PowerPoint vs. Prezi

It’s been a long week as I’ve struggled to do my very first PowerPoint presentation, “breaking in” my new Office 2010 version.  There was a lot to learn…much of it by accident.  I was excited to do this assignment, as I love anything having to do with design.

Compared to Prezi, PowerPoint seems to have all the bells and whistles.  Although it would have been a lot easier using a template, the opportunity to format custom slides was a challenge I was happy to take.  There’s nothing like design to bring out the perfectionist in me.  Unfortunately, there were a few things that I just couldn’t make work…such as the animated “fly in”.  How frustrating when only some items fly in and the rest don’t.  And those that DO fly in seemed to change each time I’d try.  I stubbornly spent hours on that, being that it was on the list of things to include.  However, in the end, PowerPoint won.  There went many hours that I could have spent on my Prezi…a program I had never even heard of!

I must say that Prezi is quite “different” than PowerPoint.  Whereas PowerPoint seems more of a formal presentation, Prezi is very organic…flowing…fun.  It’s also very quick to use when using a template.  The problem I had with it, though, is that I felt it was a bit out of my control when it moved from box to box along the “path”.  Time was short, and I wasn’t able to explore this program as much as I would have liked.  It appears to be much more limiting than PowerPoint based on the lack of the many tool bars PowerPoint has.  The final thing I had a problem with was knowing what to do with it when I was finished.  No saving it to a file like I’m used to doing.

Until I get more experience with using Prezi, I have to say that I prefer PowerPoint.  It’s so much easier to figure out.