First Look at 280 Slides

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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We have been playing with 280 Slides today morning and it looks like a great web application that can create PowerPoint PPTX files online.

First things first: 280 Slides is an online presentation creator and player that looks a lot like Apple Keynote. The similarity is well explained: we found out on the Washington Post site that the creators of this application are ex-Apple employees.

We really like this application. It loads quickly, works logically, and gives the feel of a real presentation program so that PowerPoint and Keynote users will be creating their presentations in no time. Figure 1, below, shows how the interface looks like.

Figure 1: The 280 Slides interface

Once you click the New button to create a new presentation, you need to choose a theme for the new presentation, as shown in Figure 2, below.

Figure 2: Choose a new theme

Thereafter, you can add slides, change slide layouts, insert pictures, and media (also from YouTube, Flickr, and other sites). The first time you save your presentation, you get to become a member so that you can come back again and find your presentations, as shown in Figures 3 and 4, below.

Figure 3: Login

Figure 4: Register

There are several other features in 280 Slides. While 280 Slides is not a PowerPoint replacement application feature-by-feature, it lets you download your 280 Slides presentations as PowerPoint 2007-2008 presentations with amazing fidelity. Figure 5, below, shows you how a downloaded PPTX from 280 Slides looks in PowerPoint 2007:

Figure 5: Exported PPTX opened in PowerPoint 2007

280 Slides also offers direct export to SlideShare from within the application. Strangely though, we found no Help option in the 280 Slides interface. Everything said, this is a great start for an application that’s right now in the public beta stage.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.