Among presentation programs, Microsoft PowerPoint is undoubtedly the most popular and the king of the hill. However, Google has a very interesting counterpart that direct rivals the Microsoft Office iteration. This Google app is known as Google Slides. But which is the best presentation software of these two? We’ll try to answer this question in this Google Slides vs PowerPoint article. So let’s go straight to it!

Google Slides is a presentation software and an integral part of the web-based Google Docs Editor suite. As such, it is available as a desktop application, web application, and mobile app for iOS, Android, Windows, and BlackBerry OS.

This cloud-based software allows you to create presentations online in real time by collaborating with members of your team or external users. This way provides great online performance with advanced features that we’ll mention later in this article. 

Still, since it’s running in your browser, it’s possible you experience glitches or slow loading sometimes.

PowerPoint is a Microsoft Office software part of the Microsoft Office suite. This is a powerful tool designed to create visual and audio presentations. PowerPoint has been on the market since 1990. Currently, it offers a downloadable desktop version and a Microsoft PowerPoint online version. Both work seamlessly great, either on Mac OS or a Windows PC. So, if you’re a user of any of these OS, you can use it without issues.

Slides offer the essential elements to make basic or professional presentations. PowerPoint also offers similar aspects and features in the same way. Therefore, it's relevant mentioning some key differences and similarities.

Both software feature a very similar user-friendly interface, with all the slides in a column on the left of the screen. At the top of the interface, you’ll find all the tools to insert images and text or change the format and structure of the slides.

As you can see in the image above, the interface of PowerPoint is practically the same as the interface of Google Slides. The only difference is that you have more detailed information and tools and the option to create special forms or export formats.

People can easily access Google Slides since every person with a Gmail account can enter their email address and select Slides in the app menu at the top right corner of the web page. Besides, like other Google Services, such as Google Sheets, Slides is free, so you can access it without paying anything. Thanks to this, you can access Slides from anywhere on any device, such as mobile devices or a PC desktop.

Instead, to use PowerPoint, you need to perform the software installation. The web version of the software is no longer available. This way, when you install the full desktop version of PowerPoint on your computer, you will get all its features, such as editable templates, custom animations, locally installed fonts, and more functions. Finally, all your files are automatically saved on your hard drive. But we will talk more about this later.

Features are likely the most relevant aspects to consider when choosing one software over the other. Of course, both software allows you to achieve your goals, just from a totally different perspective. In resume, both pieces of software will allow you the following:

• Choose a custom font from Google fonts;
• Add images, text, videos, and links;
• Use basic templates or create your own;
• Insert tables, graphs, charts, and all graphic elements;
• Utilize basic transitions;
• Print to PDF.

In addition, Google Slides offers an interesting feature called “Version History.” Thanks to that, you can easily check old versions you’ve already saved. This way, you can restore previous versions if something goes wrong.

One of the most useful features of this Google workspace iteration is an automatic save. This way, every change is recorded even if you don’t press the save button. 

Slides also offer 26 themes to choose from. Adding and subtracting, Slides has fewer features than its Microsoft counterpart.

PowerPoint offers 8 transitions and 37 animations to add to your PowerPoint presentation. You can also build your presentation with one of the pre-built templates. PowerPoint software also allows you to use Excel charts and features automatical proofreading.

Google Slides boasts great PowerPoint compatibility since you can create your presentations first and export them as a PowerPoint presentation file. You can also import PowerPoint files and open them to make changes using Slides. In other words, both support and can convert other file formats. 

In PowerPoint, you can also perform real-time changes and share updates with all the members of your organization and external users from any part of the world.

The Google Slides presentation app and PowerPoint have dozens of templates and pre-built designs that you can use freely in your presentations. When you enter Google Slides and prepare to start your online presentation creation, you notice there are several templates available at the top of the screen. Just click to unfold all the options available. Some of these are the photo album template and the wedding template.

PowerPoint, on the other hand, has specific and free templates for business presentations, classroom lessons, and sales presentations. These templates allow you to view your slides and notes on your screen while projecting the presentation simultaneously. 

Besides, PowerPoint boasts a huge selection of templates for professional presentations. Literally, you can find hundreds of custom templates and visual elements in their gallery. In these terms, both Google Slides and PowerPoint make it easy to start with the process of creating your presentation.

