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We take inspiration and thank you for your request received on Codeberg to go in search of alternatives to PowerPoint. We are not great experts on PowerPoint, however this article can be a good excuse to propose some alternatives and to explain because using Microsoft is not necessarily a good idea.
We have already talked about Microsoft during our articles on alternatives to Microsoft Office and on alternatives to Skype it's at Teams so we'll try not to repeat ourselves too much. As we have already seen Microsoft has always had the bad habit to use closed formats for its programs and also PowerPoint it is no less. In fact, until 2008 it only used the .PPT, .PPS and .POT formats. Since 2008 things have gone a little better with the adoption of the format Office Open XML, but this also received criticism from the Free Ssoftware Ffoundation ANDurope 1 2.
Microsoft's problems
But This isn't just Microsoft's problem, Obviously.
Although it has attempted to clean up its image a bit over the last few years (for example by acquiring GitHub 3, Microsoft seems to want to continue undaunted on the path already followed in the past. An example above all is what he is doing with his new one Browsers, Edge.
Despite fines in the past, for example, it appears that Microsoft on some occasions has forced its users to use its Browsers for some links, as he explains well The Verge.
The Rioter Never Existed
Leaving aside the Browsers, we want to remember what happened with The Unknown Rebel, because in our opinion it is even more serious. In 2021, during the anniversary day of Tiananmen Square massacre, all over the world searching for the phrase tank man or Tiananmen Square Tank Man In the Search engine of Bing images we found ourselves in front of a white wall with writing "no results found" 4.
A very serious episode, in our opinion.
Microsoft apologized for the episode: “it was just human error” he said the next day, restoring everything 5. In short, one unfortunate coincidence made sure that on the very day of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Bing obscured the results of that search query.
List of reasons not to use Microsoft
However, the list of reasons not to use Microsoft is very long, you can also find one page on Wikipedia very interesting and with many references call Criticisms of Microsoft which contains some of our thoughts. Among the most interesting ones, at least for the area we are referring to, are the criticism of lock-in and the Collaboration with the NSA in web surveillance. There is also a list written by Stallman, very interesting but stuck in 2017.
In short, as you can see we struggle to find valid and real reasons to use Microsoft and that's why today we go in search of alternatives to PowerPoint!
Alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint they are particularly important because PowerPoint is used in different contexts: even in schools! And we know well that this is not good news 6 7.
Alternatives to PowerPoint
And after the very long introduction, here we are with the real thing alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint!
LibreOffice Impress
Open source
As we well know the suite of LibreOffice It's excellent and almost perfect alternative to Microsoft's. And in this case too Impress it is no less. Impress it is in fact able to open and modify any Microsoft PowerPoint file (including proprietary ones). The characteristics are in every way similar to those of PowerPoint and we are pretty sure that once you have tried it you will hardly go back.
LibreOffice for mobile is called CollaboraOnline.
• • • • •
ONLYOFFICE
Open source
It is an excellent alternative to the entire Microsoft Office suite and therefore also to Microsoft PowerPoint. It works very well and is graphically very modern, it also resembles Microsoft PowerPoint graphics in every way and we are sure that the transition will be gradual.
If you go to this addressBelow, you will also find a preview of how the program works.
Together with CollaboraOnline it is one of the options you find on many suites Nextcloud.
• • • •
Infomaniak Points
only available online
Open source
We know very good Infomaniak and his suite kDrive. It has also been offering for some time free packages very interesting that also give you the possibility of using the suite of kDrive which uses the mythical ONLYOFFICE. ONLYOFFICE it is a professional suite Open source 8 alternative to Microsoft Office perfectly compatible with Nextcloud and which allows you to edit and create perfect presentations online. It is really very complete and is certainly aexcellent alternative to the online version of Microsoft PowerPoint.
• • • •
Nextcloud
only available online
Open source
If you don't want to use Infomaniak's services, you can try any other provider that offers Infomaniak's services Nextcloud. In fact, they often offer the suite of ONLYOFFICE or more easily that of Collaborate Online 9, even in the free versions. If you don't already have a Nextcloud account you can read on here our review. Alternatively you can find here a provider for Nextcloud but check that among the features there is also 'Collaborate Online' or 'ONLYOFFICE'. For example, at the time of writing this article, free of charge seems to be offered only by Webo Hosting, Digital Tab (not recommended by us) e AlphaCloud. For a fee, however, almost everyone should offer it.
• • • • •Slides
only available online
Open source
It's the all-in-one visual version of reveal.js. Reveal.js is an HTML presentation framework Open source. A framework, to be clear, is a structure pre-established that allows you to do something. In this case, thanks to reveal.js you can create beautiful presentations, but to do so you need knowledge of HTML. Not within everyone's reach, but you can remedy this, for free or starting from 5$ per month, using the site slides.com. Obviously in the free version you will have some limitations but it could be right for you.
Alternatives to PowerPoint in Markdown
If you know and know how to use the markdown language we point out a series of alternatives to PowerPoint to be built in this way. Perfect for simple presentations.
Hedgedoc
Open source
Using Hedgedoc you can click on “Slide” at the top right to transform your markdown document into a nice slide. You can use the Devol server with free registration.
•Other alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint that deserve a mention
The ones you will find below are not real ones alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint but they do something very similar and we think they deserve a mention:
- Storyboarder, to avoid giving out your email you can use this link to download it or go directly on GitHub Why Storyboarder it is in fact a program Open source 10. It's interesting why it's not really an alternative to PowerPoint but it allows you to create actual scripts for movies, video games or anything else. With many possibilities there could also be the one that's right for you!
- Sozi, less professional than the previous ones but it can be useful and is also free and Open source 11. It is used to create presentations starting from .SVG files and has very few settings. However, you can export your work to video presentations in different formats, in PDF, in HTML or in .PPTX.
- FSFE context briefing: Interoperability works with MS-OOXML[↩]
- Six questions to national standardization bodies[↩]
- Microsoft's GitHub Deal Is a Clean Break From Its Past[↩]
- Microsoft says Bing's 'Tank Man' censorship was a human error[↩]
- Microsoft blocks Bing from showing image results for Tiananmen 'tank man'[↩]
- Why some German schools have blocked Office 365 due to privacy risks[↩]
- Microsoft Teams knows too much about students: a digital rights activist's complaint[↩]
- ONLYOFFICE on GitHub[↩]
- Introducing Nextcloud and Collabora Online in the Ubuntu Appliance portfolio[↩]
- Storyboarder on GitHub[↩]
- Sozi on GitHub[↩]
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