation in Genially?

You bet! Genially is an easy-to-use slide maker, with a free version and paid plans. The free plan allows you to create unlimited slides with interactions and animations. Subscribe to one of our paid plans for more advanced features.

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Discover a world of interactive content

Join the 25 million people designing incredible interactive experiences with Genially.

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Create your presentation

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AI presentation maker

When lack of inspiration or time constraints are something you’re worried about, it’s a good idea to seek help. Slidesgo comes to the rescue with its latest functionality—the AI presentation maker! With a few clicks, you’ll have wonderful slideshows that suit your own needs . And it’s totally free!

presentation tools free software

Generate presentations in minutes

We humans make the world move, but we need to sleep, rest and so on. What if there were someone available 24/7 for you? It’s time to get out of your comfort zone and ask the AI presentation maker to give you a hand. The possibilities are endless : you choose the topic, the tone and the style, and the AI will do the rest. Now we’re talking!

Customize your AI-generated presentation online

Alright, your robotic pal has generated a presentation for you. But, for the time being, AIs can’t read minds, so it’s likely that you’ll want to modify the slides. Please do! We didn’t forget about those time constraints you’re facing, so thanks to the editing tools provided by one of our sister projects —shoutouts to Wepik — you can make changes on the fly without resorting to other programs or software. Add text, choose your own colors, rearrange elements, it’s up to you! Oh, and since we are a big family, you’ll be able to access many resources from big names, that is, Freepik and Flaticon . That means having a lot of images and icons at your disposal!

presentation tools free software

How does it work?

Think of your topic.

First things first, you’ll be talking about something in particular, right? A business meeting, a new medical breakthrough, the weather, your favorite songs, a basketball game, a pink elephant you saw last Sunday—you name it. Just type it out and let the AI know what the topic is.

Choose your preferred style and tone

They say that variety is the spice of life. That’s why we let you choose between different design styles, including doodle, simple, abstract, geometric, and elegant . What about the tone? Several of them: fun, creative, casual, professional, and formal. Each one will give you something unique, so which way of impressing your audience will it be this time? Mix and match!

Make any desired changes

You’ve got freshly generated slides. Oh, you wish they were in a different color? That text box would look better if it were placed on the right side? Run the online editor and use the tools to have the slides exactly your way.

Download the final result for free

Yes, just as envisioned those slides deserve to be on your storage device at once! You can export the presentation in .pdf format and download it for free . Can’t wait to show it to your best friend because you think they will love it? Generate a shareable link!

What is an AI-generated presentation?

It’s exactly “what it says on the cover”. AIs, or artificial intelligences, are in constant evolution, and they are now able to generate presentations in a short time, based on inputs from the user. This technology allows you to get a satisfactory presentation much faster by doing a big chunk of the work.

Can I customize the presentation generated by the AI?

Of course! That’s the point! Slidesgo is all for customization since day one, so you’ll be able to make any changes to presentations generated by the AI. We humans are irreplaceable, after all! Thanks to the online editor, you can do whatever modifications you may need, without having to install any software. Colors, text, images, icons, placement, the final decision concerning all of the elements is up to you.

Can I add my own images?

Absolutely. That’s a basic function, and we made sure to have it available. Would it make sense to have a portfolio template generated by an AI without a single picture of your own work? In any case, we also offer the possibility of asking the AI to generate images for you via prompts. Additionally, you can also check out the integrated gallery of images from Freepik and use them. If making an impression is your goal, you’ll have an easy time!

Is this new functionality free? As in “free of charge”? Do you mean it?

Yes, it is, and we mean it. We even asked our buddies at Wepik, who are the ones hosting this AI presentation maker, and they told us “yup, it’s on the house”.

Are there more presentation designs available?

From time to time, we’ll be adding more designs. The cool thing is that you’ll have at your disposal a lot of content from Freepik and Flaticon when using the AI presentation maker. Oh, and just as a reminder, if you feel like you want to do things yourself and don’t want to rely on an AI, you’re on Slidesgo, the leading website when it comes to presentation templates. We have thousands of them, and counting!.

How can I download my presentation?

The easiest way is to click on “Download” to get your presentation in .pdf format. But there are other options! You can click on “Present” to enter the presenter view and start presenting right away! There’s also the “Share” option, which gives you a shareable link. This way, any friend, relative, colleague—anyone, really—will be able to access your presentation in a moment.

