12 Best Tools & Software to Create Interactive Presentations

Microsoft and Google slide offers you great PPT features to design a well-put-together and professional presentation. But the technology has evolved so much in the last few years that the flat nature of their templates rarely holds your audience’s concentration for long anymore.

To ensure your viewers pay attention to your presentations and fully digest the information; you now need to add something dynamic and “extra” to keep them engaged.

Interactive presentation software provides that “extra” to make your slides visually appealing, fun, and highly entertaining. They encourage people to take part in the conversation and give them a personalized experience.

In this article, I have listed down the 12 best software you can use to create interactive presentations.

Let’s go over their features to see what they offer.

1. SlideDog

SlideDog helps you put together various parts of your content into a coherent and visually appealing presentation.

It’s an advanced tool that supports almost all types of file formats and media, allowing you to pop up your slides with video, graphics, animation, and transitions.

It also offers powerful interactive elements to attract your audience and retain their attention. For instance, you can create custom polling to engage viewers, enable live chat for communication, and keep the audience participation anonymous.

One of the features that specifically makes SlideDog unique is its auto-loop.

It shares a playlist format that automatically runs your slides in the background without any manual input from you. It is a perfect option for those who want to keep their hands free while delivering the presentation.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• User-friendly editor.
• Questionnaire and polls.
• Anonymous responses.
• Live chat.
• Transition element.
• Presenter and audience view.
• Auto-looping
• Supports several formats.
• Share link.
• Mobile friendly.

Price

SlideDog offers three subscriptions starting from $19 a month. You can also buy its lifetime plan for $300.

2. Canva

Canva is by far the most popular and versatile graphics tool you’ll find in the market.

While the app itself doesn’t offer advanced interactive functions, it has powerful customizations that can help you animate your presentation.

It provides a large content library that gives you access to tons of graphics and pre-designed slide themes to boost your PPT visuals. Its animation features are pretty robust, offering both free and premium elements to spice up your presentation.

Recently, it also made a partnership pact with Pear Deck to introduce new interactive templates for engaging educational lectures. It allows you to embed questionnaires, multiple-choice scenarios, and audio files for special effects.

Let me summarize its core features.

Features

• Template library.
• Animation.
• Transition elements.
• Interactive questions.
• Hyperlinking.
• Supports MS PPT and Google sheet.
• Pear Deck integrations.
• Mobile friendly.
• Import, export, and share options.

Price

Canva’s presentation maker is free to use. It only charges for premium templates.

3. Prezi

Prezi is designed to help marketers and managers deliver interactive presentations remotely.

It’s an advanced PPT tool that provides you with ready templates, pre-defined blocks, and powerful elements to create eye-catching yet professional presentations.

With its zoom-in and branching feature, you can bring your project to life and make it more exciting for your audience. Its flexible editor lets you add video content, charts, and custom text to your slides. You can additionally change the template’s theme to match it with your brand color palate as well.

Prezi had also recently added an overlay feature that allows you to paste your content “over” your live video. It’s a useful function that comes in handy when you want to present your project on a video conference call.

Let me summarize its core feature.

Features

• Pre-defined blocks and custom charts.
• Zoom in effect.
• Branching.
• Media embed.
• Video overlay.
• Voice over.
• Branding.
• Analytics.
• Mobile support.

Price

You can create up to 5 PPT projects for free on Prezi. To unlock the limit, buy its premium subscriptions for $12 a month.

4. Pear Deck

Pear Deck is a Google Add-on that allows you to add animated elements and stunning visuals directly on the Google Slides.

You can use it to embed custom quizzes in live presentations to get instant responses from your audience.

You can also set up an offline interactive activity to let participants control the pace of your presentation and send replies at their convenience. Since it has the option to keep the responses anonymous, you can encourage participation without making anyone feel uncomfortable.

Pear Deck further offers bonus features like drawing tools and audio slides that can help you boost your viewer engagement.

If you’re in an educational industry and frequently conduct lectures, it is an ideal app for you.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• Link-based access.
• Live and offline presentation models.
• Several questionnaires format.
• Drawing tool.
• Hyperlinks.
• Audio.
• Pre-made Templates.
• Preview mode.
• Dashboard sharing.
• Mobile friendly.

Price

Pear Deck starter plan is free. To upgrade your subscriptions, you may have to pay an annual $150 fee.

5. Slidelizard

Slidelizard works similarly to SlideDog, but its polling and questionnaire interactive elements are slightly more advanced and engaging.

Besides adding spontaneous voting and multiple choices, you can schedule your polls with a countdown timer so it automatically begins as it reaches the specific slide. Slidelizard also integrates the results directly into the slides, allowing you to show results to your audience during the presentation.

Additionally, you can create multilingual voting to conduct your presentation in different geographical locations.

You’ll find marketing elements on Slizelizard as well that can help you generate leads for your business.

Let me summarize its core features.

Features

• Custom Quizzes.
• Polling and auto-results.
• Anonymous voting.
• Countdown timer.
• Note-taking.
• Branding.
• Multilanguage.
• Live stream.
• Sharing and exporting options.
• Email collection.
• Analytics.

Price

Slidelizard’s basic plan is completely free. If you want to avail premium features like email support, you can buy its paid subscriptions for €17 a month.

6. Publuu

Publuu delivers seven different types of interactive products, among which one is a flipping effect presentation.

It provides a flexible multi-media maker to design visually appealing reports, add animation elements, and attach clickable hotspots for better engagement. With its robust customization, you can alter the color scheme of your pages, include your brand logo, and attach any type of video and infographics.

It also generates shareable links to invite selected participants only. You can add password protection as a safety measure to ensure the right person receives your files.

