Microsoft Powerpoint

Puntos a favor

My favorite thing about PowerPoint is that it is extremely easy to use. For most basic PowerPoint projects, I feel like anyone could open up the software and figure out how to use it at it's basic level. I feel like the interface of PowerPoint is very user-friendly and it's organized like other Microsoft Office products. Because it's organized the same way, it makes it very easy to use especially if your familiar with other Microsoft Office products. I also love the newer feature of design help. It pops up with design ideas just to the right of your work area and makes it very accessible to change the design of your slides. The user can select through the different options and see how these design ideas might look on your slides with your information and graphics. It allows for very professional looking slides without putting in much effort.

Puntos en contra

I feel like this software works great if you always go in order all the time with your slides but if you are the type that likes to jump around to meet the needs of your audience, this can be cumbersome with PowerPoint. There is a way to more seamlessly build into your presentation the ability to say skip over a certain area if your running short on time but it's a more advanced feature that can take some practice to learn and use correctly.

Puntos a favor

The biggest differentiated value to Powerpoint are as follows:
1. It is both consumer and enterprise ready. It's rare to find platforms that present content that covers all audience levels
2. The ease of use. PowerPoint is built in a way that is self explanatory to learn with an easy to use navigation bar. I have taught my grandmother how to use PowerPoint before in the past, and she figured out how to use it within a few minutes.
3. The rich features that come with PowerPoint. From PowerPoint Translator to Office Mix, PowerPoint is more than just presenting slides. PowerPoint has the power to bridge language gaps, serve the accessibility community, and enable all audience levels to become better presenters.
4. Collaboration - The PowerPoint rich client or PowerPoint online enables co-authoring, bridging the gap and breaking down walls on collaborating to make great presentations even when various parties are spread across the world. I personally have experience doing this, and it is powerful to work with other folks on preparing for important presentations globally through their co-authoring features.

Puntos en contra

PowerPoint does not integrate spreadsheets as cleanly as other Office related products. The formatting gets thrown off, and it does not do a clean copy and paste.

PowerPoint can get very heavy on the file size by simply adding an image. It is not as easily shareable as other Office products due to the high file size. Microsoft could do a better job compressing the rich features they built in for users to use in a way that can be attached to emails.

Puntos a favor

I have used PowerPoint since elementary school for school projects. As I graduated from the nursing program not to long ago, PowerPoint was always my go to program to create interactive presentations that would engage my audience. There are many reasons I loved the PowerPoint program:
1) PowerPoint has many interactive features that make your project look authentic, personal and professional. These features especially help when you are transitioning between slides in your presentation, or if you are trying to make an emphasis in your presentation as well.
2) PowerPoint allows for enhancement in your creativity as it has many features which allow you to be creative, something I personally had fun with when I used the program. PowerPoint allows for one to create colourful designs using the themes provided by the program itself. These themes can also be modified to fit your needs as well while creating your presentations. You can easily create charts, tables, diagrams and add pictures to the various slides allowing for the audience to be better engaged with your work.
3) PowerPoint allows for one to easily save files you have created in various formats which is compatible with most computer programs and operating systems. You are also able to easily save your file on a USB or CD, and carry your work around rather than having to lug round your laptop.

Puntos en contra

PowerPoint is a great program that allows one to be creative, however during my time while using PowerPoint in school, I found there were some flaws with the usage and setup of the program as well. For instance, you can spend hours creating a beautiful presentation, but in order to project your piece of work, you need further equipment like a projector, HDMI wire, and computer to set up your presentation. Another disadvantage to the PowerPoint program I found was that the program is linear in nature, thus only allowing you to create slides in a bullet-point nature which may hinder complex decision-making or stagger the audience away from fully grasping the complex information you are trying to present. PowerPoint minimizes your information back to the basics, which may sometimes hinder the quality of information being presented.

Puntos a favor

PowerPoint - One of the best presentation application on the market. It has been a pleasure working with this software on a daily basis while doing New Hire Training at the company I worked. It has the familiar ribbon that all Microsoft Office users have come to love and adore. This piece of software is like a masterpiece with numerous advance feature that you might not completely take advantage of throughout your lifetime. Just to name a few of its' madness:

* It has the amazing File menu with loads of configurable options.
* The Insert ribbon houses tons of cool insert options to add pictures, audio and video to your customized slide and slide shows.
* The cool draw option give you the sketch feel to markup on the presentation to draw attention to the viewers.
* Under design you can select from a selection of templates or better yet, create your own which can also be saved to the list.
* Transition give your slides that in or out effect when moving from one slide to another.
* Animation add yet another dimension to the presentation, which allows the presenter command the content on the slide to do something cool and amazing to keep the focus.
* like other apps in the MS suite, PowerPoint also has macros and VBA, allowing you to make things happen on the fly.

Puntos en contra

I have no dislikes at the moment for this software.

Puntos a favor

Microsoft PowerPoint is an essential tool in my business and school toolbox. I use PowerPoint weekly to create mostly text presentations that teach and share ideas. What I like most:
1. Ease of use:
- There are built in templates ready for me to begin designing my slides.
- All the tools I need to create slides are at the top and right hand side easy for me to access.
- A slide pane on the left helps me see where I am in my presentation and select individual slides for editing.
- Presentation is simple, just the click of the spacebar, arrow, mouse, or presenter allows me to advance my slides or go back.
2. Autosave: There are times when I have to leave my desk and my project will auto save.
3. Presentation Mode: I use this mode when I "extend my desktop" for use with a projector (you can access this setting by typing "project" in the search bar on a Windows 10 computer). Presentation mode allows me to see what slide I am currently on, what slide is next, and has a timer to see how long my presentation has been going. It also has features like play, back, forward, etc...
4. Embedding: PowerPoint allows me to embed audio files, video files, spreadsheets, word docs, or pdf into the slides. It is great to be able to incorporate the necessary things I need to present my project or lesson.
5. Transitions and Animations: The transitions and animations feature is helpful because it includes a lot of pre-programmed settings to creatively change between slides or text.

Puntos en contra

Here are a few things I dislike about the software:
1. The presentation software only works linearly. What I mean by that is I cannot jump between slides or make a uniquely motioned presentation like Prezi. PowerPoint simply goes from one slide to the next to the next. While PowerPoint more than makes up for this with the animations and transitions offered and its ease of use, I do wish it had some of the unique features of Prezi.
2. I find the animations feature to be a bit difficult. It isn't as intuitive as I would like. What I mean by that is when I do bullet points for a lesson outline I have to select the text I want to animate, then select the animation I want, then select "Move Forward on Click" in order to get the presentation points to go 1, 2, 3, 4, etc... instead of the default, which is all at once. I find it a bit cumbersome.
3. One could argue that while customization is a bonus of PowerPoint, it can also be a negative. The software requires a bit of a learning curve.