Discover more content

This is just the beginning! Slidesgo has thousands of customizable templates for Google Slides and PowerPoint. Our designers have created them with much care and love, and the variety of topics, themes and styles is, how to put it, immense! We also have a blog, in which we post articles for those who want to find inspiration or need to learn a bit more about Google Slides or PowerPoint. Do you have kids? We’ve got a section dedicated to printable coloring pages! Have a look around and make the most of our site!

presentation tools free software

5 Free Alternatives To Microsoft PowerPoint

M icrosoft PowerPoint has always been the default choice for creating professional meeting briefs or fun little project demonstrations in schools. Its inclusion as a free service for students or working professionals makes it a no-brainer to use. However, for the general public, it can get quite expensive to pay for a subscription just to be able to create simple presentation slides. Although you can subscribe to Microsoft's Office Suite and get more bang for your buck, the pricing still doesn't hit the affordable range for most. 

Fortunately, completion has been growing, and a sea of strong contenders offer similar services to PowerPoint. After considering feature sets, here are five of the best free alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint. At the end of the article, you can find a detailed explanation of why we've chosen the services, alongside useful comparisons that may help you make your decision easier.

Read more: The 20 Best Mac Apps That Will Improve Your Apple Experience

When it comes to productivity apps, Zoho makes some of the better ones in the market. Zoho Sheet, for example, is one of the best Microsoft Excel alternatives out there  —  owing to its extensive product catalog, there is a great way to view and edit presentations. The aptly named Zoho Show lets you design and demonstrate professional-looking slides, all without having to download the program.

Zoho takes a minimal approach to most of its services, and its PowerPoint application is no different. You'll find that most menus are contextually aware of what tasks you're currently performing, which helps keep unnecessary tools out of the way and bring the important ones in focus. There is also a huge library of customizable templates you can choose from, making it easier to kickstart your presentation work. 

Zoho Show is completely free to use for individuals and offers unlimited cloud storage. No features are locked behind a paywall, and rest assured, you can fully rely on this online presentation-making tool for all your needs, be it for school or work. 

Canva is a service that can easily climb up to becoming everyone's favorite once they start using it. While most applaud it for its graphic designing prowess, there are many other things Canva can do that you probably aren't aware of . Among them is the ability to craft beautiful slides for your presentations and projects. 

By creating a free account, you can access thousands of templates on Canva. You can filter these by use case—maybe you need one for a professional business briefing or a casual one explaining why your pet dog is the best canine. There is a whole section of ready-to-use templates dedicated to mobile-friendly viewing as well, which is something you don't usually find to be as accessible with other tools. 

Like most presentation apps, Canva lets you collaborate with your team members and work across devices seamlessly. The Canva app for mobile also lets you control your slides remotely during your presentation. Some menus also feature AI-featured tools to add one-click enhancements to your slides -- unfortunately, these are locked behind premium subscription tiers. However, for the cent percent of the population, Canva can be used without spending a dime to meet a plethora of creative needs. 

Apple takes great pride in developing in-house solutions to meet every user requirement. While most of its products dominate the competition in popularity, the same cannot be said for Keynote , the company's version of Microsoft PowerPoint. The program was first released in 2003 with macOS Big Sur and has largely remained one of those icons you glance over and forget about. 

However, recent versions of Keynote have made it a compelling alternative to PowerPoint. Not only is it pre-installed on every Apple device, including your iPhone, but it also works best with the iPad touchscreen. Keynote has a largely clean and professional approach to the built-in templates, but nothing is stopping you from going creative. Animations are one of Keynote's strongest suits, allowing you to create near cinematic-looking presentations with just a few clicks. 

While you can still use Apple Keynote through iCloud on Windows devices, this alternative is clearly meant for people surrounded by the walled garden of Apple technology. It makes use of features like AirDrop, Live Photos, and VoiceOver  — all of which are technologies available across Apple devices. Using Apple Keynote is completely free, and the app has easy exporting tools that make working with Microsoft PowerPoint less of a hassle.

WPS Presentation

WPS Office makes some of the best solutions for creating and editing documents on smartphones , but their service offerings extend to Windows, macOS, and even Linux. WPS Presentation is perhaps the closest you'll get to Microsoft PowerPoint in terms of the user interface and how most tools are bundled in familiar locations.

