The Pacer

Issue date: 2/6/07 Section: Technology

Virtually all college students have suffered what some call "death by PowerPoint," and most everyone who has taken public speaking has had to create a presentation in Microsoft's presentation software as well. This week's site of the week offers a free way to create presentations on-line for pretty much any purpose, using Flash animation to create very sleek presentations that can be accessed from any computer with a connection to the Internet.

The slide creation aspect of it isn't too far off from Microsoft's PowerPoint, so anyone familiar with it should have no problem turning out professional-looking presentations. Newcomers shouldn't find it too hard either.

The intuitive design behind slide creation makes it really easy to churn out a great presentation on any topic you can imagine. Also, there are some excellent demo presentations and YouTube videos with ideas on how to use Spresent.

The site has integrated support for Flickr and a sizable gallery of clip-art. It's even pretty easy to incorporate videos from YouTube or mp3's.

Aside from making the compulsory presentations for public speaking, you can make a great presentation about important issues on your blog. You could make a slick photo slide show for your site or to email to friends. You could even make a custom e-card.

So why would anyone want to create their PowerPoint presentations on-line? Because it's easier and a lot more reliable. The Spresent servers are a lot less likely to lose your presentation files than you are to lose your jump drive. Best of all, it's free. Shelling out hundreds for Microsoft Office or just PowerPoint can be pretty daunting for most college students. If you need to actually turn in a PowerPoint (.ppt) file, don't forget you can use OpenOffice.org's free program, Impress, to create presentations you can save in .ppt format. Otherwise, use Spresent; it's a lot easier and cooler.

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