What is presentation software?

Presentation software helps users capture required information in slides and present them to an audience. It comes with tools to add information in the form of text, images, audio, video, and graphs. To make presentation creation quick and easy, presentation software also offers templates. 

The benefits of presentation software

Presentation software helps users express themselves creatively and concisely. Using presentation software is beneficial for businesses as it helps with:  

• Increased audience engagement: Well-crafted presentations not only demonstrate professionalism, they also get the intended message across clearly and concisely. A presentation augments a presenter’s soft skills in highlighting the business’s value proposition to an audience.
• Improved collaboration and sharing of content: Presentation software promotes working in a collaborative manner. Presentations can be shared with participants, even remotely located ones, and they can contribute by commenting. Colleagues can be invited to edit/review the content, and changes and feedback can be viewed in real time.

Typical features of presentation software

• Media library:  Select items such as icons, images, graphics, and files from the repository to include in a presentation.
• Animations and transitions:  Add transition scheme to define how a slide progresses to the next automatically; apply animations to text and objects.
• Audio and video content: Embed audio/video elements into slides to make presentations more illustrative.
• Customizable templates: Create templates with customized layouts, colors, fonts, effects, and background styles. Save templates for future use and repurpose formatting as required.
• Offline presentation:  Share presentation with audience in offline mode.

Considerations when purchasing presentation software

• File formats and device support: Presentation software generally allows incorporating images, audio, and video, but you should double-check which file types are supported and select a solution that supports a broad range of formats. Checking the types of supported hardware is also important, as options to connect with wireless devices and the availability of mobile apps will make it easier to use the tool.   
• Suitability and cost: Simple versions of presentation solutions may be available for free, with solutions increasing in price based on the number and complexity of features and customizations offered. Evaluate the cost and features of a solution against business requirements to justify opting for free versus paid software, or software that’s easy to learn versus one that has elaborate functionalities but needs more effort to master.  
• Engagement: The purpose of presenting information in visual and graphical form using presentation software is to increase its impact for the audience. Buyers should evaluate how well the presentation software they’re considering can help them engage the audience by incorporating striking images, animated content, and videos, and by allowing smooth navigation to different presentation sections. 

Relevant presentation software trends

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is fueling presentations: Preparing a polished, professional presentation in a limited time can be challenging. AI driven presentation tools can learn the requirements of a user and automatically apply design rules to build impactful presentation slides. For instance, Design AI by Beautiful.AI can visualize users’ ideas and designs slides accordingly. 
• Virtual reality (VR) is teleporting audiences to a virtual world: VR has become a popular technology not only for gaming, but for trainings and presentations as well. VR can be used to tell immersive stories through presentations wherein the audience can interact with each other in the virtual world, leading to greater audience engagement and better content retention. Companies such as MeetinVR are already experimenting with VR meetings and presentations that might replace video presentation software in the future.