This PowerPoint app offers real-time collaboration where you can invite your team members and work on the same document remotely. Like most collaboration tools, users can leave comments to suggest changes or add information for other people on the team.

WPS Presentation is not the only free product; you can utilize every app in the WPS Office suite. Unlike most competitors, you don't need to download or use a separate mini-app to make presentations. WPS Office has a document editor, PowerPoint creator, spreadsheet manager, and other tools all within its umbrella. Premium plans for this service exist, but they mostly cater to unlocking features for editing PDFs. 

Google Slides

As a netizen, you most likely already have a Google account. Not only is it required to make any meaningful use of your Android phone, but popular services that we take for granted, like Gmail and Drive, all fall under Google's umbrella. One such free service that the tech giant has at its disposal is Google Slides . While the barebones UI might seem lackluster at first, Slides has nearly the same level of functionality as Microsoft PowerPoint and can even be supercharged by add-ons. 

All of Google's workspace apps, such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides, provide an intuitive way to work in a team. You can add comments, use annotations, and share the presentation with limited access to others. You can use one of the many predesigned Google Slides templates for simple presentations , or browse for templates that cater to specific needs. Being part of a bigger service catalog has its obvious advantages, such as seamless integration with Google Meet, Gmail, and other products from Google that you already use. 

We recommend Google Slides to anyone who needs to create and edit PowerPoint presentations on the go and can't be bothered with working in a complicated environment. The service is also available as an app for Android and iOS, and you can export your presentations in a wide range of formats, including PPT, PDF, or PNG for individual slides. 

To Pay Or Not To Pay?

You'll notice that all the services we've mentioned on this list are free to use. In fact, you can use Office 365 apps online for free   — including PowerPoint, which makes purchasing a standalone subscription to the Microsoft PowerPoint app quite redundant. However, nearly every free alternative here short of Keynote also offers premium plans, but should you consider buying one?

For the vast majority of people who are looking for a robust software to create, edit, and share presentations with  —  these free options deliver exceptionally well in every aspect. Some apps like Google Slides and Apple Keynote let you work in smaller teams with the free tier as well. Apps like WPS Office and Canva tend to lock new and exciting features like AI tools behind a paywall, and while these are nice to have, you definitely can do without them. 

If you're looking for a presentation tool for a company with multiple people, you can scale up using any of the alternatives mentioned on this list. Both Google Workspace and Zoho offer reliable and enterprise-level plans you can upgrade to. For everyone else  — enjoy creating and demonstrating your PowerPoint presentations for free.

Read the original article on SlashGear .

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The 59 Best Free Teaching Tools To Boost Classroom Learning in 2024

presentation tools free software

Table of Contents

presentation tools free software

iSpring Free is one of our favorite online teaching tools. It is a lightweight eLearning authoring software for teachers that allows you to turn a boring PowerPoint presentation into a mobile-compatible online course with quizzes. The main advantage of this interactive learning tool is its simplicity. Its intuitive interface enables any novice course developer to create an unlimited number of courses quickly and easily.

Download iSpring Free now →

Kahoot

Kahoot is a game-based learning platform that is great for creating content such as fun activities and learning games for students. You can make quizzes on any topic and in any language, and customize those quizzes with videos, diagrams, and images. Students participate in “kahoots” (games) by logging the game codes on their device or application.

3. Edpuzzle

Edpuzzle

With Edpuzzle , you can create interactive lessons with embedded audionotes, assessments, and quizzes. Its analytics tool enables you to track how students are watching your videos and if they understand the content, great for an online class.

4. Starfall

Starfall

Starfall is an online service that was initially designed to teach kids to read. Its phonics-based learning model supports online games and print series, which can be downloaded for use at home and in the classroom for little students. Now, it also features animated songs, movies, and mathematics activities for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Grades 1 to 3.

5. CommonLit

CommonLit

CommonLit is a database of literary educational materials that you can access to develop lessons or just find ideas. You can choose a lesson from the digital library, share it with your students, assign them text-based questions, and analyze their performance.

Quill

Quill is a platform that has a set of creative tools for teaching writing, vocabulary, and grammar and includes over 400 exercises. These classroom activities help by inviting students to learn by reconstructing sentences, proofreading passages, creating new passages, and more.