Overall, Publuu is a good option for interactive presentations.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• Flipping effect.
• PDF customization.
• Hotspot, links, video, and audio elements.
• Branding.
• Link Tracking.
• Analytics.
• Password protection.
• Sharable links.
• Supports multiple devices.

Price

Publuu’s basic plan starts from $19 a month.

7. Thinglink

If you’re looking for a tool to add interactive elements to your publish-ready PPT slides, go for Thinglink.

It’s an advanced presentation app that lets you embed hotspots, branching, clickable buttons, and hyperlinks to static pages. You can add both visual and text labels, attach custom tags to highlight the hotspots, and use translation to tailor your content.

It also shares engagement metrics to help you measure the activity level and determine which elements attract your viewers the most.

It’s the best software for fun educational presentations, tour maps, interactive infographics, and visual company projects.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• User-friendly builder.
• Hotspots.
• Branching.
• Translation.
• Custom tags.
• 3D view.
• Media support.
• Feedback collection.
• Analytics.
• Compatible with other apps.

Price

Thinglink’s basic plan starts from $25 a month. You can take a 5-day trial to explore the software.

8. Mediafly

Mediafly is a sales presentation software that amplifies your static slides appeal with animations to make them engaging and high converting.

It provides unique style guides to create a smooth transition between the slides, making your presentation more visually appealing to your audience. With its branching and hotspot, you can build a story and keep your viewers entertained throughout the presentation.

Its tooltip format additionally breaks down your long content into short text so people can easily digest the information. You can also add back-and-forth clickable buttons to encourage your viewers to take part in the activity.

Most of Mediafly’s functions are geared towards marketing and sales, allowing you to provide a personalized experience to generate leads.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• Hotspots.
• Front and back buttons.
• Branching.
• Tooltip.
• Icon animation.
• Visually appealing themes.
• Smooth transitions.
• Smart styling.
• Support multiple formats.

Price

Mediafly’s prices are not listed on its official website. Contact sales to get the quotes.

9. Genially

Genially offers a hassle-free way to design interactive presentations.

It provides thousands of ready templates to help you build PPT projects without putting much effort into visuals.

You can also create your slides from scratch and tailor them with interactive functions and basic animation.

A few of its essential elements include hotspots, tooltips, info buttons, and hyperlinks. With these features, you can construct a clickable navigation menu, design interactive graphs, build visual maps and share contact details right on your PPT slides.

It’s an incredibly powerful app that not only is versatile but it’s also beginner-friendly.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• Custom templates.
• Hotspots.
• Table of content.
• Interactive charts
• info button.
• Animation.
• Hyperlinking.
• PDF export.

Price

Genially’s offers different plans for education and business. If you’re an entrepreneur, you can get started for free and later buy its paid plan for $8 to $80 a month.

10. Keynote

Keynote is a traditional PPT tool, but its advanced animation features and versatile content library makes it a good option for interactive presentations.

You can choose from around thirty different custom layouts, cinematic effects, and graphics to design catchy and professional PPT slides.

With its powerful customization, you can embed charts into your slides, showcase complex infographics, and add videos to animate the pages. It also gives you the option to generate project outlines and attach handwritten notes to the slides.

It continuously upgrades itself to ensure users get up-to-date functions to design interactive presentations.

Let me summarize its core features.

Features

• Custom themes.
• Cinematic effects.
• Media support.
• Video overlay.
• Life feed embedding.
• Multiple presenter slots.
• Supports Apple digital drawing tools.
• Team collaborations.

Price

You can download Keynote for free.

But I do want to point out that it’s an Apple software. You can only access it if your device is of the same brand.

11. HyperSay

HyperSay is built to create interactive slides for live presentations and virtual events.

It provides pre-defined blocks that allow you to embed polling, quizzes, and open questions in your slides for on-spot questionnaires.

You can share slides during the live session and activate a chatroom to entertain queries and engage your audience. Your viewers can access your presentation via their smartphone to send replies and save notes on the pages to revisit them later.

HyperSay also lets you invite people without collecting their contact information if they want to remain anonymous. It’s a useful function that can help you run general and random surveys in the middle of the events.

Let me summarize its core features.

Features

• Live stream.
• Quizzes.
• Live chat.
• Custom polls.
• Clapping option.
• Media support.
• Slide sharing.
• Incognito mode.
• Mobile friendly.

Price

HyperSay charges $4 per presentation and customizes plans for virtual events. You can also use it for free to conduct small sessions.

12. Mentimeter

Mentimeter provides almost all of the essential interactive tools you’d need to create professional presentations.

With its user-friendly builder and pre-made templates, you can quickly design your slides and tailor them as you see fit.

Its interactive features are pretty flexible, offering you several options to add the element of spontaneity to your presentations.

You can include surveys between the slides to collect feedback on your products, run anonymous polls to provoke responses, and set up word clouds to entertain participants.

It also offers a virtual slide control app to give you an alternative to clickers.

Here’re its core features.

Features

• Polling.
• Word clouds and questionnaires.
• Content library.
• Presenter view.
• Slide Control.
• Anonymous voting.
• Word censor.
• Translation.
• Analytics.
• Data export.

Price

Mentimeter shares its basic plan for free, but it does have some limitations. If you want to invite your team, buy its pro plan for $24 per month.

Final Word

Now that you have a general idea of what each software offers, find out which features are better suited for your project and buy the related app.

For instance. If you’re creating a financial presentation, the platform with an interactive infographic element would be an ideal choice for you. If you want to arrange your slides in a visual story, advanced tools with branching and hotspot functions might be the best option.

Keep in mind the specific features you want while picking out the software.

Good luck!