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We review a real challenger to Microsoft PowerPoint’s crown.  For ages, PowerPoint by Microsoft has been one of the mainstays of presentation software. What... Create Stand-Out Presentations With Prezi Classic

We review a real challenger to Microsoft PowerPoint’s crown. 

For ages, PowerPoint by Microsoft has been one of the mainstays of presentation software. What was once a sought-after skill for employment has become an assumption, just a basic understanding that tech users of every skill level can generate some type of presentation with it. Even school children have been required to learn the software, not just for the fun and creativity involved in creating a class presentation, but also because it’s considered a necessary job skill.

Well, Prezi may be changing that. According to the results of one study, presentations created with this dynamic app show a better rate of engagement, and the information that is shared via Prezi comes across as more persuasive and effective for the audience.

We review Prezi - the PowerPoint alternative

Prezi: Designed for people who aren’t designers.

Make an impact

The days of sitting in a staff meeting, a training, or even a sixth grade project on the Egyptian pyramids used to mean staring at a fairly static display (bonus points if the presentation consisted of a 30-slide PowerPoint and the presenter read every slide to the group). Now, Prezi helps even the least creative user in the bunch design a viewer-friendly yet engaging display, based largely on customizeable templates that are tailored to a variety of categories.

Dynamic presentations

The ability to intuitively incorporate symbols, shapes, or even your own multimedia content from your Flickr or Google Drive accounts will help you create dynamic presentations, and the option to share these remotely or even use them offline means your audience can enjoy them before, during, or after your presentation. Storing them for later use or as part of a collaboration strategy is also simple.

Prezi is based on a freemium model.

Prezi is a freemium app, but it still offers a lot for free.

Freemium app

There is one key drawback to Prezi, and that’s the price (to be fair, you’re probably not getting your hands on a free copy of PowerPoint, though). Obviously, an app this powerful will offer more features at higher price points. Based on a freemium model, you can still use Prezi for free, but if you want to set your presentation materials to private (meaning the entire Prezi-using world cannot see them) or if you want to remove the Prezi logo from your slides, you’ll need a higher level account. The same is true if you want to store larger amounts of presentations, as the additional storage comes with the higher levels, as well.

Seamless experience

However, the storage that Prezi offers is what makes it so useful in terms of day-to-day function. There are no more “talk amongst yourselves, we’re trying to get the slides to load on this laptop” scenarios, which can leave even the most seasoned public speaker sweating their way into their speech. Your Prezi account and any presentations you’ve created are available from any devices with Wi-Fi connectivity, and you can even sync them across your different devices for offline use.

Prezi promises to make creating, giving, and tracking beautiful interactive presentations is as easy as 1,2,3

Prezi promises to make creating, giving, and tracking beautiful interactive presentations is as easy as 1,2,3.

Conclusion

Overall, the benefit isn’t that Prezi is somehow easier to use than PowerPoint, which to be fair, is already about as user friendly as Microsoft can make it. The difference is in the professional look and feel of the finished product, and the ability for anyone to be happy with their finished product, regardless of tech-savvy or artistic ability.

To this software for yourself and see if the difference meets your needs, download the Prezi app and create your own free account by clicking here.