7. Plickers

Plickers

Plickers is a card activity that lets you poll your class, without the need for a student device. You just need to give students cards (“paper clickers”) and use your Android smartphone or tablet to scan them to do instant checks for understanding, exit tickets, and impromptu polls.

8. Powertalk

Powertalk is a presentation enhancement tool that automatically speaks your PowerPoint slides. When compared to other common ‘text-to-speech’ programs, Powertalk can speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images.

9. JeopardyLabs

JeopardyLabs

JeopardyLabs is an online service that enables you to build Jeopardy games for students without PowerPoint, by using a simple editor. You can also choose from ready-made games created by the platform users on such subjects as foods, cities, countries, books, and hygiene.

10. Edgames

Edgames

Edgames is an edutainment tool that provides educational activities, including board games, scrambled word games, sports-based games, and cards. You can help your students learn and understand personal hygiene, nutrition, current affairs, and many other things through playing games.

Teaching Tools for Classroom Management

A teacher’s tasks include planning lessons, marking attendance, assigning homework, and grading. This is where you can benefit from classroom tools for teachers. Here you’ll find online platforms and add-ons that can help you streamline all these processes and improve communication and the learning process.

11. ClassDojo

ClassDojo

ClassDojo is a classroom management tool that enables schools to bring parents, teachers, school administrators, and students into classroom communities so they can track and enhance classroom behavior in real-time.

12. Google Classroom

Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a free educational software for teachers that allows them to conduct online classes, invite your students, and assign homework. You can also discuss assignments online and track student progress. Google Classroom seamlessly integrates with other Google apps such as Google Slides, Docs, Sheets, and Drive allowing you to seamlessly work on different documents.

13. Class123

Class123

Class123 is one of the online platforms for classroom management that contains a chalkboard, seating chart, timer, random name picker, and many other interactive educational tools necessary for efficient class management. You can also keep track of students’ attendance and behavior, share stories and photos on boards, and let students interact in private messages.

14. Flubaroo

Flubaroo

Flubaroo is a Google Spreadsheets Add-on designed for you to simply create multiple-choice and fill-in assignments, grade and analyze online student performance, share scores with students, and assign stickers and badges on completed tasks.

15. Show My Homework

presentation tools free software

Show My Homework is free technology software that allows teachers to administer, and control homework much easier. A teacher can quickly assign homework and record student submissions and grades on the go with its mobile app.

Lesson Planning Tools

Planning classes is one of the core parts of a teacher’s work. And it’s not easy. However, there are some solutions and resources that can make lesson planning a bit more convenient and effective. Check out the best tools for teachers that let you organize classes for free.

16. Planboard

presentation tools free software

Planboard is one of the teaching tools for lesson planning. It is designed for creating lesson plans on iPhone, iPad, or Android, and allows teachers to add files, photos, and videos, and view them during an offline or online class. Plans can be edited, archived, and shared with colleagues.

17. PlanbookEdu

PlanbookEdu

PlanbookEdu is one of the best free platforms for teaching online and planning lessons. It functions like a printed book but can be filled in with texts online. With this software, creating, sharing, and printing lesson plans become easy for teachers. The free version doesn’t let you attach images and files to your plans.

18. Evernote

presentation tools free software

Evernote wasn’t designed specifically for teachers, yet its free version is one of the best tech tools that many teachers use for learning and daily lesson planning. You can collect ideas, articles, images, to-do lists, and more in a single place and access them anytime. A teacher can also use this software for personal development and organizing their life.

19. IL Classroom

presentation tools free software

IL Classroom doesn’t let teachers create their own lesson plans, it’s a website that offers teachers a free library of interactive math and language arts classes, as well as some other educational resources, like videos and assignments for students. There is learning content for different grade levels. All lessons are Common Core aligned.

20. ReadWriteThink

presentation tools free software

ReadWriteThink also isn’t technological software but a collection of free lessons and resources developed by the International Reading Association and The National Council of Teachers of English. A great advantage of this website is that all lesson plans are engaging, research based, and align with standards. You can browse lessons by grade level (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) and by areas of literacy practice: learning through language, learning language, and learning about language.

Tests and Exams Makers

Assessing students’ knowledge in distance learning seems to be more difficult than during in-person sessions of traditional education. But with the right online tools, you’ll see that it is actually even easier and even much more engaging for students and teachers.