Google Slides is mainly a cloud-based application. As such, it is built for seamless online working and performance. Slide focuses on providing a good experience when using the browser and collaborating with others. 

Still, Slides features good offline functionality through the Google Slides Offline program. It is available in Google Chrome browsers. Slides works offline on your iPhone, iPad, Android, and desktop OS. 

As PowerPoint was mainly designed to be used offline and on desktops, its offline accessibility options are equally important as its online options. Of course, you can always connect to your Microsoft account, save your files in the cloud and share them easily through the web.

As you need an Internet connection to use Google Slides, this software makes seamless collaboration possible with other organization members. Its free online version allows multiple participants to edit, modify, comment, create, and collaborate on a single document. Any user can see all real-time changes made in the file. 

Collaboration is a bit harder in PowerPoint. To do this, you must first upload the document to Microsoft’s cloud storage OneDrive or SharePoint Online.

From there, someone needs to add collaborators via email. Most users can see when team members log into the presentation to make changes and see their projects. If a team member makes a change in the document while you’re offline, you’ll receive a notification indicating that changes have been made. 

PowerPoint comes integrated with OneDrive, with sharing options ranging from email, direct link, and social media to SharePoint and Live broadcast of PowerPoint slides via Office Presentation Service.

Google Slides automatically saves all your files on the cloud. It’s in the Google Drive service, providing you with free 15 GB storage. The automatic saving doesn’t require clicking the save button to back up your presentations.

Besides, thanks to the Revision History Review tool, you can explore any previous document version and restore any of them. 

On the other hand, PowerPoint is a desktop-based presentation app, so it’s designed to store files on your PC's hard drive. Besides, this leading presentation software does not offer automatic savings unless you have a version after 2016. The AutoSave option saves a copy of your high-quality presentations on OneDrive. Finally, PowerPoint has an AutoRecover feature to recover your presentation in the case of unexpected crashes.

Google Slides allows you to embed YouTube videos or videos on your Google Drive account. To do this, just select “Insert,” then search for the Youtube video you want to use and click “Select.”

Working with video on Google Slides is easy since you don’t have to install additional software to embed videos and create high-quality presentations. Besides, you can upload your photos from a URL, your Google Drive, a camera, or your desktop computer. 

In PowerPoint, you can freely embed video and audio files into a new presentation. Besides, PowerPoint is particularly easy and useful if you want to use a video from your OneDrive account. 

Besides, PowerPoint has an advanced feature that allows you to draw your animations. This is great for any PowerPoint designer who wants to free their imagination and create advanced presentations.

Finally, PowerPoint supports YouTube videos. This works similarly in both software. Just use the online video embed option.

Google Chrome, Google Drive, Google Slides, etc., are all free applications, which is one of the strongest points of this Google iteration.  

PowerPoint, instead, is part of the Microsoft Office package, As such, you’ll have to pay to use it. To get it, you have three alternatives. You can acquire it by purchasing the Microsoft 365 subscription, the Microsoft Office 2021 suite, or its standalone version. 

This latter option costs USD$159,99, but it's a one-time payment. This version comes with no storage. 

If you choose the Microsoft 365 subscription option, the starting price is USD$6,99 per user per month. This option comes with all the basic apps of the Microsoft Office suite, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and more. Of course, other options are more expensive and introduce additional features, but with the basics, you get PowerPoint.

You can also purchase the Microsoft Office 2021 suite, Home & Student version at USD$149,99. The professional version costs USD$439,99. These are also one-time purchases.

In this regard, purchasing a legit CD Key from reliable third-party sellers is the best option to access PowerPoint. In these terms, RoyalCDKeys stands as a great choice since it offers desktop software in addition to hundreds of games.

You can purchase a copy of Microsoft Office 2021 Pro Plus Key Retail Global at €11,80. Besides, you get other alternatives, such as the 2019 version of the same suite and options for Mac users.

Luckily for us, both PowerPoint and Google Slides are great for presentations. One of them, the latter, is completely free; the other is a paid PC version. However, both software programs offer the basics of creating presentations by utilizing the ready-to-use templates and the tool for inserting texts, images, videos, and more. 

This makes Google Slides a good alternative for those who do not want to pay or for those who will use the program just a few times. On the other hand, if you’re a professional, you should use PowerPoint due to Microsoft Office’s support and other related apps. 

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