The top presentation programs for Windows concentrate on usability, but there's plenty of power under the hood
Susan Yeaton
Presentation packages help business presenters to create what was once the province of corporate art departments and outside consulting firms: professional-looking overheads, slides, handouts, and screen shows. Whether the program is used twice a year or once a week, time not spent on choosing complementary colors and aligning text can be spent on a presentation's content. Thus, the trend has been for these programs to stress usability features and make design choices for the user.
This month, NSTL focuses on Windows presentation packages that fit the general-business-use category -- Charisma, Harvard Graphics, Lotus Freelance Graphics, and Mic
rosoft PowerPoint -- rather than those that emphasize multimedia presentations. To fit this category, the programs must be broad-based, with extensive charting (including organization charts), drawing capabilities, a built-in outliner that accepts text created in other programs and retains the outline levels of that text, and slide-show features.
NSTL did not include programs, such as Astound and Action, that appeal to the high-end multimedia user, because these programs are best compared in an issue dedicated to multimedia. For the same reason, NSTL did not include programs that emphasize drawing (e.g., CorelDraw) or charting (e.g., Stanford Graphics and DeltaGraph Professional). Also, the point upgrade of Asymetrix's Compel still lacks an outliner and does not provide the extensive charting of the other programs chosen for this review.
Focus on Usability
Because less technical users are often required to build presentations, usability is an important component of this ev
aluation. To test usability, NSTL convened a panel of independent testers who were not familiar with the programs and asked them to create and give a presentation that included several text charts, data charts, an organization chart, and clip art. They used each program's outliner and added transition effects to an on-screen presentation. Testers ran tutorials, consulted manuals and on-line help, and used the learning and use aids provided by the programs.
Creating pages, or slides, is the core of the presentation process. The testers created a seven-slide presentation, with a variety of bullet, title, and data charts, and with clip art. They used both the outliner and the slide editor to build the presentation. After creating the entire presentation, the testers switched templates and concentrated on making edits to the slides.
All the programs have templates (also known as backgrounds or masters), which are basically slide backgrounds with a particular "look." Color templates contain complemen
tary colors that let you create professional-looking slides with no effort. You can alter templates to fit individual needs and save them for future use.
Charisma asks you to choose the output medium to determine page size and orientation and appears to offer the same template list despite the device that you choose. Harvard Graphics lets you pick any template regardless of the chosen output device but gives hints about which ones work best in each medium. The same Freelance Graphics template can be used regardless of the output medium (e.g., overhead, 35mm slide, or screen show), and the program will make the necessary adjustments to the slides. PowerPoint, on the other hand, separates its templates by output device.
Templates and the adoption of "click here" prompts by all the tested programs eliminate the need for drawing placeholder boxes and take the guesswork out of creating a presentation with a cohesive look. Where the prompts appear on a given slide is governed by the page layout chosen
. Now offered by all the programs, page layouts let you choose the type of slide you want (e.g., a title page, a bullet chart, or a pie chart). More-complex layouts include two-column bullet charts and combination text and data-chart layouts.
Electronic Consultants
Even with dozens of attractive templates and great page layouts, you sometimes need help organizing your thoughts and figuring out which type of chart is best for the job. Harvard Graphics' and PowerPoint's new advisors and wizards are intended to get you by the impasse. PowerPoint's AutoContent Wizard leads you through a choice of six common types of presentations (e.g., recommending a strategy or selling a product or idea). By choosing one and filling in some simple information, such as a slide title and name, it becomes a presentation in outline form with several slides created. You then replace the hints with your own text, and you have generated a presentation.
Harvard Graphics' Quick Presentations feature
also starts with a sample presentation based on one of seven themes, such as a marketing plan or a new-product proposal. You just pick a theme, and the slides are created, complete with titles, bullets, and charts. Unfortunately, the text is often too vague or short (e.g., "Marketing Mix"), with no further information given.
Harvard Graphics' Quick Advice system, however, is excellent. In the dialog box for a new presentation, you not only can choose your template, layout, and output device, but you can receive helpful information on each possible choice, along with a thumbnail preview of each. For example, if you choose a scatter chart, the advisor explains when to use a scatter chart and then describes and explains the options available for each type of scatter chart. Best of all is the advisor that describes each template and includes a thumbnail of it next to its description.
Freelance Graphics' point release lacks the advanced help features offered by Harvard Graphics and PowerPoint. Creati
ng a presentation requires dealing with two simple dialog boxes: one for choosing a look, with thumbnails and names of each template (SmartMaster), and one for choosing a page layout. Freelance Graphics has an excellent option for previewing each slide edit before you invoke a change. You can also preview changes to text attributes and charts, which can be a great aid to productivity. Moving or resizing Freelance Graphics' "click here" prompts can affect all slides with the same page layout at once, or you can first unlink the edited slide so that changes affect only that slide.