21. Free Quiz Maker

presentation tools free software

Free Quiz Maker is an educational tool that lets a teacher build interactive assessments and exams for students from 3 question types: multiple-choice, multiple response, and short answer questions and conveniently gather studentresponses. You can also set scoring parameters, the number of attempts allowed, and time limits. The ready-made quizzes can be uploaded to any LMS, including Moodle and Blackboard. The tool also lets you create surveys.

22. SpellQuiz

presentation tools free software

SpellQuiz is another service for distance learning that is mainly focused on helping kids and adults to understand phonics. The platform contains English spelling lessons for individuals from Grade 1 to Adult, as well as fun quizzes and word games.

23. Quizizz

presentation tools free software

Quizizz is one of the free tech tools for teachers that allows them to present quizzes on science, social sciences, computer science, technical education, and art to students as a timed test or homework with a specified deadline.

24. FreeOnlineSurveys

FreeOnlineSurveys is a teaching assessment tool for building online tests, surveys, and forms. You can create quizzes using the drag-and-drop builder and 22 question types and fields, share them with your students and staff members, and analyze student progress with its data reporting tool right from your mobile device.

Plagiarism Checkers

If you need to check your students’ essays and theses for plagiarism, you can do this online with the free resources that are listed below.

25. Check Plagiarism

presentation tools free software

Check Plagiarism is an easy-to-use plagiarism checking website utilized by teachers and students. You just need to paste text or upload text files to check them for plagiarism. With a free account, you can get detailed reports that include exact matches and sources. However, there’s a limit of 200 free plagiarism queries – if you’re going to use the tool for a long time, you might need a paid subscription.

26. Dupli Checker

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Dupli Checker is one of the educational tools that let you check texts for plagiarism. Without a free account, you can check only one text a day. And if you create one, you still have a limit of 1,000 words per search. To check larger texts, a free tool isn’t enough — you’ll need a paid account. The website supports many formats, including Microsoft Word and PDF documents.

27. PapersOwl

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PapersOwl is primarily a website that offers services, such as essay and thesis writing, that some students use to cheat. However, this recourse also has a free tech tool for checking texts for plagiarism that teachers can use for free. You can either paste texts in or upload files.

28. Plagiarism Detector

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Plagiarism Detector is a great tool for educators who need to check texts written not only in English, but also in French, Italian, German, and other languages. A free account lets you paste texts of up to 1,000 words and there’s no need to create a free account for that.

29. QueText

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QueText has one of the most intuitive and clean interfaces, which makes it much more pleasant and convenient to use when checking texts for plagiarism. The tool generates pretty insightful reports, thus making sure you know exactly what parts of texts students copied and from where. However, a free account allows only up to 2,500 words a month, so to use the tool often, you’ll need a paid plan.

Content Sources for Teachers

With the enormous amount of educational digital content on the web, teachers can make their lessons even more useful and enjoyable. However, it is crucial to find trustworthy websites that provide valuable content. Here are a few sources of digital content and remote teaching tools you might find helpful in the attempts to make students engaged.

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Ted-Ed is a platform that enables you to create lessons. You can build a lesson around video content and create assignments to assess how well your student understands the material. You can also use ready-made video recordings from the specially curated “TED-Ed Originals” section that features classes made by educators around the world.

31. YouTube Teachers

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YouTube Teachers is a YouTube channel that allows you to leverage educational videos to inspire and engage your students. It contains over 400 video playlists created by leading organizations and industry experts such as the Khan Academy, Ted-Ed, and PBS.

32. YouTube Edu

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YouTube Edu is another educational YouTube channel that provides extensive playlists on various subjects, from physics and chemistry to filmmaking and public speaking.

33. Ted Talks

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Ted Talks are videos from industry experts and innovators on science, tech, business, and education subtitled in over 100 languages. You can integrate Ted Talks into your lessons to spark creativity and innovation in the minds of your students

34. TeacherTube

TeacherTube

TeacherTube is a free resource for teachers where they can share video lectures and other materials. You can upload your video tutorials and attach learning activities, assessments, and lesson notes to your videos. You can also browse other teachers’ content and connect with educators with similar interests.

