presentation interactive tools

14 Best Interactive Presentation Software in 2024 (Free & Paid)

Discover the best interactive presentation software, including free tools for presentations, and presentation platforms for video and animated presentations.

Dominika Krukowska

14 minute read

Short answer

What are the best interactive presentation tools?

• Beautiful.ai

Static vs. interactive presentation tools

Static presentation tools allow you to present information using a fixed sequence of slides and a consistent flow to guide readers. Interactive tools use a variety of multimedia elements and storytelling frameworks, letting viewers engage with content at their own pace.

While static tools ensure clarity and structure, interactive presentation tools transform passive viewers into active participants, creating a deeper involvement and boosting engagement.

Check out our resource on why static slides are bad for you .

And here's what a static presentation looks like compared to an interactive one:

Critical features in interactive presentation software

Ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of presentation tools out there? I have. But after sifting through the scary pile of interactive presentation tools, I've zeroed in on the features that genuinely elevate your content.

12 must-have features of modern interactive presentation tools:

Template galleries - Template galleries offer a quick start, ensuring your presentation looks polished without spending hours on design.

AI content creation - AI-driven features analyze your content, suggesting optimal layouts and design elements, making your slides both informative and visually appealing.

Personalization - You can tailor your presentations to resonate with specific audiences. This ensures your content speaks directly to the viewer, enhancing engagement and relevance.

Automation - From auto-populating content to personalizing presentations based on viewer data, to tracking engagement, automation tools make your job easier and more efficient.

Real-time collaboration - Teamwork makes the dream work. You can collaborate with team members in real-time, combining insights to craft the perfect presentation.

Integration with other tools - Connect your presentation software with your favorite tools, including CRM systems, prospecting, or sales enablement tools.

Narrated design (Scrollytelling slides) - Turn your slides into a compelling narrative, guiding your audience on a memorable journey.

Animations - Use animations to highlight key messages, transition between topics, or simply captivate your audience.

Annotation capabilities - Whether it's highlighting important points, on-hover labels, or adding on-the-spot insight pop-ups, annotations make your presentation a two-way conversation.

Multimedia content options - Go beyond text—enrich with videos, audios, and interactive elements for a better reader experience.

Role-based permissions - Control who can edit what parts of the presentation, ensuring your presentation remains in trusted hands and its design unbroken.

Analytics and reporting - Track viewer engagement, slide interactions, and feedback, and use these insights to make informed improvements to your presentation and create better future presentations.

Top tools for interactive presentations

In the age where every second counts and distractions are just a click away, interactive presentations are the game-changer. They improve engagement, memorability, and understandability, and support decision-making.

Interactive presentation tools can help transform boring presentations into interesting ones , and change passive viewers into active participants.

If you’re on the hunt for tools that will help you achieve this, let’s explore some of the best interactive presentation software currently available.

Jump ahead to page section

1. Storydoc

Storydoc is the future of presentations, reimagined with the power of AI. This interactive presentation maker takes your deck and elevates it to a dynamic, immersive story experience.

It uses narrated design, aka scrollytelling, to challenge the norms of traditional slide-based presentations and invite audiences to explore and engage with the content at their own pace.

Storydoc also sprinkles a bit of AI magic, guiding you every step of the way. From automatically applying your branding and generating relevant visuals to making content suggestions, you can get a professional-looking presentation in no time.

Once you’re finished, you can use dynamic variables to automate any number of personalized versions of your deck at scale.

After you hit ‘send’, go to the analytics panel and watch as it fills up with real-time data, providing valuable insights about what’s resonating with your audience and what’s not.

• AI-driven design and content suggestions
• The ability to personalize decks at scale
• Optimized for viewing on any device
• Integrates with tools like calendars, lead-capturing forms, and live chats
• Comprehensive presentation analytics with real-time data
• Printed versions lose the charm of interactivity
• There might be a slight learning curve for traditional presentation tool users
• 14-day free trial
• Starter plan: $30/month per user (billed annually)
• Pro plan: $45/month per user (billed annually)
• Team plan: Talk to sales

2. Slidebean

Designed with the challenges of starting a business in mind, Slidebean offers an AI-powered platform that simplifies the pitching process.

You can draft a simple outline in the platform's intuitive content-brief and editor. Once done, Slidebean springs into action, quickly transforming the content into slides that are in line with the established best practices.

But don't mistake speed for lack of control. The AI does the heavy lifting, but you're in the driver's seat. If a slide feels off, you can tweak it. Or, if you're feeling particularly hands-on, you can dive into their fill-in-the-blank templates and craft your presentation.

• Designed with the unique challenges of startups in mind
• Blend of AI-driven automation and user customization
• You can collaborate with a team of experts to perfect your pitch
• Might feel like overkill for simpler presentation needs
• Some design elements could use a fresh coat of paint
• Basic plan: Free
• All-Access plan: $199/year
• Accelerate plan: $499/year

Visme is a solid choice for crafting presentations from the ground up. You can dive into a vast library of templates tailored for every industry, ensuring your content always feels fresh and relevant.

And if you're all about the visuals, Visme's got you covered with over 1.5 million high-resolution stock images, dynamic charts, and interactive data widgets.

Want to add a personal touch? You can customize decks with your own branded fonts and colors. Plus, with features like presentation notes and a presenter mode, you're always ready to engage your audience, whether it's in a boardroom or a virtual space.

Just a heads-up: while there are tons of design choices, some templates might be more about looking good than being super clear. But with a bit of tweaking, you can get the best of both worlds.

• Intuitive content creation with a vast template library
• Real-time collaboration tools for efficient teamwork
• Asset management to ensure brand consistency
• The variety might be a bit overwhelming for first-time users
• Some features lean too much towards aesthetics
• Premium features are locked behind paid plans
• Starter plan: $12.25/month (billed annually)
• Pro plan: $24.75/month (billed annually)
• Visme for Teams: Contact sales

Ludus is a presentation software designed with teamwork in mind. Whether you're co-editing in real-time or sharing assets across teams, Ludus makes the process simple.

You can start with one of their templates or build from scratch. Ludus offers an impressive array of features, a whopping 64 to be precise, that can sometimes be a bit hidden to not overwhelm the casual user.

You can pull in content from platforms like YouTube, Unsplash, and even design tools like Figma. And, if you're looking to add a personal touch, you can record yourself speaking over your slides.

Plus, with features like live collaboration and custom blocks, you can work together with your team on designing slides. It's all about giving you the freedom to mix, match, and create the right presentation for your needs.

• Seamless real-time collaboration for team projects.
• Integrates easily with platforms like YouTube, Unsplash, and Figma.
• Offers custom domains for a branded presentation experience.
• Advanced design tools for creative freedom.
• Might have a learning curve for new users.
• Huge feature set might be overwhelming for users who are after basics.
• Some users might notice performance hiccups with heavy content.
• 30-day free trial
• Teams of 1-15 people: $149.99/year
• Teams of 16 people and over: Contact sales

5. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is designed to turn passive audiences into active participants, making every presentation a two-way conversation.

With features like dynamic word clouds, live polling, and interactive quizzes, Mentimeter ensures that your audience is not just watching but actively contributing to the discussion.

Whether you're in a corporate setting, an educational institution, or hosting a workshop, Mentimeter promises to make your sessions productive, inclusive, and fun.

• Engaging tools like word clouds, live polls, and quizzes.
• Encourages audience participation and inclusivity.
• Adaptable for work, education, and workshops.
• Integrates with apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
• Might take time for new users to learn all features.
• Some may desire more template customization.
• Free plan available
• Basic plan: $11.99 per presenter/month
• Pro plan: $24.99 per presenter/month
• Campus plan: Talk to sales
• Discounts for teachers and students

Vyond is a platform that helps you create top-notch animated videos that turn even the most complex of messages into relatable, engaging stories.

With a wide range of templates at your disposal, Vyond ensures you've got just the right backdrop, whether you're piecing together a corporate presentation, crafting an explainer video, or designing an educational segment.

The platform's dynamic content integration also lets you jazz up your animations with a mix of images, videos, and even 3D elements. And for those stories that need your unique voice? You can dive into Vyond's voice-over features or add customizable characters.

• A rich library of templates for every narrative
• The ability to enrich animations with content integrations
• Tools for voice-overs and character customization
• Premium features come at a higher cost
• It might take some time to get the hang of it, even if you have video editing experience
• The two cheapest plans only allow a single user
• Essential plan: $25/month for a single user (billed annually)
• Premium plan: $54/month for a single user (billed annually)
• Professional plan: $92/month per user (billed annually)
• Enterprise plan: Get in touch with sales

7. Genially

Genially offers tools that make your presentations, infographics, and other content types truly interactive. It comes with a vast library of professionally designed templates, perfect for every occasion, from corporate pitches to educational lessons.

But Genially's magic doesn't end there. With features that allow dynamic content integration, you can add layers of interactivity, from clickable elements to animated transitions.

And if you're looking to gamify your content? Genially’s got your back here too, ensuring your audience is not just viewing but actively engaging with your content. I mean, you can even create your own escape room right there in the editor!

• A versatile platform suitable both for business and education.
• Strong emphasis on interactivity.
• Large template library, making the content creation process simpler.
• Might be too complex for those with simpler creative needs.
• No clear information on pricing.
• Pro plan: $7.49/month (billed annually)
• Master plan: $20.82/month (billed annually)
• Team plan: $79.15/month (billed annually)
• Discounts for education

8. Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai is a presentation software that uses AI-powered automation to make the process of creating slide decks quicker and easier. It offers smart templates as a starting point, ensuring you're never left staring at a blank slide.

But where it truly shines is in its real-time design adaptation. As you pour your content onto a slide, the platform's AI ensures every element is perfectly placed, every color is on-brand, and every transition feels smooth.

Whether you're piecing together a sales pitch, a quarterly report, or a startup story, Beautiful.ai makes sure it's presented in the best light with features like shared slides, universal updates, and total brand control.

• AI magic that takes the guesswork out of design.
• Smart templates that feel like a designer's touch.
• Collaboration made easy with shared slides.
• Might feel too automated for the design traditionalists.
• Limited slide customization options can feel a bit formulaic.
• Might not be suitable for more complex presentations.
• Free 14-day trial
• Pro plan: $12/month (billed annually)
• Team plan: $40/user/month (billed annually)
• Single ad hoc project: $45
• Enterprise plan: Contact sales

Pitch is a presentation software that focuses on speed, collaboration, and design, wanting to transform the way teams create and share their ideas.

To get started, you can either pick a template or create your own. As you build, the platform offers smart editing features to guide you along the way. You can swiftly integrate photos, icons, logos, and videos, making each slide a visual treat.

Collaboration is seamless, with real-time editing and feedback loops. Sharing your work is as simple as sending a link, and with the added bonus of real-time analytics, you get a clear picture of how your audience interacts with your content.

• Real-time collaboration features with editing loops
• Affordable pricing makes it a great choice for individuals or small businesses
• Analytics panel that provides insights into audience engagement
• Limited selection of templates
• No AI assistance
• You’ll have to upgrade your plan to access presentation analytics
• Starter plan: Free
• Pro plan: $8 per member per month
• Enterprise plan: Talk to sales

10. Zoho Show

Zoho Show is a presentation tool offering a modern approach to crafting and sharing presentations. With its sleek, uncluttered interface, it promises and delivers a distraction-free creation experience.

Dive in, and you're greeted with a library of over 100 templates, perfect for everything from your next startup pitch to a business proposal.

Teamwork takes center stage in Zoho Show. Features like real-time slide adjustments, instant notifications, and contextual comments all make collaboration feel seamless. Users can also bring decks to life with animations, custom shapes, infographics, and multimedia integrations.

