Microsoft says goodbye to PowerPoint and introduces “Sway,” its new smart-presentation program included with Windows 10.
Microsoft knows its fans are loyal, but its new version of PowerPoint suggests that some may need convincing. According to a report from Phys.org, Windows 10 users will be greeted by “Sway,” the newest addition to Office suite.
Users of the Office 365 cloud-based productivity suite of programs will see a new icon right next to Word, Excel, and Outlook. Previous trial versions of Office 365 will still be available for consumers to use, and Microsoft will also release a Windows 10 app that will allow earlier versions to be used on existing Apple devices.
Sway is designed to improve the process of creating a presentation, separating smaller aesthetic aspects like fonts and colors from the overall presentation.
According to Chris Pratley, the general manager of Sway’s engineering team, users should think of the new program like Pandora. Users don’t need to specify their favorite qualities and genres of music, but they can enter a general artist’s name and expect to hear many similar options.
Sway’s users don’t need to fumble with font sizes and picture cropping to make sure their presentation look nice – Sway’s algorithms are designed to assess a user’s direction, and fill in the blanks.
The new software allows users to focus on the content of the presentation, rather than worry about whether or not it looks professional. With Sway, you can rest assured that your presentation will look the best across a wide range of different devices.
If you ask most people, they will likely tell you that they are not going to miss PowerPoint. We can’t think of a reason to disagree.
Daniel J. Brown
Daniel J. Brown (Editor-in-Chief) is a recently retired data analyst who gets a kick out of reading and writing the news. He enjoys good music, great food, and sports, with a slant towards Southern college football, basketball and professional baseball.