Also read →  The Ultimate Guide to Lecture Capture: How to Get It Right

35. SchoolTube

SchoolTube

SchoolTube is a K-12 free video hosting platform that helps you integrate video content relating to subjects or concepts into your lessons without YouTube. The Free plan provides you with unlimited video hosting, video and audio creation apps, unlimited shareable playlists, automatic closed captioning, and a video quiz app.

36. Google Books

Google Books

Google Books is a service from Google Inc. that provides access to unlimited books, documents, and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text, and stored in its digital database. You can save, bookmark, or download books relating to the concepts you want to teach in class.

37. Readworks

Readworks

Readworks helps students from elementary school to high school build their background knowledge and enhance their literacy skills. As a teacher, you can create reading groups based on their abilities and interests, monitor reading comprehension, and assign extra-credit tasks for students as they complete reading assignments.

38. Bibsonomy

Bibsonomy

Bibsonomy is an easy-to-use tool that helps you manage your publications and bookmarks, collaborate with your colleagues, and find new interesting teaching materials for your research. You can tag publication entries and bookmarks to facilitate information searches.

39. Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg

Gutenberg is a digital library with over 60,000 free ebooks that you can download or read online. Here you’ll find the world’s quality literature, with a focus on older works in the public domain.

40. Gapminder

Gapminder

Gapminder is a fact tank of animated statistics. The tech platform provides posters, interactive presentations, graphs, and handouts on global facts that can supplement your teaching materials.

Also read  → Best Interactive Tools for Presentations

Audio-Visual Design Tools

Audio-visual content is an effective asset for achieving your teaching-learning objectives. If you want to save time creating graphics, animation, or videos, or don’t have the requisite skills to work on advanced photo and video editing platforms like CorelDRAW and Photoshop, leverage easy-to-use online teaching tools from the list. The exciting thing is you can access them all for free.

Pixlr

Pixlr is a free graphic design software that provides you with full control over your pictures. You can add filters, borders, and perform basic image editing by using over 3000 overlays, 5,000 decorative texts, and 7,000 icons.

42. Animoto

Animoto

Animoto is a free online video editor that enables you to convert photos and videos into slideshows. You can create your own presentation or just drag and drop your pictures and video clips into a pre-built presentation template to create stunning slideshows that can be used as visual aids for virtual classroom learning.

43. Pic-Lits

Pic-Lits

Pic-Lits is an eLearning literacy website that uses writing and photography to inspire and spark creative writing ideas. You can create so-called “pic-lits” that are combinations of words placed on a photograph to render some story or the meaning of the picture and share them on your interactive whiteboard during a grammar lesson.

Gickr

Gickr is one of the free online tools that lets you instantly create animated GIFs. You just need to upload your pictures or grab images from Flickr to make flashy slideshows, cartoons, or banners.

45. Smilebox

Smilebox

Smilebox is one of the web tools for teachers that enables them to create slideshows, collages, greetings, invitations, photo albums, and scrapbooks. For example, as a teacher, you can make newsletters for your student, parent letters, certificates, and school photo albums and share them online.

Pixton

Pixton is a cartoon creation platform that can help you guide your students on creating comic strips to represent their understanding of concepts. It has numerous characters, different sets of comic strip layouts, and background options your student can use to design comics and storyboards.

47. Chartsbin

Chartsbin

Chartsbin  is one of the online teaching tools designed for data visualization and used by teachers to introduce various topics with infographics and diagrams. You can also leverage the software to guide your students on creating infographics from the learning material they have learned to show their mastery of the subject.

48. Tableau Public

Tableau Public

Tableau Public is a great free tool for data visualization  that enables teachers to create interactive graphs, stunning maps, and live dashboards in minutes. You can use it to manage in-class exercises and homework assignments and connect with a vibrant community of data enthusiasts.

49. Roxio Photoshow Maker

Roxio Photoshow Maker

Roxio Photoshow Maker  is a free online tool that allows you to combine images, video clips, and soundtracks to create presentations (slide stories). You can make them look even more professional and engaging by adding captions, effects, and transitions.

50. Ezvid Wikimaker

Ezvid Wikimaker

Ezvid  is a free video creator powered by quality voice synthesis. It was initially designed to allow researchers and journalists to turn text into video wikis. But you can create video tutorials with images and video clips. You don’t even need to record a voiceover – when you add text, it will be automatically transformed into narration.

51. Free Cam

Free Cam

Free Cam provides a full set of features that allows you to create presentations and professional video lessons. You can easily record screencasts , edit recorded videos, and upload to YouTube or email them to your students.