Charisma does less hand-holding than Harvard Graphics or PowerPoint in creating a presentation, so it's a bit difficult for a nonprofessional to use. As with Freelance Graphics, you pick a template and a page layout from the list and thumbnail, and the thumbnail is drawn with the background you just selected. Once you choose these items, hints that are displayed on the status bar provide some guidance for working on the slide,
such as "Enter Text" when you double click on a text box and "Drag to move symbol" when you select any placeholder or object. The testers found Charisma hard to learn and sometimes cumbersome when making changes to slides. Using edit commands, such as changing bullet attributes, is somewhat confusing, as is building slides via layers.
On-Screen
All the programs simplify the procedure of setting up and running a screen show. They differ slightly, however, in the way they apply transition effects and offer some distinct features.
PowerPoint is the easiest program to use for presenting a screen show with little or no multimedia objects. You can set the speed of transition effects to slow, medium, or fast. Because you preview effects right on the slide-sorter thumbnail, you can directly see how the effects will look on your slides. You can preview effects on a sample slide in a dialog box as well. PowerPoint is the only program that lets you rehearse your presentation to judge
how long you spend talking about each slide and the whole show.
PowerPoint also has a "drill down" feature that lets you embed another document (e.g., a spreadsheet) in a presentation so that backup data is available at a moment's notice if you need it. You can access the data easily during the presentation by clicking an icon placed on the slide. With data links, you can change the backup data, which will update a linked chart on the slide as well.
The other programs receive the same ratings for screen presentations. They all work fairly easily, but they do not have PowerPoint's overall usability. You should note, though, that Charisma has great dialog boxes for adding movies and sound to presentations and has effects choices on an icon bar. As with PowerPoint, you can set the speed of transition effects. Printed output in all the programs includes audience handouts, speaker notes, full-size slides, and, with the exception of Harvard Graphics, outlines.
The Drawing Board
Drawing is a feature that is strongest in Charisma and Harvard Graphics. Charisma's tools are part of the interface, but Harvard Graphics' are primarily in Harvard F/X, an integrated application packaged with the main program. Harvard F/X has a different interface that takes some time to get used to, but it has eye-catching effects. Harvard F/X and Charisma offer curved, warped, and extruded text and objects; PowerPoint can apply these effects to text only via Microsoft WordArt. Charisma and Harvard F/X let you contour text to a path and blend objects, a capability of Freelance Graphics as well. Harvard F/X also makes circular or rectangular copies of objects and will meld, intersect, subtract, or punch objects' paths.
Also worth noting is Harvard Graphics' Conferencing feature, which lets you display a presentation simultaneously on up to 64 computers connected via a NetBIOS-compatible LAN. During a conference, the presenter controls the mouse and slide changes, although control can be given t
o an attendee. Freelance Graphics and PowerPoint support Lotus Notes, which lets a presentation be routed to workgroup members for review and editing.
Presentation Performance
Creating a presentation with a polished, professional look and attention to detail is not a task to hurry through. Nor is speed usually an element of a screen show. The time it takes to run a screen show is generally determined by the presenter's and the audience's needs, and it is a good bet that the presenter will be talking while the next slide is drawing. It is primarily while creating and editing slides and while printing that speed may be an issue.
NSTL first tests performance during common procedures, such as going to the next slide, switching to the slide sorter, and switching the template in a presentation. These tests indicate how each program handles screen redraws, a frequent occurrence when using graphics programs. Second, because audience handouts are so often part of a presentation, pr
inting performance is also measured, both in color and in black and white.
Freelance Graphics is the fastest at most tests involving redraws, with PowerPoint a close second. In fact, the fastest times in all the screen-redraw tests were earned by one of these two programs. Charisma is fast when going to the next slide and is good at black-and-white printing, but it is the slowest of the programs at color printing. The complex Windows metafile graphic NSTL placed on one of the slides considerably slowed down Harvard Graphics' redraws involving that slide.
The Question of Quality
Quality is so important in a graphics program that NSTL weighted it twice as high as performance. We evaluated the programs for the quality of their templates and layouts, clip art, printed output, chart options, and screen shows.
PowerPoint delivered the highest quality of the tested programs, due to its excellent clip art, page layouts, printout options, and best use of the 256-color capabi
lities. With 1100 clip-art symbols and 21 page layouts, it offers the most diversity to users. The smooth blending of gradients when using the 256-color-capable Video Seven card gives slides the most professional look of the tested programs.
Freelance Graphics' best asset is its 101 unique templates, including the most interesting scenery and objects on the most eye-catching backgrounds. The on-screen look in 256 colors is less than desirable, even in VGA mode.
Charisma looks the best in VGA display of all the programs, but like Freelance Graphics, it loses quality when switched to a 256-color display. The templates are relatively simple, compared with those from Freelance Graphics and Harvard Graphics, but the more than 600-piece clip-art collection is diverse and of high quality. Charisma has the best-quality screen-show features, owing to its large number of effects, its sound clips, and layering for the most flexible slide builds.
Harvard Graphics offers only 31 templates, so it canno
t match the diversity of the other programs. Although it has the smallest clip-art collection, the symbols are diverse and exhibit good quality. Harvard Graphics' on-screen quality is good in both standard VGA and 256-color display.
