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Google Slides

Score8.3 out of 10

272 Reviews and Ratings

What is Google Slides?

Google Slides is a presentation tool that enables users to create, edit, collaborate, and present. It is free for personal use, and available to businesses via a Google Workspaces subscription.

Categories & Use Cases

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Who Buys & Uses Google Slides

Google Slides Reviews

What users are saying about Google Slides.
View all Google Slides reviews

Pros

  • Intuitive design and ease of use
  • Robust real-time collaboration features
  • Seamless integration with other Google services

Cons

  • AI-generated slides are often uneditable, requiring repeated prompting
  • AI features like "Beautify this slide" struggle to maintain consistent themes
  • Intrusive AI pop-ups can obscure content

Seamless collaboration and simple to use

Incentivized
Verified User
Consultant in Professional Services (1-10 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Slides for presentations, proposals and reports in my organisation – it's our main collaborative document format. We export to PDF or PPT format to share with clients, and present straight out of Google Slides Presenter View, using speaker's notes. As we work in a Google Drive / Gmail environment, it seamlessly works into our filing and communications systems. It is much simpler to use collaboratively with other team mates than Keynote on iCloud (our previous approach to collaborative documents), and without the expense of all being in a Microsoft/SharePoint environment to work on collaborative Powerpoint files.

Pros

  • Intuitive tools and interface – if you've used Powerpoint, you'll find your way around fine
  • Selection of Google fonts ready to use
  • Version control and tracking changes
  • Collaborative work environment for multiple editors working at once
  • Presentation mode with speaker's view and presentation view

Cons

  • Managing colour palettes is painful – there doesn't seem to be a way to remove incorrect colours, so we'll often have multiple versions of not-quite-right brand colours in the palette
  • There's no way to set up sections, like Powerpoint, which would be helpful for particularly long documents
  • I CAN NOT STAND the new AI pop-ups. They're intrusive and impossible to turn off permanently. The 'beautify this slide' prompt under every slide is infuriating, especially because it takes up valuable slide viewing space in the screen, and the slide doesn't resize to use that space, even after you close the pop-up. The 'shorten this content' pop up on the bottom right corner of text boxes often gets in the way of reading what you're writing, which is annoying and distracting.

Return on Investment

  • Simpler collaboration means less time fussing around with version control and uploading documents
  • Being able to import and export to PPT format means we easily interface with Microsoft-based clients, without having to pay for full Microsoft suite licences for the whole team
  • Being able to easily search all documents on Google Slides through the home page means content from previous presentations doesn't need to be recreated, creating more efficient workflows

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Powerpoint, Microsoft Powerpoint Online and Apple Keynote

Other Software Used

Miro, Slack, Google Sheets

Easy slide deck builder.

Incentivized
André Fernandes
Senior UX Researcher in Engineering at OutSystems (1001-5000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use it to build presentations to share research findings with my stakeholders. I also use it to prepare workshops and highlight what I learned in courses or conferences, and to share them with my department. However, it is also useful for me to summarize and organize lots of information. Organizing information in slides forces me to include only the essential bits in a skimmable format.

Pros

  • Layout templates.
  • Simple way to add animations.
  • The "Beautify slide" feature.

Cons

  • The slides generated by the "Beautify this slide" feature are not editable. You need to prompt again to make the changes you want.
  • You don't have a way to switch to another company template. For example, if you want to switch from light to dark theme, you can't.
  • The layout of the Animations sequence is not easy to read.

Return on Investment

  • I don't have a way to measure this in my work context, to be honest.

Usability

Other Software Used

Slack, Gemini, Miro

Good features but could be better.

Incentivized
Allie CobbView profile
Digital Director in Social Media at Mouth Digital + Public Relations (11-50 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Slides to design PowerPoint presentations with images, GIFs, videos, and text (written) content for social media clients. This helps us show the visual and text components in the same place. We can also make and view edits in real time. We also rely on the comment and mention features.

Pros

  • Real time editing.
  • Ease of use.
  • Free to use.

Cons

  • Difficult to download images or videos.
  • GIFs do not move.
  • Incompatible with many formats.

Return on Investment

  • Operational efficiency.
  • Improved communication and transparency.
  • Faster turnaround on approvals.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Canva

Other Software Used

Canva, Microsoft Powerpoint

Google Slides - Great for Pastoral Ministry Preaching

Incentivized
Steve Crawford
Associate Pastor at Grace Bible Church of Hutchinson, KS (1-10 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a pastor, I preach every week to large groups of people. Most Sundays I preach to a room of around 75-80 adults, and Google Slides helps me convey my main points effectively to my audience, as well as feature significant quote and pictures to assist with getting my point across. In short, Google Slides has helped me become an increasingly effective communicator and public speaker.

Pros

  • Showcases important information
  • Presents data, quotations, and pictures effectively
  • Helps draw and hold my audience's attention on a weekly basis

Cons

  • Could use more slide template options
  • Could use more font options
  • Could benefit from more aesthetically pleasing transition options

Return on Investment

  • Google Slides has increased my effectiveness as a public speaker
  • Google Slides has contributed to the growth of my Sunday morning fellowship group
  • Google Slides has clearly helped me hold my audience's attention on a weekly basis

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Apple Keynote and Microsoft Powerpoint

Other Software Used

Todoist, Apple Numbers, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Pushpay

Google Slides for collaboration.

Incentivized
Verified User
Professional in Customer Service (1001-5000 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Slides for all kinds of presentations, from proposals to workshops and internal training sessions, but aside from traditional presentations, Google Slides has also become useful for publishing calendars, organograms, and other internal reference materials that need to be easily shared, updated, and accessed by different teams across the organization.

Pros

  • Real-time collaboration makes it easy for multiple people to work on one presentation or deck.
  • Sharing is very straight forward, so it's easy to keep control of who can do or can't do.
  • Flexible so it's uses don't stop in presentations.

Cons

  • Design and layout feels limited as opposed to others.
  • Big decks can get slow or unresponsive at times.
  • Animations are not really very customizable.

Return on Investment

  • Saves time by allowing multiuser real-time edition.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Powerpoint, Apple Keynote and Prezi

Other Software Used

Google Meet, Google Sheets, Google Gemini, Looker