52. MakeBeliefsComix

MakeBeliefsComix

MakeBeliefsComix is an in-browser comic creator that provides you with multiple ways to use it in a virtual classroom environment. For example, you can have your student create comic strips to practice new vocabulary, develop conversation skills, or inspire creative writing.

53. Vocaroo

Vocaroo

Vocaroo is a free online tool that helps teachers record, send, and download voice notes. You can use it for podcasting, broadcasting, digital storytelling, or giving feedback. Recordings are available for a few months (usually three months).

Communication and Collaboration Tools

Communication and collaboration are important aspects of both teaching and learning. We’ve compiled a list of online teaching platforms that will help you make this process even easier and more efficient. Here you’ll find teaching communities, tools for sharing educational resources and tips, video conferencing software, and apps for conducting online discussions and working on group projects that many students love.

Flip

Flip is an online collaboration platform that provides a simple, free, and accessible video discussion experience for Pre-K to PhD educators, kids, students and parents. As a teacher, you can create digital whiteboards or discussion topics and share them with your students. In response, they can record and share their videos with you and other students.

55. Teacheroo

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Teacheroo is the only global social network designed specifically for teachers. You can post your resources and educational tips, comment, like, repost other teachers’ learning material, and build professional connections.

Ziplet

Ziplet enables you to gather feedback from your students in real-time. You can type in your questions or pick ones from a library of best practice questions. Students will receive notifications and can reply instantly.

57. Teach Learn Lead

Teach Learn Lead

Teach Learn Lead is a community dedicated to supporting, encouraging, and connecting new teachers as they navigate their early careers in the classrooms. It includes the global education library that is a curated epicenter of K-20 research and professional development resources.

58. Google Docs

Google Docs

Google Docs is a free word processor included as part of a Google Docs suite within the Google Drive service. It enables you to create and edit your own documents, check your students’ writings, and add comments to provide them with feedback.

Bloomz

Bloomz is an interactive app that enables a teacher or a school to share classroom updates, events, and photos with parents securely. You can send an alert notification of the next parent-teacher meeting to emails and smartphones with a single click.

1. How many types of teaching tools are there?

While there are many different teaching tools, all with their own unique advantages and applications for teachers and students, we can categorize them in order to better help teachers choose the one that’s right for their needs. We organized our list into 7 categories, which are:

  • Tools for building interactive lessons
  • Teaching tools for classroom management
  • Lesson planning tools
  • Test and exam makers
  • Plagiarism checkers
  • Content sources for teachers
  • Communication and collaboration tools

2. Why are teaching tools needed in education?

Teaching, just like any profession or task, can benefit enormously from the use of the right set of tech tools. A teacher can share their knowledge with the students, but software can allow a teacher to create memorable experiences, dynamic lessons, engaging classroom activities, and effective assessments — all things that we know can massively benefit students’ learning potential. 

Just as in every industry, new solutions are developed to improve and, in some cases, revolutionize the way we approach tasks. There is an abundance of innovative teacher tools available nowadays, so don’t let your teaching approach become outdated, and don’t let your students miss out on the newest enhancements.

3. What is the most commonly used teaching aid?

Well, it depends. In simple terms, the answer is probably pen/pencil and paper, or perhaps the whiteboard (or blackboard). All of these are simple teacher aids that help a teacher share ideas. However, if we focus on more modern, online, or digital aids, computers come to mind. In the arena of informatics, the internet is probably the most commonly used teacher aid there is.

Another way to approach this question is to answer with visual aids in mind. Visual aids are some of the most commonly used aids for teachers wanting to engage their students, but don’t get caught up in what everyone else is using. The key to finding the right tools for your needs is exactly that — the right tools for you.

This depends on your needs and those of your students. Whether you require a video conferencing software to run your online sessions, a handy tool for planning lessons, support for finding ideas, or ways to design classroom materials, we trust that you will have found the right tool from this list.

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She enjoys combining in-depth research with expert knowledge of the industry. If you have eLearning insights that you’d like to share, please get in touch .