And if you already have a presentation in another format? Zoho Show ensures a hassle-free transition, smoothly importing PPTX, PPT, and other popular file types.

• Intuitive user interface
• Collaboration options for real-time team interactions
• Full compatibility with popular presentation formats
• Completely free to use
• Limited choice of templates and features
• There are more advanced presentation tools out there

11. FlowVella

FlowVella is a presentation software that's all about creating interactive stories. It offers a platform where you can craft slides with rich text, high-quality images, and engaging videos.

Beyond the basics, the ability to embed interactive links and galleries allows for a more immersive experience, while the option to include PDFs makes sure that detailed data is always at your fingertips.

But perhaps its most distinctive feature is the ability to transform iPads into interactive kiosks. This makes it an ideal choice for museums, exhibitions, and other public spaces looking to provide an interactive experience to their visitors.

• Easy-to-use editor
• Works both offline and online
• The ability to use custom URLs when sharing presentations
• Free version includes FlowVella branding
• The design options might feel limited to more advanced users
• Premium plan: $60/year (billed annually)
• Pro plan: $200/year (billed annually)

12. SlideDog

SlideDog is a presentation software that brings together various presentation elements into one seamless experience.

Imagine being able to combine PowerPoints, Prezis, PDFs, and other media without the hassle of switching between programs during your presentation. SlideDog makes this possible.

Its beauty lies in the ability to create a custom playlist for all your presentation files and media, ensuring a smooth flow from start to finish. One of its standout features is the live sharing capability, allowing audiences to access presentations in real-time from various devices.

Beyond traditional presentations, SlideDog can also be used as a digital signage solution, perfect for those ever-present screens in stores or waiting rooms that run slideshows on a continuous loop.

• The ability to combine multiple file types into one presentation
• Real-time sharing option to boost audience engagement
• The option to control your presentation from any web-enabled device
• Hard to make changes to your presentation on the spot
• Not available for Mac or Linux
• Monthly plan: $19 per 2 seats
• Annual plan: $99 per 2 seats for the first year, 20% renewal discount
• Lifetime plan: $299 per 2 seats

13. Powtoon

Powtoon is where your presentations spring to life. It's a platform that lets you craft animated presentations and videos, blending text, images, and dynamic animations.

Powtoon's drag-and-drop interface ensures that even those without a design background can create decent-looking animations. You can also add voice-overs, integrate interactive elements, or even embed videos directly into your presentation.

Those looking to truly stand out can also play the director with customizable characters, tweaking them to fit their narrative. Powtoon gives you the option to control the hair and body, and even change the outfits!

Finally, the ability to export presentations as videos ensures your message can reach a wider audience across different platforms.

• The ability to shape your characters to fit the narrative
• More affordable than hiring an agency to create the videos for you
• Suitable for many different industries and use cases
• There is no free version available
• Custom characters are only available in the Business version
• More advanced users might find the animations a little amateurish
• Lite plan: $15/month (billed annually)
• Professional plan: $40/month (billed annually)
• Business plan: $125/month (billed annually)
• Enterprise plans: Contact sales

Canva is not just a presentation tool; it's a design powerhouse. Whether you're a seasoned designer or someone who's just starting out, Canva's intuitive interface makes it easy to bring your ideas to life.

The platform offers a wide array of templates, not just for presentations, but for virtually any design need you can think of—from social media posts to business cards. But presentations remain one of its strong suits.

With Canva, you can craft slides that are both visually stunning and impactful in conveying your message. The drag-and-drop functionality, combined with a rich library of elements like icons, images, and fonts, ensures that every slide is a masterpiece in its own right.

But Canva's magic doesn't stop at design. It also offers collaboration features, allowing teams to work together on a design in real-time. Plus, with its cloud-based nature, your designs are accessible from anywhere, anytime.

• Versatile software with 100+ design types
• Doesn’t require any design or coding knowledge
• You can access your designs from any device connected to the Internet
• The basic version is free
• Many design elements are only available to Pro users, with no option to filter them out
• Some users might find the choice of designs overwhelming.
• Pro plan: $14.99 billed monthly or $119.99 billed annually
• Canva for Teams: Contact sales
• Free for education and non-profit organizations

How can I create an interactive presentation?

Creating an interactive presentation is like piecing together a puzzle. You start with your main idea, then add images, videos, and other interactive elements to bring it to life. It's about making your audience feel involved, not just watching from the sidelines.

With the right mix, you can turn any topic into an engaging experience that sticks. And the best part is that you don't have to be a tech whiz to do it.

Dive into our guide on creating multimedia presentations to get started and see how easy it can be to make presentations that pop.

How to choose the best interactive presentation creator?

Choosing the right interactive presentation tool can feel a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. With so many options out there, how do you pick the one that's just right for you? Let's break it down based on your specific needs:

If you’re a solopreneur

As a one-person army, you need efficiency. Look for tools that are user-friendly and don't come with a steep learning curve. You'd want a platform that offers a variety of templates, so you don't have to start from scratch every time.

Canva is a fantastic choice, offering a wide range of design templates tailored for presentations. It's user-friendly, and even if you're not design-savvy, you can create professional-looking slides in no time.

If you’re in sales and marketing

Your presentations are often the first impression you make, so they need to be top-notch. You'd benefit from tools that are optimized for engagement, integrate seamlessly with CRMs, offer detailed analytics, and allow for real-time edits.

This is where Storydoc truly shines. Unlike traditional slide decks, Storydoc focuses on crafting a narrative that resonates with your audience. It has intuitive design capabilities and emphasis on storytelling, ensuring that your pitches aren't just informative but memorable.

If you’re in education

The classroom, whether physical or virtual, thrives on engagement. You'd want a tool that allows you to embed videos, create interactive quizzes, and maybe even throw in some animations to keep things lively.

Genially fits the bill perfectly. It blends creativity with technology, letting educators design interactive educational materials that keep students motivated and make learning genuinely enjoyable.

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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The Best Interactive Presentation Software and Tools in 2024

Table of Contents

iSpring Suite is a PowerPoint add-on that allows you to create interactive and engaging presentations with relative ease. iSpring Suite makes the list for its wide range of features combined with its simplicity of use . As it’s an add-on for PowerPoint, downloading, setting up, and using iSpring Suite is super simple and intuitive.

What makes this presentation software stand out is the array of features for adding interactivity to your presentations. It allows you to add dynamic assessments with 14 different quiz types, interactive videos, and dynamic role-plays with branching. The software also includes a unique character builder that allows you to add custom-illustrated characters to your presentations.

iSpring Suite has one of the best content libraries of any interactive platform for presentations, with over 90,000 assets and templates to choose from. The tool also allows you to add multimedia and even screen record your presentation into a video tutorial, all within the same program. You have several export options for your presentation, meaning you can upload it to an LMS for your learners to interact with, and for you to manage their learning journeys.

While iSpring Suite is full of useful features for making existing presentations more engaging and interactive or creating them from scratch, it is limited to PowerPoint-based slide decks. If you’re starting from a PowerPoint presentation, then this is an advantage, but if you are looking for a whole new approach to presentations, then this may be a drawback. Moreover, iSpring is one of the more premium options, as it comes in at a higher price.

However, you get what you pay for, and iSpring is feature rich. The newest feature it offers is an AI assistant that can help give inspiration, write content, and design assessments. iSpring Suite is easy to use and feels familiar to anyone who has ever made a PowerPoint presentation. This combination of features and ease of use makes iSpring Suite the best interactive presentation software overall.

Best for: 

iSpring Suite is the best option for small and medium businesses, schools, and universities.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 4.6 out of 5 stars

iSpring changes the PowerPoint game with its user-friendly extensions and features. I will never create another PPT without it. Even though it is very user-friendly, I am not very technologically literate. So, it’s always the best thing ever when I click ‘Help’ and get support from a live agent. I get super quick responses and quick fixes that I wouldn’t have been able to figure out myself. The support team really makes a difference. Shout out to Julia on the tech team!

Nearpod is an interactive presentation tool that is ideally suited for teachers. Where Nearpod stands out is in providing real-time insight into your students’ progress through an interactive learning experience.

Like other interactive presentation software, Nearpod can be used in different ways. First, it works nicely as a tool for making classroom presentations more interactive through class participation activities, such as polls and premade games.

However, Nearpod has two more useful modes that make it great for teachers who need to conduct distance learning. With the first mode, the teacher can present and pace the lesson themselves, with the students accessing the lesson remotely. This works much like a distance learning lesson, and you can benefit from the interactive elements much the same as in the classroom.

The other mode that Nearpod provides allows your students to access and interact with the lesson at their own pace and in their own time. This would be a great tool for students who can’t attend lessons, for example.

Creating interactive lessons with Nearpod is simple and effective, but not outstanding by any means. Where Nearpod does shine, however, is in how easy it is to track your students’ progress and understanding of the material, with formative assessments and quizzes, all within the same app.

While Nearpod could be used for other learning situations, and not just in schools, the app is really geared toward teachers and schoolchildren. The design and features were built with this use in mind. With this target audience, the gamification elements of Nearpod are great. They’re intuitive and very pleasing to the eye, thus making them perfect for kids to engage with the learning content.

Nearpod is also free to use for classes up to 40 students, but it does have some limitations. The app only allows for 100 MB of storage and some LMS integrations. However, Nearpod for Schools offers good value for money and can offer bespoke solutions for you and your intuition’s needs.

NearPod is the best option for schools – especially for distance learning.

I like that there are so many great lessons and activities already created that are available for teachers to choose from. It is also user-friendly and easy to add to any lesson plan! There’s not much I dislike about this learning resource. The only thing I can say is that I have found that NearPod is not always easy for every student to interact with the lesson. Nearpod helps me plan exciting lessons and takes a lot of work and time out of my lesson planning and preparation time. It is also great to use when there is a substitute in class.

Prezi is one of the best online tools for making interactive presentations that look beautiful and dynamic . Prezi’s standout feature is its approach to your presentation structure: instead of a linear format, you can navigate your presentation in a much more flexible and dynamic manner. Besides this unique design approach, Prezi gives you a lot of customization features that center on making presentations that look striking.

If you’ve ever made a presentation, then you probably understand what is meant by a linear presentation – a slide deck where each slide shows some information or visual, and over the course of the presentation, you proceed from slide 1 through to the final slide. Prezi breaks this format. Instead, you can jump to any slide in the deck via animations.

A good way to picture this is to imagine a title slide with subheadings. In Prezi, clicking on a subheading will transport you to a new slide by zooming in and revealing new information. This can be done with images or other design elements, and the crucial part is that you can zoom back out to the master slide to re-navigate to wherever you wish. This system has some advantages.

Non-linear navigation means you don’t have to follow a specific order for your presentation, but can go where you please. Moreover, this structured approach can really help learners categorize information in their minds, as they can see where each element fits into the whole. Lastly, this system can wow your audience and leave a lasting impression on them.

There are, of course, some drawbacks to this kind of interactive slideshow. While a Prezi presentation can look great, it can be problematic. If, for example, you are presenting over an online connection or on an older machine, you may find the zooming animations look a little messy, can be distracting, and not to everyone’s liking. That being said, this is a minor limitation to Prezi’s beautiful design.

Prezi is the best option for businesses with a creative approach.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 4.2 out of 5 stars

As someone who develops apps, Prezi really does stick out among the crowded competition by making presentations interesting and dynamic. With the zoom feature and more creative transitions, we have a fresh alternative to standard PowerPoint slides: every story comes out all the better for our presentations. What I love about Prezi is that you can create more of an interactive background. This gives my work a bit more of a business-like look.

Vaishali T.

