Powerpoint isn’t your best tool in the shed, and it certainly isn’t the sharpest

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When it comes to designing and building your deck, it’s worth considering options beyond just your outdated copy of powerpoint. There are now a host of modern design tools that can provide both a better experience for you while editing and presenting as well as allow your designer more flexibility for designing. Almost all of the programs mentioned are worth your time and consideration for their benefits, but it can be a little daunting to learn a new tool.

Here are a few options with their pros and cons, as well as my recommendations:

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Powerpoint

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PROS 

• Everyone has it and has learned to use it in some capacity 
• Already installed on most computers you’ll be interfacing with in your traditional corporate environment

CONS

• Extremely limited in its design functionality
• Poorly compresses pasted images
• Lacks fine adjustment across the board
• No way to apply styles globally across the presentation
• Outdated animation capabilities
• Based on inches instead of pixels 

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Keynote

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PROS

• Easily move graphics back and forth between design programs like Illustrator and Photoshop
• Extensive and easy-to-use animation capabilities that are incredibly smooth
• You can set text and object styles that can be changed globally 
• Precise pixel and point-based positioning
• Exports to PPT, PDF, and movies (MP4, MOV)

CONS

• Mac only

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Google Slides

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PROS

• Excellent for team editing and iteration
• Great integration with other Google Docs programs 
• Simultaneous editing across different computers
• Near-perfect version control
• Recordable presentations 

CONS

• Images can be difficult to add and remove, especially when coming from design programs 
• Themes and slide masters are confusing to use
• Less precise tools for details and positioning 

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Indesign

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PROS

• Perfect integration with all other Adobe programs (where presentations are typically designed)
• All the pixel-perfect tools and settings that a designer needs 
• Usually the preferred method for making presentations by graphic designers within the industry

CONS

• No animations or transitions, you’re effectively presenting a static PDF
• No-one besides a designer can usually understand it

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