A slide is a single page of a

presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...

. A group of slides is called a slide deck. A

slide show A slide show, or slideshow, is a presentation of a series of still images ( slides) on a projection screen or electronic display device, typically in a prearranged sequence. The changes may be automatic and at regular intervals or they may b ...

is an exposition of a series of slides or images in an electronic device or on a projection screen. Before

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

s, they were 35 mm slides viewed with a

slide projector A slide projector is an optical device for projecting enlarged images of photographic slides onto a screen. Many projectors have mechanical arrangements to show a series of slides loaded into a special tray sequentially. 35 mm slide p ...

transparencies A transparency, also known variously as a viewfoil or foil (from the French word "feuille" or sheet), or viewgraph, is a thin sheet of transparent flexible material, typically polyester (historically cellulose acetate), onto which figures can be ...

viewed with an

overhead projector An overhead projector (often abbreviated to OHP), like a Movie projector, film or slide projector, uses light to Projector, project an enlarged image on a Projection screen, screen, allowing the view of a small document or picture to be shared ...

. In the

digital age The Information Age is a History by period, historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on info ...

, a slide most commonly refers to a single page developed using a

presentation program In computing, a presentation program (also called presentation software) is a software package used to display information in the form of a slide show. It has three major functions: * an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted * ...

such as

MS PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, developed by Microsoft. It was originally created by Robert Gaskins, Tom Rudkin, and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initial ...

, Apple Keynote,

Google Slides Google Slides is a presentation program and part of the free, web-based Google Docs suite offered by Google. Google Slides is available as a web application, mobile app for: Android, iOS, and as a desktop application on Google's ChromeOS. ...

Apache OpenOffice Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source software, open-source office suite, office productivity software suite. It is one of the successor projects of OpenOffice.org and the designated successor of IBM Lotus Symphony. It was a close cousin of ...

LibreOffice LibreOffice () is a free and open-source office productivity software suite developed by The Document Foundation (TDF). It was created in 2010 as a fork of OpenOffice.org, itself a successor to StarOffice. The suite includes applications ...

. Some are created with

document markup language A markup language is a text-encoding system which specifies the structure and formatting of a document and potentially the relationships among its parts. Markup can control the display of a document or enrich its content to facilitate automated p ...

, such as the

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

-class Beamer.

Lecture A lecture (from ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history, background, theo ...

notes Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

in slide format are lecture slides, frequently downloadable by students in

.ppt Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, developed by Microsoft. It was originally created by Robert Gaskins, Tom Rudkin, and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initiall ...

or .pdf format.

Production software

By the 1980s,

presentation software In computing, a presentation program (also called presentation software) is a software package used to display information in the form of a slide show. It has three major functions: * an editor that allows text to be inserted and formatted * ...

created slides, with companies offering their development and delivery as fast as the next day. Presentation slides can be created in many pieces of software such as

Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, developed by Microsoft. It was originally created by Robert Gaskins, Tom Rudkin, and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially ...

, Apple Keynote,

Impress,

Prezi Prezi is a Hungarian video and visual communications software company founded in 2009 in Hungary, with offices in San Francisco, Budapest and Riga as of 2020. According to Prezi, in 2021, the software company has more than 100 million users worl ...

ClearSlide ClearSlide was a SaaS Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a we ...

, Powtoon,

GoAnimate Vyond (formerly known as GoAnimate until 2018; stylized as ''Go!Animate'' until 2013) is an American cloud-based animated video creation platform created by Alvin Hung in 2007 and developed by the San Mateo, California-based GoAnimate, Inc. ...

Snagit Snagit (formerly SnagIt) is screen capture and screen recording software for Windows and macOS. It is created and developed by TechSmith and was first launched in 1990. Snagit is available in English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Sp ...

Camtasia Camtasia (; formerly Camtasia Studio and Camtasia for Mac) is a software suite, created and published by TechSmith, for creating and recording video tutorials and presentations via screencast (screen recording), or via a direct recording plug-in ...

CamStudio CamStudio is an open-source screencasting program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. The software renders videos in an Audio Video Interleave, AVI format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF f ...

, SlideShare, and Reallusion. Some software, like competitors PowToon and

Vyond Vyond (formerly known as GoAnimate until 2018; stylized as ''Go!Animate'' until 2013) is an American cloud-based animated video creation platform created by Alvin Hung in 2007 and developed by the San Mateo, California-based GoAnimate, Inc. ...

, produces slides with more animation. Others like

can be used to record the screen activity. The most popular pieces of slide producing software are

, Apple Keynote,

and

. * PowerPoint is currently the most popular slides presentation program.

Impress is a FOSS alternative. *

was developed in 2009 by

Peter Arvai Peter Arvai (born October 26, 1979) is a Hungarian–Swedish businessman and activist. He is the Executive Chairman, co-founder and former CEO of Prezi, a cloud-based presentation software company. As an entrepreneur, he founded in Sweden, and c ...

, Peter Halácsy and

Ádám Somlai-Fischer Ádám (Szabolcs) Somlai-Fischer, born 1976 in Budapest, is an architect and interaction designer. He is also the Co-founder and Principal Artist of Prezi and creates installations and experiments that blend spaces, technologies and interactivi ...

in Budapest and San Francisco. Today, Prezi has 40 million users internationally. * Apple Keynote, updated for

OS X El Capitan OS X El Capitan ( ) () is the twelfth major release of macOS (named OS X at the time of El Capitan's release), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh. It focuses mainly on performance, stability, and security. Followi ...

, works on Macs and some other Apple devices. *

is commonly used in marketing and sales organizations for presentations to customers. *

was developed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

at the same time as Google Docs and Sheets, in 2007. The tool allows live collaboration.

Templates

Typically in a set of slides (a "deck"), all the slides will have a similar layout template, controlling such factors as margins and headings.

Sharing Sharing is the joint use of a resource or space. It is also the process of dividing and distributing. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of inherently finite goods, such as a common pasture or a shared residence. Still ...
websites

Some websites offer facilities to share slide presentations online. SlideShare allows the user to share presentations publicly or privately. Slides can be uploaded in various ways, via email and through social media are the most common ways of sharing the slides. AuthorSTREAM only allows the user to upload PowerPoint presentation slides. On this website users can give feedback by rating presentations and posting comments. SlideBoom turns slide presentations into

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

so they can be viewed without slide presentation software. SlideOnline allows the user to upload PowerPoint presentations and share them as a web page in any device or to embed them in

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

as part of the posts comments. Another way of sharing slides is by turning them into a video. PowerPoint allows users to export a presentation to video (.mp4 or .wmv).

References

{{Presentation software Presentation

Production software

Templates

Sharing Sharing is the joint use of a resource or space. It is also the process of dividing and distributing. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of inherently finite goods, such as a common pasture or a shared residence. Still ... websites

See also

References

Sharing Sharing is the joint use of a resource or space. It is also the process of dividing and distributing. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of inherently finite goods, such as a common pasture or a shared residence. Still ...
websites