The Perfect Pitch
The testers rated Charisma the most difficult of the programs to learn and use. This is because the program does so much and does not rely on other products in a suite or bundled applets to supplement its features. Instead, Micrografx offers a well-designed interface that gives you icon access to all the program's features. Charisma is not a particularly fast program, but it has the tools and effects to make visually exciting presentations, and its multimedia capabilities are extensive.
Harvard Graphics did not win in the testing primarily because it performed the slowest overall and had the lowest quality rating. It is, however, a well-rounded program with some innovative features. Its usability is good, due to the advisor sy
stem, and charting features are plenty. Harvard F/X contributes advanced text and object manipulation and eye-catching effects. And the conferencing feature will probably be emulated by other vendors.
Not long ago, Lotus Freelance Graphics was ahead of the pack, but now the program needs a major upgrade to keep pace with the competition. It is still an easy program to use, and its speed is impressive, so it continues to do well overall. Compared with the relatively new versions of the other programs, it is hard not to notice its lack of advice in choosing a template and its lack of help in creating the content of a presentation. Its drawing and charting options are also somewhat limited.
NSTL recommends Microsoft PowerPoint as the best all-around program. Although all the test programs are quite good, PowerPoint is the easiest to learn and use, has the best quality, is fast, and has extensive features. The program includes beautiful, high-quality templates and an extensive clip-art collection. P
owerPoint's advanced presentation design aids are great for the inexperienced presentation author, yet do not get in the way of the more advanced presenter.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTS
Charisma 4.0 $495
Micrografx, Inc.
1303 East Arapaho Rd.
Richardson, TX 75081
(800) 733-3729
(214) 234-1769
Harvard Graphics for Windows 3.0 $395
Software Publishing Corp.
3165 Kifer Rd.
P.O. Box 54983
Santa Clara, CA 95056
(408) 986-8000
Lotus Freelance Graphics for Windows 2.1 $495
stand
ard version, single-user $395
Lotus Development Corp.
55 Cambridge Pkwy.
Cambridge, MA 02142
(800) 343-5414
(617) 577-8500
Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows 4.0 $339
(estimated retail price)
Microsoft Corp.
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
(800) 426-9400
(206) 882-8080
Overview
NSTL RATING VERSION PERFORMANCE VERSATILITY
*** Charisma 4.0 x o
**** Harvard Graphics 3.0 x o
**** Lotus Freelance Graphics 2.1 o o
**** Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0 o o
EASE OF EASE OF REQUIRED
NSTL RATING VERSION LEARNING USE MEMORY PRICE
*** Charisma 4.0 o o 4 MB $495
**** Harvard Graphics 3.0
o o 4 MB $395
**** Lotus Freelance Graphics 2.1 o o 4 MB $495
**** Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0 o o 8 MB $395
Key
***** Outstanding x Good
**** Excellent + Fair
*** Average o Unacceptable
** Below average
* Poor
HIGHLIGHTS
CHARISMA
STRENGTHS
Special drawing effects
Only program with Gantt chart feature
Only TWAIN-compliant program
LIMITATIONS
Most difficult to learn and use
Limited workgroup features
No organization chart feature
HARVARD GRAPHICS
STRENGTHS
Great advisor help system
Conferencing feature
Extensive drawing effects with bundled Harvard F/X
LIMITATIONS
Slowest program overall
Lowest quality rating overall
Smallest number of templates and clip-art library
LOTUS FREELANCE GRAPHICS
STRENGTHS
Fast screen redraws
Large
st number of templates and transition effects
Only program with automatic file backup
LIMITATIONS
Smallest number of outline levels
No custom chart templates
Restricted placement of chart legends and titles
MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
STRENGTHS
Fastest program overall
Highest quality score overall
Only program with screen-show rehearsal feature
LIMITATIONS
One-level Undo feature
Cannot choose second color for gradient
Cannot have multiple pies on one chart
PERFORMANCE
All times are in seconds.
LOTUS
HARVARD FREELANCE MICROSOFT
CHARISMA GRAPHICS GRAPHICS POWER-
4.0 3.0 2.1 POINT 4.0
Print black-and-white handouts
Return-of-control 17.8 25.4 17.6 11.3
Page drop 117.1 154.3 162.7
95.3
Screen redraw
Switch to gradient background 8.4 2.8 1.0 15.8
Go to next slide 8.7 10.8 7.2 7.6
Switch views
To sorter 13.7 13.9 8.4 1.0
Back 0.8 2.8 0.3 0.8
Print color handouts
Return-of-control 20.8 28.8 18.0 12.9
Page drop 572.3 466.0 527.8 446.4
Presentation features
illustration_link (19 Kbytes)
Support features
illustration_link (18 Kbytes)
PowerPoint
screen_link (74 Kbytes)
NSTL recommends Microsoft
PowerPoint as the best all-around Windows presentation program. It's the easiest to learn and use, has the best quality, is fast, and has an extensive array of features.
Powerful Presentations for Windows