4. Mentimeter

Mentimeter is one of the best tools for making presentations interactive by focusing on audience participation . With this app, you can update your slides with live polling, quizzes, and word clouds to keep your audience engaged and interacting with your content.

The word cloud feature is especially useful. It’s very easy to set up and creates a great interactive element for your slide, allowing the audience to contribute answers to a question that are then displayed anonymously on your slide. This kind of interactivity is simple yet effective.

As an interactive presentation platform, Mentimeter focuses on being incredibly simple to use and is therefore nothing special in terms of design features. Mentimeter is best used as a tool for uploading your premade slide deck and adding quick and simple interactive elements for when you present to an audience.

One of the great things about this system is that your audience doesn’t need to download an app but can interact with your slide from the web browser on their phone or other device. This makes it great for delivering presentations to larger audiences when you want to increase engagement or collect feedback.

Mentimeter also allows you to visualize the data you collect during your presentations to further analyze and make decisions accordingly. It is intuitive and simple to use, making it great for workshops, meetings, and events that require feedback.

Mentimeter is the best option for gathering feedback-based statistics at companies, schools, and universities.

Mentimeter is an outstanding tool, its features, the functionality, the ease of creating interactive & engaging presentations with a whole suite of templates are outstanding – as a direct result I have used this extensively which as a result has helped me drive our employee satisfaction measure +6 points above the corporate benchmark.

5. SlideDog

SlideDog is unique among dynamic presentation tools in that, instead of being an interactive presentation maker, it is a tool for seamlessly presenting multiple presentations or files at the same time. SlideDog is a live presentation software designed for multimedia presentations and supports any kind of presentation media.

SlideDog is a niche product, but it is very good at what it does. If you have ever had to present something and found yourself jumping from your presentation to a PDF, YouTube video, or web page, then SlideDog can solve your quandary. You can meld multiple presentations, files, and media together into a single playlist and then hit play. You can set up your presentation to run on its own or control it from a separate device. 

As an interactive presentation app, SlideDog is easy to set up and use and offers some useful features, such as live presenting to multiple devices and some interactive elements such as polls, questionnaires, and an audience chat. While SlideDog doesn’t boast the most sophisticated interactivity, that’s not the focus of the tool.

One of the key use cases that SlideDog can be useful for is tying together multiple presentations delivered by multiple speakers at the same event into one simple and sleek flow. You can upload PowerPoint presentations as well as files from Prezi and SlideDog will keep the animations and visuals intact.

Overall, SlideDog is the perfect tool for its specific use case and is perfect for presenters who find themselves jumping from their slides to webpages, PDFs, or documents during their presentations.

SlideDog is the best option for people who organize meetings, conferences, and other events that involve several speakers with individual materials of different formats.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 4.2 out of 5 stars

The application of SlideDog allows for creating presentations that are interesting in addition to the slides themselves, which could contain web pages, videos, pictures, text, or Excel files. I enjoy the possibility of the user’s presentation to partners or colleagues. The software SlideDog is user friendly, and it is easy to use the interface, has very useful features, a clean design, and accepts the common formats of files.

6. FlowVella

FlowVella is an interactive presentation app for Apple devices that excels at producing clean, professional-looking content that audiences can interact with . FlowVella’s presentations are a great way of making informative presentations that audiences can interact with independently from the presenters. One of its highlighted use cases is in iPad kiosks.

Compared to other software for interactive presentations, FlowVella can seem a little limited in the features it provides for content authoring but instead focuses on making it easy to design very functional interactive slides that combine videos, images, text, and PDFs to create a simple interactive presentation.

FlowVella allows you to make professional-looking info slides with dynamic navigation and seamless media incorporation. You can use the many templates provided to make excellent content. 

Where FlowVella shines is in the sharing and implementation of its presentations. While you can use the app to deliver presentations in a traditional setting, the focus here is on multiple devices, independent and offline experiences, or kiosk mode. If you have ever been to a museum or exhibition, then you have probably interacted with an iPad displaying some information. FlowVella stands out in exactly this kind of environment.

With functionality and simple design at its core, FlowVella focuses on presentations that offer detailed information in a pleasing design, with interactivity that anyone can access. The app is optimized for display devices like iPads, but it also works effortlessly on iPhones and Mac computers.

FlowVella also has a nifty custom URL system for easy sharing and offers comprehensive analytics features so you can analyze how people interact with your presentations. Overall, FlowVella is a great option for its kiosk mode but falls behind competitors in terms of its interactive features.

FlowVella is the best option for exhibitors who need to create content to arrange iPad-based kiosks for events.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 4.1 out of 5 stars

The presentations that can be created have been of interest to clients, attracting attention. It is an effective tool that has allowed me to keep track of each presentation by knowing who sees it and for how long. With this information, it helps me analyze how much impact it has.

7. IntuiFace

IntuiFace is a truly unique platform and one of the best interactive presentation tools for creating bespoke and professional experiences . IntuiFace goes beyond traditional presentations and instead focuses on the unique experience that devices can offer in retail settings or that commercial and educational installations need to provide.

IntuiFace excels in exactly this area by taking any input media, such as images, videos, and text, and creating a truly bespoke experience to present the information to an audience with high levels of interaction. It can be used by businesses to create unique purchasing or product customization experiences, or in exhibitions for unique learning and interaction experiences.

The most amazing thing about IntuiFace is that anyone can use it because it requires absolutely no coding skills to create these solutions. Such bespoke solutions for presenting information and creating unique interactions would normally require a bespoke solution, but not with IntuiFace; it is actually an incredibly intuitive interactive presentation platform.

As you would expect from the intended use case, this tool is optimized to work on devices with touchscreen functionality and maintains its performance across devices of all shapes and sizes. This makes it the go-to option for exhibitions and installations that include the highest levels of interaction with audiences.

Although it is surprisingly intuitive, IntuiFace is not the simplest program for creating interactive presentations and definitely goes above and beyond most presenting needs, which makes it an expensive option for most. It is, however, arguably the best tool for the job when it comes to interactive installations. As a no-code solution, it can be a time- and cost-saving solution for businesses and institutions that would otherwise look to bespoke digital solutions.

IntuiFace is the best option for presentation designers who want to create a “wow effect” on a multi-touch screen at exhibitions, conferences, and other events.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 5 out of 5 stars

IntuiFace combines familiar features you will find in PowerPoint, Keynote, Photoshop, and Illustrator with a unified UI and an easy-to-use set of features and tools. The supported APIs make interfacing with external data possible, a function that once required extensive custom coding. Deploying experiences via the IntuiFace cloud has been of great benefit to my clients located out of state. 

Visme stands out for its visuals and simplicity . As interactive tools for presentations go, Visme is simple to use, and it’s easy to find all the features you might need for your design. You can choose from a huge selection of templates and make your presentations visually appealing with their enormous content library.

With data visualizations and media integration, Visme excels in the design area. This means you can convert existing slides or documents into beautiful presentations or create them from scratch. Your presentations will also be engaging with several interactive features.

Visme offers customized navigation, animations, clickable assets, polls, quizzes, and videos, all of which can make your presentation more engaging. However, it doesn’t stand out in terms of interactivity, instead focusing on ease of use and design.

One feature that Visme is proud to offer is its AI-powered design assistant, which can take your prompts and help you design your slides accordingly. This could be a great tool for accelerating the design process and compensating for a lack of inspiration. The tool is, however, still in beta and may not be a useful tool for those who want to take design into their own hands.

Visme’s other great features are the simple infographic tool for data visualization and the end-to-end branded content creation. Visme stands out as a great option for those who value design and want an intuitive platform for making awesome-looking presentations.

Visme is the best option for educators, presenters and communicators – especially those who prefer team work – as Visme lets you organize the project data into folders and provide role-based permissions.

Visme is an infographic maker tool with hundreds of beautiful templates to create visually-effective infographics. I can collaborate with my team members in real-time to get and implement the best ideas.

Harinder S.

9. Pear Deck

Pear Deck is another excellent interactive presentation tool for teachers. In this case, Pear Deck is especially notable for its capacity to create presentations with differentiated instruction for a range of diverse learners .

Just like Nearpod, Pear Deck is designed to be used by teachers, and while it can be used for distance learning, it focuses more on being a classroom tool for interactive learning. Pear Deck is designed to maximize the engagement and interactivity of your slide-based presentations. It incorporates analytics and feedback into the platform.

This classroom interactivity tool is great for encouraging students to get involved with the material on screen through tasks, quizzes, and discussions that are built into the presentation. You can also collect real-time feedback for immediate insights into your students’ comprehension and assess each student individually.

The standout feature of Pear Deck is the way it helps you include differentiated instruction, meaning you can provide different levels of support or challenge to different students. This means you can close learning gaps by supporting weaker learners while simultaneously pushing stronger learners to achieve more, all in the same lesson.

Pear Deck achieves this through a wide range of pre-made blocks, templates, and even lessons. The program allows you to create these engaging lessons, but is limited in its design options. While Pear Deck is a great choice for teachers in schools, NearPod surpasses it slightly as the top pick. However, Pear Deck is a great option for its differentiated instruction capability. In real terms, both are good options for teachers, and it will boil down to personal choice.

Pear Deck is the best option for schools and educators working with children.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 4.4 out of 5 stars

Pear Deck is a great way to get students engaged in a simple, and maybe boring, PowerPoint presentation. I use Google Slides and try to make it engaging. Pairing it with Pear Deck allows students to get engaged in ways that work for them.

Jonathan K.

10. Genially

Genially makes the list for its excellent options for gamified presentations . Like other interactive tools for presentations, it is simple to use, looks great, and has plenty of features for interactivity, but that doesn’t place it above the others. Genially stands out most of all for its gamification options, which are simple to implement.

The gamification tab in Genially’s presentation builder is intuitive and makes it easy to add quizzes, drag-and-drop games, and even an escape room game into your presentation. Gamification is a huge topic in eLearning and has been proven to positively impact learning across many fields, therefore making it a huge bonus for your presentation.

While other interactive platforms for presentations make gamification possible, Genially has great options that are incredibly easy to implement. Moreover, Genially also offers a wide range of interactive elements such as hover-over labels, hotspots, and pop-ups, which also means learners can interact with your presentations without the need for a presenter.

Genially makes visually impressive presentations and is simple to use. It is also priced competitively, and offers plenty of value for its cost, and even offers a generous free plan.

Genially is the best option for people from different professional areas who want to engage their audience by presenting their content dynamically, beautifully, and in a highly interactive way.

Genially is the best web-based design enhancement tool I’ve ever used. The media options, integration options, templates, etc. are absolutely top notch, and look incredible on any style of Genially you create! I mostly use Genially for creating flyers, interactive images, and interactive (non-linear) presentations. I’ve created my own “brand” inside of Genially, and it’s incredibly easy to use everything I’ve created anywhere I want, as well as to use the pre-created media. It’s just an amazing tool.

11. Beautiful.ai

Beautiful.ai is one of the most innovative online presentation tools for its use of AI in the design process . What Beautiful.ai does is to simplify and accelerate the process of creating visually succinct presentations from your content, through the use of artificial intelligence. All you have to do is insert your text and media, and the AI assistant does the rest.

This system works great for applying a theme to an existing presentation in order to apply branding, for example. You just have to select your template and colors, and the AI assistant will make sure that each slide is optimized to look great. Beautiful.ai removes the need to go through all your slides, adjusting fonts, scales, positions, colors, and more; it all just works.

Beautiful.ai is a time-saving tool that allows you to focus on the content of your presentation. While it is truly amazing at what it does, it isn’t designed to do much else. Beautiful.ai doesn’t add interactivity options, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make engaging slides with it.

