Google Slides Is Actually Just Good?

This is super weird for me, I’m used to the google version of something being kinda crap.

I’m a firm advocate against powerpoint presentations. I think that they are, as a genre, bad. I think that the reliance on them as a gradeable deliverable in a university setting is also bad. Powerpoint presentations are the best way to communicate some kinds of information, but they’re heavily overused.

This is especially true now we’re decentralised on university campuses, where carrying around a thumb drive is literally a potential security hazard. Like, a URL is a way better way to store a presentation than a physical file that relies on installed software that may not work on this computer.

Online teaching, I’ve been using slides a lot, as that’s something to screen share, where I’d normally draw on a whiteboard. And that meant that rather than install a software package or ugh, run Echo365, I gave Google Slides a shot.

… and was shocked that it was good.

First, the just basic toolset is good at handling online tools. If you want to slap an image into a slide, you can right click copy it from one location, and then paste it into a slide and the software will handle it. No need to download it, it’ll handle that behind the scenes. I am a big fan of that, because let’s face it, we all do most everything through a browser now, and being able to construct a tweet, but big and with movable elements is pretty handy.

The tool also has a bunch of stuff I didn’t realise it was doing, until it did it intuitively – like if you resize something, as you’re resizing it, it’ll tell you when dimensions match other dimensions on the slide. There are rulers to standard dimensions, but even things like ‘this is now in a position mirroring this other object,’ all without telling you things. You can copy-and-paste slides, and it’s fast and fluid, even if they’re very busy.

When I made my first Youtube videos, I did it using Windows Movie Maker after hearing that Zero Punctuation was (for ten years at least) a slideshow made by . Nowadays, if I was going to recommend someone else want to try that? I’d say start with Google Slides. Set up OBS, record the slide output, and read your voice over the top.

Yeah, that’s it. That’s all. Just going ‘hey, wow, this tool surprised me with how good it is and here’s what I’d use it for.’