Free app to access and manage slides
Google Slides, Google’s answer to PowerPoint, is a free standalone productivity app where you can view and edit your presentations wherever you are.
A legit rival to PowerPoint?
Slides works best as a tool for professionals or students who want to review or tweak their presentations on the go. It doesn’t work well as a full-blown editor but instead offers a simple way to review and (with a bit of fiddling) edit presentations.
The presentations themselves fit on the screen well and cycling between them is easy. Slides also supports Google’s excellent collaboration programming, which allows for editing slides in real-time.
Another one of its touted features is its offline access. Before this, Google Drive required you to have an Internet connection to access and edit files. Although there are a few design bugs (e.g. some presentation templates didn’t load text properly), you can still use the app with few problems even without an Internet connection.
It works well with other Google products such as Hangouts, Docs, and Chromecast (Google Home); all of which have been designed to work with one another.
Making a presentation
Unfortunately, making presentations doesn’t feel particularly intuitive. There isn’t much you can do to edit a file other than change the text and rearrange the slides. It’s synced with everything you have on Google Drive, so it will detect any presentations you might have saved there and bring them up. Converting presentations and exporting them as Powerpoint to do something as simple as editing feels clumsy and counter-intuitive.
Slides can be cycled through by swiping and there’s a button at the top of the screen to include more collaborators.
To edit pictures in the slides, you must first save the presentation as a PowerPoint file (.pptx) and export it. After it is finished, you can use more advanced editing options such as changing the font size, paragraph indentation, and picture editing.
If you can’t find the perfect visuals for your presentation or simply don’t have the time to do so, Duet AI can come to the rescue. This AI chatbot can generate compelling and unique images to make your slide deck stand out. With a few words, you can prompt the tool to visualize anything under the sun—the only limit is your imagination.
A great way to manage your slides
Google Slides is a reliable tool that is incredibly helpful for those who want to check out their PowerPoint on their device. The clever inclusion of Chromecast and Duet AI lays the groundwork for painless and professional presentations.