Like other interactive presentation software, Beautiful.ai has added a generative AI feature to its platform, allowing you to create slides from written prompts. While this does have the potential to be an effective time-saving tool, it is hit-and-miss in its current form. Like many other generative AI options, it usually doesn’t give you exactly what you want, so if you are serious about your presentations, you still need to make them yourself. However, with Beautiful.ai, the design can be automated effectively.

Beautiful.ai is the best option for people who create or edit presentations often and want to spend less time on that task, while keeping their work at a high level.

A user’s feedback on G2 – 4.7 out of 5 stars

I like the AI Bot that creates beautiful slides with great visuals. This enables one to create an entire presentation in a short time. It is better than other platforms because of the numerous templates available and the accuracy. The suggestions to shorten or change the tone of the text are also a plus.

Catherine O.

How We Tested the Best Interactive Presentation Software

In order to provide an informed and unbiased list of the best interactive presentation software, we first established our expectations, then collected our sources, and finally tested, critiqued, and reviewed.

We decided that each of our choices needed to offer a stand-out feature, to ensure that every single product on the list would be useful to someone, but we also needed to assess each product for the range of features it did or didn’t offer. We then read related articles and review videos to gain insights from reputable sources.

We downloaded and tested the free versions of the products where possible to get a feel for their functionalities. Finally, we put our experience and that of others together in order to assemble an insightful list of the most useful and capable tools for making presentations more interactive.

FAQ on Using Interactive Presentation Software

Many questions arise when discussing interactivity in presentations, so we collected some of the most frequently asked questions and provided our experienced answers.

1. How can I make my presentation interactive?

Interactivity in a presentation means having your audience participate in your delivery to some degree, and this can be achieved through different means. You can establish higher levels of engagement through media and interesting visuals, but interactivity requires a little more.

You need to get your audience involved. You can add questions to your presentations and include a way for learners to share their answers. Another option is to add games to the slides or have your audience navigate through the content themselves. Giving your audience autonomy is an effective way to boost learning and enjoyment.

2. How do I make an interactive PowerPoint presentation for eLearning?

PowerPoint presentations and effective eLearning can go hand in hand, presuming that you understand the key components of effective eLearning and apply that theory to your PowerPoint through effective interactivity. 

Interactivity is one of the most effective methods of achieving high-quality eLearning success, and this can be implemented through software such as iSpring Suite, which allows you to add interactive elements to your PowerPoint presentations. Once your PowerPoint presentation includes interactive elements, you can present it directly or upload it to an LMS for further eLearning effectiveness.

3. What are some other popular PowerPoint alternatives for creating interactive presentations online?

There are several popular alternatives to using PowerPoint for creating interactive presentations online. One of the most commonly used options is Google Slides, which is compatible with several of the tools on our list. Other great examples include Prezi, Mentimeter, FlowVella, Visme, and Beautiful.ai.

4. How does Google Slides compare to PowerPoint as a presentation tool?

Google Slides and PowerPoint are extremely similar to use as presentation tools. If you know how to use one, you can use the other without issues. Where Google Slides differs is that it is an online tool, like other Google services, so all of your projects are saved and edited online. This means they can be collaborated on and shared a little more easily. 

Google Slides also offers seamless integration with other Google services, such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Drive. One bonus is that Google Slides can integrate automatically with Google Classroom, allowing you to share your presentations with students if you’re a teacher.

That’s our list of the 11 best interactive presentation software and tools. We hope you found the choices helpful and located the right tool for your use case, or at least could find the information you need to arrive at an informed conclusion about which tool is best.

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Helga Kolinski

iSpring editor and boots-on-the-ground author. She’s always ready to share in-depth insights on the most hardcore eLearning topics with her readers.

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The Best 6 Interactive Presentation Tools

Giving a presentation is hard enough without worrying about getting crickets from your audience. Whether you're presenting an idea to your colleagues, speaking at a conference, or lecturing in a classroom, making your presentation interactive is a surefire way to increase audience engagement (and enjoyment).

With years of experience, we're experts in the field of interactive presentation software. We've put together a list of the top tools you can use to get your group interacting, engaging, and having a great time during your talk.

Without further ado, here's the list:

1. Slides With Friends

What is Slides With Friends?

Slides With Friends is an interactive presentation tool that offers slide decks similarly styled to PowerPoint —but this tool is different from PowerPoint because its slide decks have interactive features to engage your audience. Those features include live polls, ratings, live word clouds, videos, gifs, live photo sharing, live trivia, live quizzes, and more. 

How does Slides With Friends work? 

After creating an account, you'll have access to hundreds of presentation templates that fall into different categories, some of which are conferences, trivia, happy hour, team building, and education. Once you pick a slide deck template, you can customize it by changing the colors, fonts, images, and backgrounds. You can also add or remove interactive features based on your preferences.

When you're ready to start your presentation, all you have to do is share your screen. Then, your audience should scan the QR code to join the fun. Participants can submit responses to your presentation questions and engage in your activities and games from anywhere using their mobile devices!

‍ Pros of using Slides With Friends:

• Live features: With live polling, word clouds, photo sharing, charts, graphs, quizzes, and trivia, your audience will stay energized during your entire presentation! 
• Real-time insights: The many live features provide real-time updates to keep your audience engaged , intrigued, and in the know!
• Easy to use: You don't have to be tech-savvy to customize a slide deck or build an interactive presentation from scratch. Slides With Friends offers an easy and clean user experience. 
• Customizable: You can choose from a plethora of design options, like changing the background, updating font pairings, creating color palettes, and much more. 
• Mobile-first: Some interactive presentation software asks audience members to download an app to submit responses. With Slides With Friends, all people have to do is scan a QR code and submit responses using their mobile devices.  

Cons of using Slides With Friends:

• Need a paid plan for larger audiences: Ten people can engage with your presentation for free, so if you have a larger group, you'll need a paid plan. The good news is that those paid tiers are affordable, so you don't have to worry about breaking the bank.  

‍ Main Takeaway

The simplicity and fun, unique features that Slides With Friends offers makes it one of the top interactive presentation software, which is why everyone from teachers to speakers to managers use it. The slide decks are straightforward, and the templates are easy to customize—and when you're ready to start your presentation, participants can join without any hassle or downloads.

2. AhaSlides

What is AhaSlides?

AhaSlides is another interactive presentation tool that makes it easy for you to engage your audience. Similar to Slides With Friends, this tool has tons of customizable presentation templates, and they fall into many different categories like work, games, meetings, surveys, and holidays. Each template comes with interactive features to entertain your audience, including word clouds, a spinner wheel, polls, Q&A, sliding scales, and quizzes. 

How does AhaSlides work?

Getting started with AhaSlides is easy. After signing up, simply build your presentation from scratch or choose one of the many templates that AhaSlides offers. Once you're ready to present, make sure everyone can see your screen and ask your audience to join the fun by using the QR code or URL link. 

Pros of AhaSlides:

• User-friendly interface: AhaSlides has a similar setup and style to many other interactive presentation tools, so the learning curve is minimal. 
• On-slide editing: This software provides more options for on-slide designs and editing. 
• Cost-effective: All of AhaSlides' plans are affordable. Its most expensive one is under $20/month.
• Good for large groups: You can interact with up to 10k participants during your presentation, making this tool great for big conferences and large events.

Cons of AhaSlides: 

• Limitations: There aren't many different types of surveys and poll questions you can ask. 
• Customizing photos: All of your images on AhaSlides must be square.
• Can't undo: If you make a mistake while building your presentation on AhaSlides, you can't undo any changes. 

Main Takeaway

AhaSlides is a great interactive presentation tool that lets you achieve the same goals and add the same interactive features as other software. You may especially enjoy this tool if you want something that's budget-friendly— but beware that the low cost comes with some serious drawbacks, like the inability to undo mistakes and add different types of images. 

3. Mentimeter

What is Mentimeter?

‍ Mentimeter is an audience engagement platform that lets you build full presentations with interactive features and slides. This tool lets you add live polling , surveys, word clouds, Q&As, and quizzes, as well as Truth or Lie, Guess the Number, and This or That slides to engage your audience. It also offers many presentation templates for you to build on and customize. 

How does Mentimeter work?

Once you sign up, Mentimeter will ask a few questions to understand how you plan to use their service. Then, the software will analyze your responses to suggest specific templates based on your needs. If you don't like their recommendations, you can access all of Mentimeter's templates to find what you want. 

After you create your presentation and are ready to launch, your audience can respond to your questions, react to your content, and ask questions using any device. All of their responses are anonymous, too—and their feedback will appear on the screen immediately after they submit them. 

Pros of using Mentimeter:

• Feedback gathering: Mentimeter is great if you want to gather insights from your audience or gauge your audience's sentiments about a particular topic. 
• Customization capabilities: You can tailor every template to fit your needs. You can even include your own branding. 
• Integrations: Mentimeter is a corporate-friendly tool that integrates with Zoom, Hopin, Microsoft Teams, and PowerPoint. 

Cons of using Mentimeter:

• Restrictive free plan: The free version doesn't offer a lot of features and comes with many restrictions. 
• Expensive paid plans: If you want to access more features, you'll need a paid plan, but Mentimeter's paid tiers are significantly higher than other interactive presentation tools. 
• Steep learning curve: Mentimeter isn't intuitive—some features are complex, so first-time users may struggle.
• Inefficient customer support: Because of the company's location, the support team and support hours will be an obstacle for users in different time zones.
• Editing restrictions: On-slide editing is not possible . Instead of editing content on the actual slides, you'll have to edit text fields on the side. 

Mentimeter has many features you need to make your presentation interactive, but accessing those features comes at a hefty cost. Also, because Mentimeter isn't intuitive, implementing certain elements can be difficult and time-consuming. However, if you're tech-savvy, Mentimeter could be a powerful and useful presentation tool. ‍

What is Slido?

Slido is a Q&A and live polling platform that lets you interact with your audience during your presentation . With this tool, you can ask poll questions and receive audience feedback in real time. Your audience can also submit questions and vote for their favorite ones. Because of these features, Slido is an interactive presentation tool that's best for Q&A sessions, Ask Me Anything, curating and brainstorming ideas, quizzes, and feedback gathering. 

How does Slido work?

Slido integrates with other presentation and video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams, Vimeo, PowerPoint, and Google Slides. After signing up, you can access the tool and add its polling and Q&A features to your presentation slides. Once you're ready to present, your audience can join the fun by using the event link or QR code to participate. People can submit their responses using their mobile devices or laptop.

Pros of Slido: 

• Integrations: Because it has so many integrations, you can use Slido on essentially any presentation builder. 
• Good for large groups: Slido lets you add up to 5K participants, so it's good for large grounds. 

Cons of Slido: 

• Learning curve: Many users believe Slido is hard to learn and comes with too many steps for presenters. Some needed multiple explanations from other users on how to utilize the tool. 
• Limited features: All you get with Slido are polling and Q&A options, so you won't have many ways to engage your audience. 
• Limited free option: The free plan has very basic features. With this plan, engaging your audience will be challenging.
• Expensive: Slido is one of the more expensive options, with the enterprise plan reaching $200/month. 
• Delays: Some users have experienced delays in displaying participants' responses on slides. 

Main Takeaway 

Slido is a good tool with great integrations. But its features are limited, and its plans are expensive. If you add the learning curve some users complain about, you may not find many benefits in using Slido—however, it's still worth considering if you care about integrations.  

What is Vevox?

Vevox is a live polling, quiz, and Q&A platform that helps you engage your audience . This interactive presentation software integrates with multiple tools, including Powerpoint, Blackboard, and Microsoft Teams. 

With Vevox, you can gather anonymous feedback to ensure everyone has a voice, gauge your audience's views on topics, and jumpstart a fun, competitive atmosphere with a quizzing experience. Vevox also lets you showcase participants' responses with unique visuals like word clouds.

