I used to love PowerPoint. It was easily the app I spent the most time in on my computer. It was where I got most of my marketing work done. I used to take a lot of pride in the look and feel of each slide and make custom-branded templates for each of my presentation decks including Executive summary templates, roadmap templates, and Gantt chart powerpoint templates. My decks utilized shapes, animations, and layers to deeply control everything on the slide to match the narrative being presented. Recently, I hit a wall.

“The world continued to produce more engaging content, and PowerPoint wasn’t allowing me to keep up.”

Video support in PowerPoint was pitiful, SVGs I created in Adobe were not supported, and I had a hard time letting my artistic freedom take over with the file size limitations of sending PowerPoints over email. Yes, I tried moving to O365 and using PowerPoint online, but the web based editor had removed almost half the features I used on a daily basis, worked terribly for collaboration, and kept auto suggesting slide templates that could not be easily modified. I finally had enough and was determined to find a new solution.

I tried Prezi, InDesign, Canva, and several other presentation alternatives. And while they were definitely a step up with their support of rich media, none of them completely satisfied all the features and functionality I needed.

It was around this time a colleague of mine sent me a presentation to explain an offering our business was interested in purchasing.

“It was made using CustomShow, and it blew my socks off.”

CustomShow is a presentation tool that comes standard with fullfeel. Every slide had videos, animations, builds, and high resolution photos. One slide even had a 360 panorama I could move around and explore. I could choose to autoplay the presentation, or click through it manually. The engagement level was closer to a video game or a movie than a presentation deck. 

Upon getting a trial of the software and learning how to use the tool (which took me about an hour), I tried to recreate what I had been sent, using my own content. It took me less than 30 minutes! Since everything works in a web browser, I no longer have to download heavy productivity app suites on my laptop. I also don’t have to buy separate licenses for each device I want to access it from.

It is with this little victory, that I am now confident enough to say goodbye to PowerPoint. It’s been a wonderful 18 years, but it’s time to take my sales content to the next level.