Microsoft Powerpoint 2016 for Mac

PowerPoint is top-drawer presentation software, and the 2016 Mac edition gains a handful of useful additions to keep the tool vital.

Pros

Borrowed ribbon: The 2016 Mac edition appropriates the Windows' version of the PowerPoint ribbon. Tabs on the ribbon offer access to design tools, transitions, animations, and more.

New Design tab: The ribbon's Design tab offers a selection of themes and variants. Click a theme to see a preview of it with your slide. You can also choose fonts, colors, and background styles.

Revamped presenter view: The new presenter view does a nice job of displaying your speaker notes, the next slide, and your relative location in your slide deck.

Sharing: The ribbon's Share This Presentation button lets you invite collaborators on your current presentation or send a copy via email. To add collaboration, the comments pane let you make and reply to comments in slides and offers threaded comments.

OneDrive: You can easily store presentations on OneDrive, where you can access them from Windows and mobile versions of PowerPoint.

Cons

Lacks some OS X features: PowerPoint for Mac borrows some useful features from the Windows side, but it is very much a Mac app. It now supports Multi-Touch gestures, for example. Still, it doesn't use OS X's Autosave or support the ability to rename, tag, and change the location of a document in a document's title bar.

Bottom Line

Apple's Keynote is a natural choice for Mac users looking for presentation software. But the Mac version of PowerPoint -- with its new design tools, ability to customize themes and share presentations, and availability across platforms and devices -- is a solid, easy-to-use tool for building effective presentations and should not be overlooked.

More Resources

Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac

LibreOffice

Google Drive Apps

Apple Keynote