How does Vevox work? 

After signing up for Vevox, you can use its integration feature to convert slides on your presentation into Vevox polling, Q&A, or quiz slides. During your actual presentation, participants can interact with you by scanning a QR code or entering an event ID, both of which will be present on your Vevox slides. Audience members can submit their questions and responses from anywhere and on any device. 

Pros of Vevox:

• Great free plans: Vevox has two free plans—one for businesses and one for educators. Both allow up to 100 participants to interact with your presentation, and each tier provides integrations with Microsoft Teams and Powerpoint. 
• Easy to run: Most users believe Vevox is easy to use and run. 
• Integrations: With Vevox's many integrations, you can use the presentation tools you prefer. 

Cons of Vevox:

• Expensive: Vevox is one of the most costly interactive presentation tools, with plans reaching $799/month. 
• Poor design for end-users: Some presenters have expressed issues with how answer options appear on end-users' mobile devices. 
• Best for Microsoft products: While Vevox integrates with many tools, it works seamlessly with Microsoft products like Teams, PowerPoint, and Windows. With other platforms, the integration is a bit more challenging. 
• Few interactive features: Many users believe Vevox doesn't offer enough features to engage audiences, especially when compared to similar options. Users also think Vevox doesn't provide enough dynamic ways to present participants' poll answers. 
• Data Gathering: Some users report issues getting data exported to another file. 

If you want an interactive presentation tool with basic engagement features, then Vevox is a good option. You can include a lot of participants with its free plans and use various integrations, which are bonuses if you typically speak to a large audience and have preferred presentation tools.

However, if you want interactive features that go beyond polling, quizzes, and Q&As to keep your audience glued in, then Vevox may not be the best solution. It's also quite expensive for lacking so many engagement features. 

6. Poll Everywhere

What is Poll Everywhere?

Poll Everywhere is a live polling tool that helps you gather feedback, gauge your audience's thoughts, and receive questions during your presentation. With Poll Everywhere, you can ask multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions and present participants' responses with word clouds. This interactive application also integrates with many presentation tools and meeting platforms, including PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. 

How does Poll Everywhere work?

You can access Poll Everywhere after creating an account. From there, you'll need to download Poll Everywhere on your device to enjoy the full, interactive experience. Once you download the application, you can use it when building your presentation by adding interactive poll questions to your slides. 

During your presentation, your audience can answer your poll questions using any device. Just share the activity link provided by Poll Everywhere. Then, participants can use that to see and respond to your questions. You can also dive deeper into participants' responses using the application's reporting capabilities—the tool lets you analyze audience insights using executive summaries, pivot tables, grade books, and participant response history. 

Pros of Poll Everywhere:

• Easy PowerPoint integrations: Users believe Poll Everywhere seamlessly integrates with PowerPoint. 
• Reporting capabilities: You can better understand your audience using one of the many report types that Poll Everywhere offers.
• Customer support: This application has a good tech support and customer service team. 
• Easy to use: Presenters and educators agree that Poll Everywhere is simple and straightforward.
• Consistently improving: Many users believe the company does a great job implementing feedback and enhancing features.

Cons of Poll Everywhere:

• Limited features: Like Vevox and Slido, Poll Everywhere doesn't have features beyond the basic interactive capabilities. 
• Learning Management System integration: Some users have trouble integrating Poll Everywhere with BlackBoard and other LMS platforms. 
• No enhancements: Other than word clouds, users think Poll Everywhere lacks the visual and audio enhancements that would make participants' responses fun to watch and hear. 
• Expensive: While Poll Everywhere isn't the most expensive interactive presentation tool, it's not the cheapest. To get a good amount of features, you need the "Engage" plan, which is a little less than $50/month. 

Poll Everywhere is a good live polling tool—and its reporting capabilities are especially great. However, it's like many other interactive presentation tools; it doesn't offer a lot of features, even though it's somewhat pricey. It also doesn't integrate well with platforms outside of Microsoft PowerPoint.

‍ Prevent the Glazed Eyes

With an interactive presentation tool, you'll increase your chances of building something that not only sticks but holds your audience's attention—and that's exactly what you need. In an age where people have trouble concentrating and regularly scrolling on social media is normal, you have about ten minutes to grab and keep your audience's attention. Failure to do so means you'll be another statistic people use when explaining the importance of having an interactive presentation. 

You've got 10 minutes. That's the span of time most people can stay mentally engaged with a presentation before they check out. So, unless you can create stimulating content and deliver it masterfully, you will find your audience scrolling through TikTok and checking their email. Studies have shown that 4 in 5 business professionals, regardless of age, shifted their focus away from the speaker in the most recent presentation they watched! - Jane Hanson, The 30-Point Rule, And Other Tips To Prepare A Killer Presentation That Will Keep Your Audience Off Their Phones

So, if you want to nail your presentation, don't go in with slides that only feature bulleted lists and a photo here and there. Liven things up by using a tool that'll enhance your presentation's interactivity. Then, you'll give a presentation so good that it'll prevent people from scrolling and potentially lead to a standing ovation instead. 

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5 Free Interactive Presentation Tools You Can Try Online

Looking for engaging presentation tools without breaking the bank? Here are some of the top interactive programs you can try for free today.

Giving a presentation that’s engaging can be difficult, especially if the material happens to be particularly dry. One of the best ways to keep audiences engaged is by making your presentation interactive.

Luckily, there are plenty of online tools that aim to make creating interactive presentations as easy as possible. Here are five of the best for your consideration.

1. Mentimeter

First up on this list comes Mentimeter. Mentimeter is an online presentation service that allows anyone to quickly and easily create engaging presentations to share with others.

Getting started with Mentimeter is easy. All you have to do is sign up for a free account, and you’ll be good to go. Mentimeter starts off by asking you a couple of questions concerning how you aim to use the service, but this is only to help you as you go.

There are a variety of different templates available with Mentimeter, and based on how you plan to use it, the service will recommend different ones for you. You’re free to browse through the whole selection at any time, however. These are perfect for quickly putting together a presentation for just about any need.

With your Mentimeter presentation made, you’ll be presented with a code across the top of your slides. By visiting the Mentimeter website and inputting the code, you’ll be able to interact with the slides using any smart device.

If you’re looking for a great presentation service that also features some light interactive elements, then Prezi is a good middle-ground option. Prezi is an online presentation creation service that makes creating and generating presentations and slideshows easier than ever.

To get started, there are a wide array of different templates for you to choose from in a range of styles. From there, Prezi features plenty of options to create and adjust your template to fit your presentation needs. There are options here to easily change the style, text, and images being used in just a few short clicks.

When it comes to interactive elements, Prezi has some of the more limited options on this list, though there’s still plenty here to like. Prezi features a collaborative presentation mode. This allows you to share a link with others so that they are able to edit or present with you.

Where this shines, however, is that it also allows you to invite people to comment on your slides. This gives you the option to receive feedback and present in ways that you normally wouldn’t otherwise be able to. Perfect for team efforts.

3. Google Slides

Next up, we have Google Slides. Google Slides is a great piece of software that is entirely free to use and available entirely within your browser. It’s likely that you’ve heard of or used Google Slides in the past, but if you haven’t, don’t fret.

Google Slides is an online presentation service that works entirely from the cloud. This makes it one of the best free PowerPoint alternatives currently out there. This means that you can easily use Google Slides to present just about anything.

Creating slides is easy and effective, and there are plenty of ways to spruce up your slides with themes, templates, and more. Beyond that, however, there are a huge number of ways how to make your presentations more interactive with Google Slides . Largely, this comes down to its Presenter view.

The process can be a little complicated, but effectively, Google Slides comes with its own suite of audience tools that you can use to ask questions directly to your audience. This is a great way to interact with the people that you’re presenting to, be it in a meeting, a classroom, or for a large-scale presentation.

If you’re looking for a powerful presentation tool that has plenty of tools to sink your teeth into, then Visme is a great option for just that. When it comes to time-saving presentation tools that you need to know about , Visme is one of the best.

Visme is an online presentation tool that aims to make creating and sharing ideas easier than ever before. To get started, all you need to do is sign up and choose a template from Visme’s many options.

There are tons to look at here, with a wide variety of different styles and aesthetics to choose from to match whatever environment you’re in. Once you’ve chosen a template, the actual presentation editor is great, too.

There are options here to easily manage graphics, icons, photos, charts, and more. What’s really great, however, is that there are plenty of video tutorials along the way to help you pick up just about any part of Visme’s tool suite and use it easily.

When it comes to audience interaction, Visme has plenty to use there, as well. There are options for form and survey integration right into your slides, and you can even use JotForm and Mailchimp integrations to push this even further.

5. Genially

Finally, we have Genially. Genially is one of the most comprehensive interactive presentation creation services currently available, with a huge host of different features to choose from.

When you first start off with Genially, you’ll want to choose from one of its templates to get started. There are over 10,000 options here to choose from, so you’re bound to find something that suits the style and format that you’re looking for.

When it comes to interactive elements, you can choose from buttons, buttons with text, interactive questions, markers, and more. These elements allow you to inject an interactive element into your presentations that will help to keep your audiences engaged, no matter what your material is.

Get More Out of Your Presentations

As you can see, there are plenty of tools out there that make it easy to create and share interactive presentations regardless of your audience. Whether you’re looking to share a slideshow with your students, or aiming to wow your colleagues at your next meeting, there’s an online tool that’s great for you.

The best presentation software in 2024

These powerpoint alternatives go beyond the basics..

The latest presentation apps have made it easier than ever to format slides and create professional-looking slideshows without giving off a "this is a template" vibe. Even standard PowerPoint alternatives have updated key features to make it easier than ever to collaborate and create presentations quickly, so you can spend more time prepping for your actual presentation.

If, like me, you've used Google Slides unquestioningly for years, it's a whole new world out there. The newest crop of online presentation tools go way beyond the classic slideshow experience, with new features to keep your audience's attention, streamline the creation process with AI, and turn slide decks into videos and interactive conversations.

I've been testing these apps for the past few years, and this time, I spent several days tinkering with 25 of the top presentation software solutions out there to bring you the best of the best.

The best presentation software

What makes the best presentation app, how we evaluate and test apps.

When looking for the best presentation apps, I wanted utility players. After all, slideshows are used for just about everything, from pitch decks and product launches to class lectures and church sermons. With that in mind, here's what I was looking for:

Pre-built templates. The best presentation tools should have attractive, professional-looking templates to build presentations in a hurry.

Sharing and collaboration options. Whether you plan to share your webinar slides later, or you just want to collaborate with a coworker on a presentation, it should be easy to share files and collaborate in real-time.

Flexibility and customization options. Templates are great, but top presentation apps should enable you to customize just about everything—giving you the flexibility to build exactly what you need.

Affordability. Creating compelling presentations is important, but you shouldn't have to bust your budget to make it happen. With capable free tools on the market, affordability is a top consideration.

Standalone functionality. There's no reason to use multiple tools when one can do it all, so I didn't test any apps that require and work on top of another presentation app like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Familiar, deck-based interface. For our purposes here, I only tested software that uses slides, with the familiar deck-based editor you expect from a "presentation" tool (versus, for example, a video creation app).

Beyond that, I also looked for presentation apps that brought something unique to the table—features above and beyond what you can get for free from a legacy solution like PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

I went through any onboarding or guided tutorials.

I created a new deck, scanning through all available templates, noting how well-designed they were (and which were free versus paid).

I added new slides, deleted slides, edited text and images, and played around with other content types.

I changed presentation design settings, like color schemes and background images.

I reviewed and tested the sharing and collaboration options.

