Review of Google Presentations

Google Presentations is an online presentation software. Presentations (originally known as Presently) is the newest member of the Google Docs team, following on the heels of Google Documents (formerly called Writely) and Google Spreadsheets.

Google Presentations hopes to rival PowerPoint as the presentation tool of choice. A lofty goal, to be sure, but they still have a long way to go.

Can Anyone Use Google Presentations?

Anyone with a free Google account for any of their products has access to Google Docs. Simply log in to Google Docs using that username and password.

Features of Google Presentations

The features in Presentations are limited at best.

• Presentations offers the ability to collaborate live with colleagues on creating and editing a presentation. You simply share your file by listing the email addresses of those parties, and you assign them permissions to act as collaborators or limit the permissions to viewing only.
  
  
• The fanciest thing you can do to jazz up your presentation is to add one of the limited number of design themes. There are no animations or transitions available to use, and you cannot add any sounds or videos to your presentation.
  
  
• The font selections are limited, but this is actually a good thing in my opinion. People tend to get "font crazy" sometimes, often leading to an end result that is -- how do I say this nicely? -- less than effective. Since the only way to show your presentation is through a browser, Presentations only allows you to use web friendly fonts -- so at least you know that all of these fonts can be viewed on any computer.
  
  
• You can upload and work on a current PowerPoint file (no other presentation software can be opened, at this time anyway) and the maximum file size of your PowerPoint file is 10 MB. Only text boxes are editable and objects may be skewed on the screen.
  
  
• You can save the presentation as a ZIP file if you wish to email it, but the zipped presentation is in HTML format with folders containing supporting files.

The Bottom Line

All in all, if you want to make a simple presentation on the fly, Google Presentations might work out to be a great tool for you. For transient workers or students, it is a great way to store your work online to be accessed from any location -- as long as there is an internet connection, of course.