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ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

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ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

This free Microsoft Office alternative has just as many productivity tools (including ChatGPT)

jack-wallen

ZDNET's key takeaways

  • The OnlyOffice Desktop Editors app can be installed and used for free on Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
  • OnlyOffice Desktop Editors lets you work with files either locally or from a remote server, has a user-friendly interface, and includes all the features you need.
  • OnlyOffice Desktop Editors isn't quite as flexible as LibreOffice and there's no way to save between local and remote destinations.

About a year ago, I chose to depart from the cloud for my fiction writing. Why? Two letters: AI . I didn't want third parties using my work to train their neural networks and Large Language Models (LLMs). I thus returned to the old-school method of using a traditionally installed application for novel writing.

I needed to pick a new office suite. My first choice is always LibreOffice, because it not only does an outstanding job with my manuscripts, but it's also open-source and can be installed on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. I've been using LibreOffice since version 1 (and was using StarOffice and OpenOffice before that).

This doesn't mean, however, that I'm not open to trying something else.

Also: What is Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365)? Everything you need to know

A few years ago, I was introduced to OnlyOffice . I installed the server portion on Linux and used OnlyOffice via a web browser. The suite always worked very well, but the deployment of the server portion could be a bit tricky (especially if you don't know your way around Linux). I used that setup for some time, but eventually gave it up when my server that hosted OnlyOffice died a slow and painful death.

When OnlyOffice released its Desktop Editors tool, I assumed it was nothing more than a client for the server. Color me surprised when I discovered that the OnlyOffice Desktop Editors app could also work locally. Not only that, but you could connect it to a cloud instance (such as an OnlyOffice server running on your home network). That's a special kind of flexibility I could certainly use.

So, I re-deployed an OnlyOffice server instance, and installed the OnlyOffice Desktop Editors app on both Linux and MacOS, to see how well this app could serve as a local office suite with the option of using a server-based instance that didn't involve a third-party cloud host.

I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Also:  5 ways LibreOffice meets my writing needs better than Google Docs can

OnlyOffice performed far better than I was expecting. I would go as far as to say that OnlyOffice was LibreOffice's equal on most accounts. For me, LibreOffice's main advantage over OnlyOffice is the ability to use custom styles (which is extremely important when you're writing a full-length novel every two months). For most users, that's not really a requirement, so it's fairly easy to say OnlyOffice could easily rival any traditional office suite.

What OnlyOffice offers

OnlyOffice has tools for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDF forms. The suite includes all the standard features, such as collaboration tools (comments, track changes, markup, compare and combine, and more), spell check, document protection (encryption and digital signatures), and templates. Formatting options are fairly standard and you can insert images, charts, shapes, smart art, links, headers & footers, date & time, text boxes, equations, symbols, and more.

OnlyOffice Desktop Editors also includes plugin support. Out of the box, you'll find plugins for macros, a photo editor, a translator, Zotero, a thesaurus, YouTube, OCR, and code highlighting. In the plugin manager, you'll find several options that even include ChatGPT, Autocomplete, and LanguageTool.

Also:  How to create a database with LibreOffice

The main way that I test office suites is to open one of my manuscripts sent to me from my publisher, which includes all the editor's comments. Previous releases of LibreOffice struggled with these documents (coming to a crawl when hundreds of comments were added to a document). Since version 7.0, LibreOffice no longer has issues with those manuscripts. Still, I've become wary of opening my books in different office suites. Thankfully, opening an older novel (with first-round edit comments) in OnlyOffice Desktop Editors assuaged that concern: the app handled the 60,000-word to 70,000-word documents with ease.

I've thus decided to give OnlyOffice a go with my current novel and have been quite pleased with the results. I've even done a bit of copying/pasting between the locally saved document to a document saved on my OnlyOffice server. (My main suggestion to the OnlyOffice Desktop Editors developers is to enable automatically saving a local file to a remote server, for a more reliable backup option).

ZDNET's advice

If you're like me, and you've grown leery of depending on cloud-based solutions that could be using your work to train AI, a locally installed office suite is a must. If you don't want to pay for Microsoft Office, don't have a Mac (for Apple Pages), and aren't a fan of the LibreOffice UI, this app is an ideal option. You can work with files locally or on your network (if you have the server component installed), enjoy a UI that's similar to Microsoft Office, and trust that your documents are safe and the application is reliable. 

If that sounds appealing, download OnlyOffice Desktop Editors for your operating system.

I plan to keep using the free office suite for novel writing until the siren song of LibreOffice overpowers me and I have to return to the open-source office suite.

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