I tested out presenter view (when available).

After my first round of testing, I went back into the top performers to test any unique or niche features, like AI, brand settings, and interactive content. With that, these are the best presentation apps I found—each one really brings something different or radically easy to the table.

The best presentation software at a glance

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Canva pros:

Excellent free plan

Tons of amazing templates for all use cases

Feature-rich

Canva cons:

The AI tools aren't groundbreakingly useful

Canva offers one of the most robust free plans of all the presentation apps I tested. The app delays account creation until after you've created your first design, so you can get started building your presentation in seconds. Choose from an almost overwhelming number of beautiful templates (nearly all available for free), including those designed specifically for education or business use cases.

Anyone who's accidentally scrolled too far and been bumped to the next slide will appreciate Canva's editor interface, which eliminates that problem altogether with a smooth scroll that doesn't jump around. Choose from a handful of preset animations to add life to your presentations, or browse the library of audio and video files available to add. And Canva also has a number of options for sharing your presentation, including adding collaborators to your team, sharing directly to social media, and even via QR code.

Present directly from Canva, and let audience members submit their questions via Canva Live. Once you share a link to invite audience members to your presentation, they can send questions for you to answer. As the presenter, you'll see them pop up in your presenter view window, so you can keep the audience engaged and your presentation clear. Alternatively, record a presentation with a talking head bubble—you can even use an AI presenter here—to share remotely.

Canva pricing: Free plan available; paid plans start at $120/year for 1 user and include additional features like Brand Kit, premium templates and stock assets, and additional AI-powered design tools.

The best presentation app for AI-powered design

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Beautiful.ai pros:

True AI design

No fussing around with alignment

Still allows for customization

Beautiful.ai cons:

No free plan

If you're like me, editing granular spacing issues is the absolute worst part of building a presentation. Beautiful.ai uses artificial intelligence to take a lot of the hassle and granular design requirements out of the presentation process, so you can focus on the content of a presentation without sacrificing professional design. If I needed to make presentations on a regular basis, this is the app I'd use.

Many apps have recently added AI design features, but Beautiful.ai has been doing it for years—and they've perfected the experience of AI design, ensuring the tool's reign as the most streamlined and user-friendly option for AI design.

The editor is a little different from most presentation apps, but it's still intuitive—and you'll start off with a quick two-minute tutorial. When creating a new slide, scroll through "inspiration slides" to find a layout you like; once you choose, the app will pull the layout and automatically adapt it to match the design of the rest of your presentation.

With 10 themes, several templated slides, over 40 fully-designed templates, and more than 20 different color palettes to choose from, Beautiful.ai strikes a perfect balance between automation and customization.

While Beautiful.ai doesn't offer a free plan, paid plans are reasonably priced and offer sharing and collaboration options that rival collab-focused apps like Google Slides. And speaking of Google, you can connect Beautiful.ai with Google Drive to save all your presentations there.

Note: I re-tested the generative AI feature (called DesignerBot) this year. It's great for adding individual slides to an existing presentation—automatically choosing the best layout and matching the design to the rest of the deck—but as with most other apps, it struggled to pull in relevant images.

Beautiful.ai pricing: Plans start at $12/month for unlimited slides, AI content generation, viewer analytics, and more. Upgrade to a Team plan for $40/user/month to get extra collaboration and workspace features and custom brand controls.

The best presentation app for conversational presentations

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Prezi pros:

Doesn't restrict you to standard presentation structure

Lots of customization options

Prezi Video lets you display a presentation right over your webcam video

Prezi cons:

Steep learning curve

Struggling to squeeze information into a basic, linear presentation? Give Prezi a try. Unlike nearly all other presentation apps on the market, Prezi Present doesn't restrict the structure of your presentation to a straight line. The editor focuses on topics and subtopics and allows you to arrange them any way you want, so you can create a more conversational flow of information.

With the structural flexibility, you still get all the same customization features you expect from top presentation software, including fully-editable templates. There's a learning curve if you're unfamiliar with non-linear presentations, but templates offer a great jumping-off point, and Prezi's editor does a good job of making the process more approachable.

Plus, Prezi comes with two other apps: Prezi Design and Prezi Video. Prezi Video helps you take remote presentations to a new level. You can record a video where the presentation elements are displayed right over your webcam feed. Record and save the video to share later, or connect with your video conferencing tool of choice (including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet) to present live.

Prezi's generative AI feature works ok, but it's more useful as a wireframe. When I asked it to create a presentation about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, for example, the resulting content read a lot like a student writing a term paper in the broadest strokes possible to avoid doing any actual research.

The best presentation app for video presentations

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Powtoon pros:

Timing automatically changes based on the content on the slide

Can toggle between slideshow and video

Can orient presentation as horizontal, vertical, or square

Powtoon cons:

Limited free plan

Powtoon makes it easy to create engaging videos by orienting the editor around a slide deck. Editing a Powtoon feels just like editing a presentation, but by the time you finish, you have a professional video. 

You can edit your slides at any time, and when you hit play, a video plays through your deck—the feel is almost like an animated explainer video. Each slide includes the animations you choose and takes up as much time as is needed based on the content on the slide. Powtoon figures the timing automatically, and you can see in the bottom-right of the editor how much time is used on your current slide versus the total presentation. If you ever want to present as a slide deck, just toggle between Slideshow and Movie.

You'll likely need to subscribe to a paid plan to get the most out of Powtoon—like creating videos longer than three minutes, downloading them as MP4 files, and white-labeling your presentations—but doing so won't break the bank. Plus, you'll unlock tons of templates complete with animations and soundtracks.

One of my favorite Powtoon features is the ability to orient your video: you can choose horizontal orientation (like a normal presentation) or opt for vertical (for mobile) or square (for social media). When your presentation is ready, you can publish straight to YouTube, Wistia, Facebook Ads, and any number of other locations.

The best presentation app for collaborating with your team

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Pitch pros:

Google levels of collaboration

Assign slides to specific team members

Excellent generative AI feature

Pitch cons:

User interface is a little different than you're used to

Need to collaborate on presentations with your team? Pitch is a Google Slides alternative that gets the job done. As far as decks go, Pitch includes all the beautifully-designed templates, customizability, and ease of use you expect from a top-notch presentation tool. But the app really shines when you add your team.

The right-hand sidebar is all about project management and collaboration: you can set and update the status of your deck, assign entire presentations or individual slides to team members, plus comment or add notes. Save custom templates to make future presentations even easier and faster.

You can also invite collaborators from outside your company to work with you on individual decks. And if you opt for a paid plan, Pitch introduces workspace roles, shared private folders, and version history.

Pitch also offers one of the most impressive generative AI features on this list. It still struggles to pull in relevant images, but I found the AI-generated written content and design to be top-notch.

The best presentation app for conversational AI

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Gamma pros:

Creates fully fleshed-out presentations from a prompt

Conversational chatbot-like experience

Can still manually edit the presentation

Gamma cons:

Not as much granular customization

I tested a lot of apps claiming to use AI to up your presentation game, and Gamma's conversational AI features were head and shoulders above the crowd.

Simply give the app a topic—or upload an outline, notes, or any other document or article—approve the outline, and pick a theme. The app will take it from there and create a fully fleshed-out presentation. It's far from perfect, but Gamma produces a very useful jumping-off point. (Last year, it was by far the best, but this year, other apps are catching up.)

Here's the key: Gamma is much more geared toward the iterative, chatbot experience familiar to ChatGPT users. Click on the Edit with AI button at the top of the right-hand menu to open the chat, and you'll see suggested prompts—or you can type in your own requests for how Gamma should alter the presentation.

Once you've done all you can with prompts, simply close the chat box to manually add the finishing touches. While you do sacrifice some granular customizability in exchange for the AI features, you can still choose your visual theme, change slide layouts, format text, and add any images, videos, or even app and web content.

The best presentation app for audience engagement

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Mentimeter pros:

Tons of audience engagement features

Simple for participants to interact

Mentimeter cons:

Less granular customizability

Bit of a learning curve

If you need to engage with an audience during your presentation, Mentimeter makes that easy. The app is designed around interactive elements like quizzes, surveys, Q&As, sliders, and more (even a Miro whiteboard!).

Each of these is included in a number of different, professional-looking templates, so you can build a fully interactive presentation super quickly.

When it's time to present, your audience members can scan the QR code with their phone cameras or type in the URL and access code to participate. There's one code per presentation (so they won't have to do this on every slide), which gives access to each slide as you move through the presentation.

There are two main drawbacks to this one, though. First, there's a bit of a learning curve and less familiar editing interface (but I found it pretty easy to learn with some practice). The other drawback is that you can't get as granular with the visual customization as you can with many other presentation tools.

The best presentation app for generative AI

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Top-tier generative AI features

Simple, customizable templates

Intuitive doc-style editor

There's definitely a learning curve

Tome is one of the new additions to this list that I'm most excited about. If you're looking for generative AI that just genuinely works , it's definitely worth a look. The editor is a bit more stripped down than most presentation apps but intuitive nonetheless—it's almost a cross between your standard deck editor and a Notion-style doc.

To generate an AI deck, click Generate with AI in the top right, and either write your own prompt or choose from the example prompts that cover a handful of common use cases, like sales enablement and company pitches. Edit or approve the suggested outline, then generate the full presentation.

From there, you can edit each slide as a doc via the right-hand menu—without limits on how much information you can include. During the presentation, you simply size down any slides that take up more than the standard amount of space. It's super simple but somehow feels revolutionary in a presentation app.

What about the old standbys?

You might notice a few major presentation players aren't on this list, including OGs Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides. These apps are perfectly adequate for creating basic presentations, and they're free if you have a Windows or Mac device or a Google account.

I didn't include them on the list because the presentation space has really developed in the last several years, and after testing them out, I found these behemoths haven't kept pace. If they weren't made by Microsoft/Apple/Google, I might not even be mentioning them. They're pretty basic tools, they're behind the curve when it comes to templates (both quantity and design), and they don't offer any uniquely valuable features like robust team collaboration, branding controls, video, and so on.

In any case, if you're reading this, you're probably looking for an alternative that allows you to move away from one of the big 3, and as the presentation platforms featured above show, there's a ton to gain—in terms of features, usability, and more—when you do.

What about PowerPoint and Google Slides add-ons?

While I focused my testing on tools with full feature-sets—those that can serve as your sole presentation tool—there are a ton of add-on tools you can use atop big name tools like PowerPoint and Google Slides.

Related reading:

This post was originally published in October 2014 and has since been updated with contributions from Danny Schreiber, Matthew Guay, Andrew Kunesh, and Krystina Martinez. The most recent update was in April 2024.

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Kiera Abbamonte

Kiera’s a content writer who helps SaaS and eCommerce companies connect with customers and reach new audiences. Located in Boston, MA, she loves cinnamon coffee and a good baseball game. Catch up with her on Twitter @Kieraabbamonte.

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Blog Marketing 15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 04, 2023

As attention spans continue to shrink, the challenge of engaging audiences in a short timeframe has never been more significant. Let’s face it — grabbing and keeping your audience’s attention can be quite the challenge, especially when time is ticking away. But fear not, I’ve got the perfect solution: interactive presentations!

Believe it or not, creating an interactive presentation is easier than you might think. In this guide, I’ll show you how to effortlessly turn ordinary slides into captivating experiences with 15 interactive presentation ideas that will leave your audience begging for more. From quirky polls and fun games to storytelling adventures and multimedia magic, these ideas will take your presentation game to the next level.

Venngage is a game-changer when it comes to empowering interactive presentations. With just a few clicks, users can customize their favorite presentation templates , add multimedia content and create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact. Whether you’re a seasoned presenter or a newcomer, get started with Venngage to elevate your presentation game to new heights of engagement and creativity.

