Five Best Presentation Creation Tools

Gone are the days when presentations are limited to poster boards you can haul into the conference room, and you've also got more options than the de facto office suite provides. Here's a look five of the most popular presentation creation tools

Prezi (Web-Based/Windows/Mac/Linux; Basic: Free; Pro: From $59/year)

 Prezi appeared on the scene early last year and dazzled with web-built presentations that were actually interesting to watch. Prezi offers dynamic transitions and non-linear presenting that blow the Slide1, Slide2, Slide3... presentation-style we're all so used to right out of the water. A free public account grants you the ability to create Prezis, offline presentation, and 100MB of web-based storage. Upgrading to a $59 per-year account removes the Prezi watermark, makes the contents of your presentation private, and increases storage. The top-tier account ($159/year) gives you more storage and an offline desktop client so you can compose Prezis without their web site. The screenshot above is from a public presentation "Math Is Not Linear", available for viewing here.

PowerPoint (Windows: $112; Mac: $150)

 Nearly ubiquitous on corporate computers, PowerPoint is one of the most widely used presentation creation tools in the world. Although much maligned for the numerous boring slideshows created with it and inflicted upon legions of workers, PowerPoint is packed with features. (Don't blame PowerPoint—blame the people who made boring presentations.) PowerPoint is tightly integrated with the Microsoft Office Suite, supports a wide range of file embedding and compression options (to reduce overall file size), presentation sharing with your slides displayed at multiple networked locations, co-authoring through Windows Live, and integration with Windows Mobile phones via PowerPoint Mobile.

Google Presentations (Web-Based, Free)

 Google Presentations isn't the most feature packed or whiz-bang presentation creation tool around. It is, however, completely serviceable, web-based, free, and offers the same dependable cloud-based backup and work-anywhere convenience that you've come to expect from Google products. You can share your work, collaborate, work on it from any web browser, and pull from the thousands of templates available in Google's vast public templates pool. The template used in the above screenshot is available here.

Keynote (Mac; $79)

Keynote is Apple's own presentation app, bundled in their iWork suite (the $79 price tag includes Pages and Numbers, too). Apple put their signature ease-of-use and polish all over Keynote. It's simple to create presentations with great looking themes, polished graphics, and high quality animations and transitions. Keynote has tight integration with, iOS so you can turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless presentation tool that not only lets you control the progression of your presentation but view it on your mobile device, too.

Beamer (LaTeX) (Windows/Mac/Linux; Free)

Beamer is the presentation language class of the popular document markup languageLaTeX. Beamer is the antithesis, in the presentation world, of tools like Keynote and PowerPoint. You don't sit down and drag and drop components in a What You See Is What You Get interface; instead you create your presentation using document markup language just like you would create a website from raw HTML code. Beamer has a steeper learning curve than WYSIWYG editors, but it offers unprecedented control over your presentation and is heavily favored by engineers, scientists, and programmers who already use LaTeX in some capacity for their work. The screenshot above is from a presentation about Beamer,available here.

Ubuntu 10.10 Beta Adds New Photo Manager, Improves Multimedia Experience

An early look at the next release of Ubuntu's Linux desktop hit the web late yesterday. What's in 10.10, or "Maverick Meerkat," for desktop users? Besides app updates, there's a new photo manager, improved multimedia controls, better Ubuntu One syncing, and more.

The full list of changes and new things is listed at the beta page, but what strikes us in a quick look at a live-booting beta (for which we recommend Unetbootin and a USB thumb drive) are the changes to Ubuntu One, the Dropbox-like syncing service that ties in Music Store purchases, personal files, settings, and other user data. There's now a single, easier sign-on for Ubuntu One, and the look and feel are much improved. Same with the Ubuntu Software Center, which makes it easier to see the apps you've installed from the Center, as well as peek at popular and recommended apps.

As expected, Shotwell has replaced Fspot as the default photo manager, and it's a step forward, if not exactly Picasa for Linux. The volume control in the system panel now has music player controls, too, and Rhythmbox and all the other default apps have seen their normal version upgrades and bug fixes.

Ubuntu 10.10 Beta is a free download that should install on most any system, though Macs require a bit of extra work. Tell us what you think of the early-stage Maverick Meerkat in the comments.

Ubuntu 10.10 Beta