Google Slides

I just decided to cancel my paid Microsoft Office 365 account. The only reason I can think to keep it now to use it offline, but I've just learned you can do so with Google Sheets, Google Slides and Google Docs and they are Microsoft Office compatible files so there is literally no reason to pay for this anymore. Everything you need to run a business or personal project is available now in Google. As a daily Gmail user and nearly daily Google Docs and Google Sheets user it's odd that I`ve just tried Google Slides for the first time. I see that it became a separate component in our Google accounts around July 2014 I believe. Google Slides is seriously easy to use. It looks similar to Powerpoint and works very much the same way. But it seems less cluttered with a cleaner, straight forward dashboard overall. With all of the functionality you could ask for in a presentation creation software programs. You can collaborate with others remotely with all updates and edits completed in real time. That's a huge time saver and real solid value especially in a free software. You can share presentations easily as well by allowing other to edit, comment or view it based on the permissions you grant each person when you send people the email invite. You can also share even easier by passing along a direct URL link available in your account with anyone. Of course you can present the project using the software itself as well and there's an option to setup up presenter notes which are not viewable by presentation attendees to help keep you on track with notes as you go. There are transition effects between slides available which are incredibly easy to use and make it look very professional. There are apps available for the Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides which means you can download these apps and use these tools offline. Which is the nail in the coffin for my paid Office 365 account, I believe. The automatic save feature is always nice. It's odd not having to click 'Ctrl S' for any of these programs, it backups it up instantly to your Google Drive as you edit any of your documents. You can download documents as Powerpoint files as I've mentioned but also PDF, a text file or three types of image file including vector .svg, .png, and .jpg. There are a lot of templates available in the software which are pre-made and very professional looking. You can use these and tweak them to suit your own presentation which is a big time saver. You can import other templates from around the web too.

I wish I had received an email from Google which stated that all Google tools were Microsoft compatible. You can download to .docx, .csv and .pptx which are the Microsoft Office file types; industry standard in all business circles I've been a part of. Perhaps they did send this but I missed so it took me a year and half to explore it for myself. I appreciate the value provided by this company regardless. Google Slides could differentiate itself further with a version that was similar to Prezi with a single canvas where you can use effects to pan and zoom around on a large one page presentation that is every bit as comprehensive as a typical slide based presentation. It's just a thought I could use Prezi for this but considering I'm already familiar with Powerpoint I'll probably just stick to Google Slides. There will be a learning curve to this software if you've never used Powerpoint or OpenOffice to create slide presentations but I can assure you Google Slides is simpler than both of these with all of the features and functionality you could want for a professional presentation.

Once again I am pleasantly surprised at the value and features available in a Google product. Google Slides is easier to use than Powerpoint. With a cleaner dashboard it's not overwhelming in any way yet very straightforward to understand and begin using. I'm loving all of the tools Google provides but today is the first I've tried Google Slides and with it together with the Gmail I use daily and the Docs and Sheets softwares which I use at least five days per week for work projects I am now going to cancel my Office 365 subscription and just use Google tools. They're free and Microsoft compatible. OpenOffice is Microsoft compatible too but the formatting doesn't always look the same. It does between Google and Microsoft products which is amazing. Google Slides gets my highest recommendation.