Click to jump ahead:

What is an interactive presentation?

15 ways to make a presentation interactive, 7 best interactive presentation software, what are some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive presentations, interactive presentation faqs, how to create an interactive presentation with venngage.

An interactive presentation is a dynamic and engaging communication format that involves active participation and collaboration between the presenter and the audience. Unlike traditional presentations where information is delivered in a one-way manner, interactive presentations invite the audience to interact, respond and contribute throughout the session.

Think of it as a two-way street where you and your audience have a friendly chat. It’s like playing a fun game where you ask questions, get live feedback and encourage people to share their thoughts. 

To make a good presentation , you can utilize various tools and techniques such as clickable buttons, polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements to transform your slides into an interactive presentation. Whether you’re presenting in-person or giving a virtual presentation — when people are actively participating, they’re more likely to remember the stuff you’re talking about.

Interactive presentations leave a lasting impression on the audience. By encouraging active participation and feedback, interactive presentations facilitate better understanding and knowledge retention. Here are 15 innovative 5-minute interactive presentation ideas to captivate your audience from start to finish:

1. Ice-breaker questions

Start your presentation with intriguing and thought-provoking questions or a fun icebreaker game. These questions should be designed to pique the audience’s curiosity and encourage them to think about the topic you’ll be covering. By doing so, you create an immediate connection with your audience and set the stage for a more engaged and attentive audience.

For example, if you’re giving a business presentation about management and leadership training, you could ask audience questions such as “What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received, and how has it impacted your career?”

2. Live polling

Incorporate live polls during your presentation using audience response systems or polling apps. This allows you to collect real-time feedback, opinions and insights from active participants. Live polling encourages active participation and involvement, making your presentation feel like a collaborative and interactive experience.

3. Q&A sessions

Encourage the audience to ask questions throughout your presentation, especially for pitch deck presentations . Address these questions in real-time, which fosters a more interactive and dynamic atmosphere. This approach shows that you value the audience’s input and promotes a two-way communication flow.

4. Clickable buttons

Add clickable buttons to your slides, allowing the audience to navigate to specific sections or external resources at their own pace. For example, you could include links to your social media accounts or extra reading materials in your education presentation to give further information about the topic and get your students engaged.

By providing this autonomy, you empower the audience to explore areas of particular interest, creating a more personalized and engaging experience through your interactive slideshow.

5. Storytelling

Incorporate anecdotes or personal stories related to your topic. Storytelling is a powerful way to emotionally connect with your audience, making your presentation more relatable and memorable. A little storytelling along with a set of creative slides draws the audience in and keeps them engaged as they follow the narrative.

6. Interactive charts and graphs

Use interactive charts and graphs that respond to user input to make your presentation interactive. For instance, allow the audience to click on data points to view more detailed information or to change the displayed data series. Creating charts with interactive visuals help the audience interact with the data, fostering better understanding and engagement.

7. Animated infographics

Add animations to your infographics, making them visually dynamic and progressive. Animated infographics reveal information gradually, keeping the audience curious and attentive. This transforms complex data into an easily digestible and engaging format.

Venngage’s extensive library of infographic templates is a powerful tool to visualize data and elevate the interactivity of your presentations. Personalizing the visuals ensures a cohesive and professional look throughout your interactive presentation. The templates are highly customizable, allowing you to adjust colors, fonts, and styles to match your presentation’s theme and branding. 

8. Gamification

Introduce an interactive quiz, puzzles, or challenges related to your presentation content. Gamification adds an element of fun and competition, motivating the audience to participate actively and boosting their learning experience. Here are some gaming presentation templates you could use. 

9. Virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR)

If applicable, leverage VR or AR technologies to provide immersive experiences. These interactive presentation tools transport the audience into a virtual or augmented environment, making your presentation more captivating and memorable.

10. Collaborative whiteboarding

Get your audience involved in your presentation by utilizing digital whiteboards or collaborative tools to brainstorm ideas collectively. This fosters teamwork and creativity, enabling the audience to actively contribute and feel a sense of involvement in the presentation.

11. Hyperlinked text

Keep the information in your slides minimal with a simple presentation and incorporate hyperlinks to direct viewers to relevant websites or blogs , resources, or additional information. This encourages self-exploration and gives the audience the opportunity to delve deeper into topics of interest.

12. Role-playing

Engage the audience in role-playing scenarios to explore different perspectives. Role-playing promotes active learning and helps the audience relate the content to real-life situations, enhancing their understanding and retention.

13. Embedded videos

Include video clips in your slides to provide visual explanations, demonstrations, or interviews. Videos add a dynamic element to your presentation, enriching the content and keeping the audience engaged.

14. Audience-generated content

Encourage the audience to contribute ideas, stories or examples related to your professional presentation . Audience-generated content fosters a sense of ownership and involvement, making the presentation more interactive and personalized.

15. Slide transitions

Use slide transitions to create smooth animations between slides. Well-planned transitions maintain the audience’s interest and keep the presentation slides flowing seamlessly.

Interactive elements aside, enhance your presentation with these guides on how to summarize information for a captivating presentation and how to make a persuasive presentation to captivate your audience. 

If you’re looking to create engaging and interactive presentation slides that captivate your audience, these presentation software options are sure to elevate your game:

Prezi is renowned for its dynamic and non-linear presentation style, enabling users to craft visually stunning and interactive presentations. With an array of templates and animation effects, Prezi enhances audience engagement, making your presentations more captivating and memorable.

2. Mentimeter

Mentimeter serves as an audience response system, empowering real-time interaction during presentations. Users can create interactive polls, quizzes, word clouds and more, allowing the audience to respond using their smartphones or other devices. This fosters active participation and provides valuable feedback instantly.

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a free cloud-based presentation software that not only offers collaboration features but also enables real-time interactions. It includes add-ons and third-party integrations to further enhance interactivity, making it an excellent choice for collaborative and engaging presentations.

4. Microsoft PowerPoint

PowerPoint, a classic presentation software, has evolved to incorporate more interactive features like live captions, real-time collaboration and interactive elements such as quizzes and forms. With its familiar interface and versatile functionalities, PowerPoint remains a reliable choice for interactive presentations.

5. Prezentor

Prezentor caters to sales-oriented presentations focusing on interactive storytelling and data-driven content. It offers analytics to track audience engagement and behavior during presentations, allowing you to fine-tune your approach and keep your audience hooked.

6. Opinion Stage

Opinion Stage is a visual and interactive data collection tool designed to engage and excite audiences whether sitting in a lecture hall, participating in a live Zoom, or watching an on-demand webinar. The Opinion Stage tools are simple and intuitive, making it easy to create attention-grabbing quizzes, surveys, and polls in minutes. A great way to spice up any presentation, encourage audience participation, and collect authentic feedback.

7 . Venngage

Venngage stands out as a versatile design tool that facilitates the creation of interactive infographics, data visualizations and presentations with ease. Offering various interactive elements and animations, Venngage empowers you to craft visually appealing and engaging presentations effortlessly.

With these interactive presentation software options at your disposal, you can unleash your creativity and deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your audience. So, go ahead and make your presentations interactive, captivating and memorable!

For more presentation software options, check out this blog on the 12 best presentation software for 2023.

Creating interactive presentations can be a game-changer for engaging your audience and enhancing your presentation skills, but steering clear of common pitfalls is essential. Here are some key mistakes to avoid when crafting your interactive presentations:

1. Overloading with interactivity

While interactivity is fantastic, bombarding your audience with too many interactive elements can backfire. Strive for a balanced approach that enhances engagement without overwhelming your listeners.

2. Ignoring audience relevance

Failing to tailor interactive elements to your audience’s interests and preferences can lead to disconnection. Make sure your interactions resonate with your specific audience for a more meaningful experience.

3. Not testing interactive elements

Skipping thorough testing of interactive features before showtime can spell disaster. Avoid technical glitches by diligently testing all interactive components in advance.

4. Poor timing and pace

Timing is everything, especially with interactive activities. Ensure seamless integration by planning your key points and the timing of your interactive elements carefully.

5. Lack of clear purpose

Every interactive element should serve a purpose and contribute to your presentation’s objectives. Don’t add interactions just for the sake of it — ensure they add value and align with your message.

6. Failing to engage beyond interactivity

While interactive elements are powerful tools, remember that content is king. Combine your interactive features with compelling storytelling and valuable insights to create an immersive and impactful presentation.

Incorporating animated slides into your interactive presentations enhances the overall appeal and interaction, turning an ordinary presentation into an engaging experience. Try it out with one of our animated presentation templates to get started. 

How do you start an interactive presentation?

Begin by grabbing the audience’s attention with an intriguing question or a surprising fact, setting the tone for a dynamic and engaging session.

Which type of presentation is the most interactive?

Workshops and seminars are often the most interactive types of presentations as they encourage active participation, discussions and hands-on activities.

How can interactive presentations enhance audience engagement?

Interactive presentations foster a two-way communication flow, involving the audience through polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements, leading to increased interest, attentiveness and better retention of information.

What are some common interactive elements to include in a presentation?

Common interactive elements include clickable buttons, hyperlinked text, polls, quizzes, interactive charts, multimedia content and audience participation activities.

Can interactive presentations be used for educational purposes?

Absolutely! Interactive presentations are highly effective for educational purposes as they promote active learning, encourage critical thinking, and provide real-time feedback and knowledge exchange opportunities.

Need inspiration on how to give an engaging presentation ? Here are 120+ presentation ideas you could use. 

Venngage makes it easy for anyone to infuse interactivity into their presentations. From clickable buttons and hyperlinked text to interactive infographics and dynamic charts, Venngage offers a diverse range of interactive elements to captivate and engage the audience. Here’s how you can make your presentation more fun and interesting with Venngage:

• Sign up or log in to Venngage to access the platform.
• Choose a presentation template or start with a blank canvas to begin designing your interactive presentation.
• Add and edit slides in the Venngage editor to structure your presentation content effectively.
• Customize the design by selecting themes, fonts, colors and backgrounds to match your style and branding.
• Use interactive elements like buttons, links, pop-ups and hover effects to engage the audience during the presentation.
• Enhance engagement by incorporating interactive media such as videos and audio clips.
• Preview and test your entire presentation to ensure everything works smoothly before presenting it to your audience.
• Save your interactive presentation on Venngage and share it online or download it in various formats for presenting purposes.

Well, I hope these 15 5-minute interactive presentation examples can help unlock a new level of audience engagement for your next presentation. From fun quizzes and interactive storytelling to multimedia magic and gamified challenges, the possibilities are endless. So, don’t be afraid to experiment, tailor the ideas to suit your audience members and let your creativity shine.  

That said, remember to strike a balance and keep the interactivity purposeful and relevant. Some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive slides include overloading the presentation with too many interactive elements and failing to align the interactive elements with the overall presentation goals and content. 

Got it? Great. Now let’s turn that boring presentation around!

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AhaSlides is a cloud-based presentation software designed to make presentations more interactive and engaging. We let you include beyond-static-slide features such as AI-powered quizzes , word clouds , interactive polls , live Q&A sessions , brainstorms , and more directly to your presentation. A brief description can’t do these features justice. Sign up and experience them for yourself!

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How-To Geek

6 ways to create more interactive powerpoint presentations.

Engage your audience with cool, actionable features.

Quick Links

• Add a QR code
• Embed Microsoft Forms (Education or Business Only)
• Embed a Live Web Page
• Add Links and Menus
• Add Clickable Images to Give More Info
• Add a Countdown Timer

We've all been to a presentation where the speaker bores you to death with a mundane PowerPoint presentation. Actually, the speaker could have kept you much more engaged by adding some interactive features to their slideshow. Let's look into some of these options.

1. Add a QR code

Adding a QR code can be particularly useful if you want to direct your audience to an online form, website, or video.

Some websites have in-built ways to create a QR code. For example, on Microsoft Forms , when you click "Collect Responses," you'll see the QR code option via the icon highlighted in the screenshot below. You can either right-click the QR code to copy and paste it into your presentation, or click "Download" to add it to your device gallery to insert the QR code as a picture.

In fact, you can easily add a QR code to take your viewer to any website. On Microsoft Edge, right-click anywhere on a web page where there isn't already a link, and left-click "Create QR Code For This Page."

You can also create QR codes in other browsers, such as Chrome.

You can then copy or download the QR code to use wherever you like in your presentation.

2. Embed Microsoft Forms (Education or Business Only)

If you plan to send your PPT presentation to others—for example, if you're a trainer sending step-by-step instruction presentation, a teacher sending an independent learning task to your students, or a campaigner for your local councilor sending a persuasive PPT to constituents—you might want to embed a quiz, questionnaire, pole, or feedback survey in your presentation.

In PowerPoint, open the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, and in the Forms group, click "Forms". If you cannot see this option, you can add new buttons to the ribbon .

As at April 2024, this feature is only available for those using their work or school account. We're using a Microsoft 365 Personal account in the screenshot below, which is why the Forms icon is grayed out.

Then, a sidebar will appear on the right-hand side of your screen, where you can either choose a form you have already created or opt to craft a new form.

Now, you can share your PPT presentation with others , who can click the fields and submit their responses when they view the presentation.

3. Embed a Live Web Page

You could always screenshot a web page and paste that into your PPT, but that's not a very interactive addition to your presentation. Instead, you can embed a live web page into your PPT so that people with access to your presentation can interact actively with its contents.

To do this, we will need to add an add-in to our PPT account .

Add-ins are not always reliable or secure. Before installing an add-in to your Microsoft account, check that the author is a reputable company, and type the add-in's name into a search engine to read reviews and other users' experiences.

To embed a web page, add the Web Viewer add-in ( this is an add-in created by Microsoft ).

Go to the relevant slide and open the Web Viewer add-in. Then, copy and paste the secure URL into the field box, and remove https:// from the start of the address. In our example, we will add a selector wheel to our slide. Click "Preview" to see a sample of the web page's appearance in your presentation.

This is how ours will look.

When you or someone with access to your presentation views the slideshow, this web page will be live and interactive.

4. Add Links and Menus

As well as moving from one slide to the next through a keyboard action or mouse click, you can create links within your presentation to direct the audience to specific locations.

To create a link, right-click the outline of the clickable object, and click "Link."

In the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, click "Place In This Document," choose the landing destination, and click "OK."

What's more, to make it clear that an object is clickable, you can use action buttons. Open the "Insert" tab on the ribbon, click "Shape," and then choose an appropriate action button. Usefully, PPT will automatically prompt you to add a link to these shapes.

You might also want a menu that displays on every slide. Once you have created the menu, add the links using the method outlined above. Then, select all the items, press Ctrl+C (copy), and then use Ctrl+V to paste them in your other slides.

5. Add Clickable Images to Give More Info

Through PowerPoint's animations, you can give your viewer the power to choose what they see and when they see it. This works nicely whether you're planning to send your presentation to others to run through independently or whether you're presenting in front of a group and want your audience to decide which action they want to take.

Start by creating the objects that will be clickable (trigger) and the items that will appear (pop-up).

Then, select all the pop-ups together. When you click "Animations" on the ribbon and choose an appropriate animation for the effect you want to achieve, this will be applied to all objects you have selected.

The next step is to rename the triggers in your presentation. To do this, open the "Home" tab, and in the Editing group, click "Select", and then "Selection Pane."

With the Selection Pane open, select each trigger on your slide individually, and rename them in the Selection Pane, so that they can be easily linked to in the next step.

Finally, go back to the first pop-up. Open the "Animations" tab, and in the Advanced Animation group, click the "Trigger" drop-down arrow. Then, you can set the item to appear when a trigger is clicked in your presentation.

If you want your item to disappear when the trigger is clicked again, select the pop-up, click "Add Animation" in the Advanced Animation group, choose an Exit animation, and follow the same step to link that animation to the trigger button.

6. Add a Countdown Timer

A great way to get your audience to engage with your PPT presentation is to keep them on edge by adding a countdown timer. Whether you're leading a presentation and want to let your audience stop to discuss a topic, or running an online quiz with time-limit questions, having a countdown timer means your audience will keep their eye on your slide throughout.

To do this, you need to animate text boxes or shapes containing your countdown numbers. Choose and format a shape and type the highest number that your countdown clock will need. In our case, we're creating a 10-second timer.

Now, with your shape selected, open the "Animations" tab on the ribbon and click the animation drop-down arrow. Then, in the Exit menu, click "Disappear."

Open the Animation Pane, and click the drop-down arrow next to the animation you've just added. From there, choose "Timing."

Make sure "On Click" is selected in the Start menu, and change the Delay option to "1 second," before clicking "OK."

Then, with this shape still selected, press Ctrl+C (copy), and then Ctrl+V (paste). In the second box, type 9 . With the Animation Pane still open and this second shape selected, click the drop-down arrow and choose "Timing" again. Change the Start option to "After Previous," and make sure the Delay option is 1 second. Then, click "OK."

We can now use this second shape as our template, as when we copy and paste it again, the animations will also duplicate. With this second shape selected, press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, type 8 into the box, and continue to do the same until you get to 0 .

Next, remove the animations from the "0" box, as you don't want this to disappear. To do this, click the shape, and in the Animation Pane drop-down, click "Remove."

You now need to layer them in order. Right-click the box containing number 1, and click "Bring To Front." You will now see that box on the top. Do the same with the other numbers in ascending order.

Finally, you need to align the objects together. Click anywhere on your slide and press Ctrl+A. Then, in the Home tab on the ribbon, click "Arrange." First click "Align Center," and then bring the menu up again, so that you can click "Align Middle."

Press Ctrl+A again to select your timer, and you can then move your timer or copy and paste it elsewhere.

Press F5 to see the presentation in action, and when you get to the slide containing the timer, click anywhere on the slide to see your countdown timer in action!

Now that your PPT presentation is more interactive, make sure you've avoided these eight common presentational mistakes before you present your slides.

How to Easily Add Annotations in PowerPoint

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Adding annotations to a PowerPoint presentation can be a useful tool for emphasizing important points, highlighting key information, and engaging your audience. Whether you are presenting to a small group or a large audience, annotations can help you to keep your audience focused and engaged. In this article, I will share my personal experience with adding annotations to PowerPoint presentations and provide step-by-step instructions on how to do so effectively.

To begin, it is important to understand what annotations are and how they can be used in a presentation. Annotations are simply notes or comments that are added to a slide to provide additional information or emphasize a particular point. They can be added using a variety of tools, including text boxes, shapes, and drawing tools. When used effectively, annotations can help to make your presentation more engaging and memorable, while also helping your audience to better understand and retain the information you are presenting.

In the following sections, I will provide step-by-step instructions on how to add annotations to your PowerPoint presentations using a variety of tools and techniques. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced presenter, these tips and tricks will help you to create more engaging and effective presentations that will leave a lasting impression on your audience. So, let’s dive in and start exploring the world of PowerPoint annotations!

JUMP TO TOPIC

Utilizing Templates and Shapes

Enhancing visual impact with images and diagrams, navigating with presenter view and slide show tab, leveraging annotations and highlighting, incorporating interactive elements, managing q&a sessions and feedback, crafting engaging powerpoint slides.

When creating PowerPoint slides, the goal is to craft engaging and informative presentations that capture the audience’s attention. To achieve this, I utilize templates and shapes to enhance the visual impact of my slides.

PowerPoint offers a variety of templates and shapes that can be used to create visually appealing slides. These templates and shapes can be customized to match the theme of the presentation and to convey the message effectively.

I often use templates to ensure consistency throughout my presentation. This helps to create a cohesive and professional look that makes the presentation more engaging. Additionally, I use shapes to highlight key points and to break up the content into manageable sections.

Images and diagrams are powerful tools that can be used to enhance the visual impact of PowerPoint slides. They can be used to illustrate complex concepts, break up text-heavy slides, and add visual interest to the presentation.

When selecting images and diagrams, it is important to choose ones that are relevant to the topic and that support the message being conveyed. I also ensure that the images and diagrams are high-quality and easy to see.

In conclusion, crafting engaging PowerPoint slides requires the use of templates, shapes, images, and diagrams. These tools can be used to enhance the visual impact of the presentation and to create a cohesive and professional look. By utilizing these tools effectively, I am able to create presentations that capture the audience’s attention and effectively convey the message.

Mastering Presentation Tools and Features

When it comes to delivering a presentation, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of the tools and features available to you. One of the most crucial tools in PowerPoint is the Presenter View. With Presenter View, you can view your notes, see the current slide and the next slide, and even control the presentation from your computer.

To access Presenter View, you must first start the presentation. Once you’ve started the presentation, click on the Slide Show tab, and then click on the Presenter View option. This will open Presenter View on your computer, while the audience sees the presentation on the screen.

Annotations and highlighting are excellent tools for emphasizing key points in your presentation. PowerPoint has a variety of annotation tools, including a laser pointer, ink annotations, and more. To access these tools, click on the Slide Show tab, and then click on the Set Up Slide Show option. From there, you can select the pointer color, pen color, and other annotation options.

One way to leverage annotations and highlighting is to use them to draw attention to critical information on your slides. For example, you can use the laser pointer to highlight specific data points or use the pen tool to draw attention to key phrases or quotes.

Another way to use annotations and highlighting is to add notes to your slides. You can use the Notes pane to jot down key points, add explanations, or include reminders for yourself. To access the Notes pane, simply select the slide you want to add notes to and then click on the Notes button at the bottom of the PowerPoint window.

In summary, mastering the Presenter View and Slide Show Tab, as well as leveraging annotations and highlighting, can help you deliver a more engaging and effective presentation. With these tools at your disposal, you can draw attention to key points, emphasize critical information, and keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation.

Effective Communication and Audience Engagement

As a presenter, my goal is to effectively communicate with my audience while keeping them engaged throughout the presentation. Incorporating interactive elements is a great way to keep the audience engaged and focused. One of the most effective ways to do this is by including interactive quiz questions throughout the presentation. These questions not only keep the audience engaged, but they also help to reinforce key points and concepts.

Managing Q&A sessions and feedback is also an important aspect of effective communication and audience engagement. I always make sure to leave time at the end of the presentation for a Q&A session. This allows the audience to ask any questions they may have and receive immediate feedback. Live feedback during the presentation can also be valuable, as it allows me to adjust my presentation on the fly based on the audience’s reactions.

Collaborative brainstorming is another effective way to keep the audience engaged and involved in the presentation. This can be done by breaking the audience up into smaller groups and having them work together to come up with solutions to a problem or answer a question related to the presentation. This not only keeps the audience engaged but also encourages collaboration and teamwork.

Below are some additional tips for effective communication and audience engagement:

• Use interactive quiz questions to keep the audience engaged and reinforce key points.
• Include live polls and surveys to gather feedback and opinions from the audience.
• Use visual aids such as videos, images, and animations to keep the audience engaged and interested.
• Leave time at the end of the presentation for a Q&A session.
• Encourage live feedback during the presentation to adjust on the fly.
• Provide opportunities for anonymous feedback to encourage honest opinions.

By incorporating these tips and techniques, I am able to effectively communicate with my audience while keeping them engaged and involved in the presentation.

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