Creating complicated and daunting PowerPoint slides for visual presentations may be a thing of the past, as Microsoft came out with a new, mobile device-friendly app called Microsoft Sway to simplify the process of building presentations. The Redwood, California-based company launched the Office presentation app on Nov. 17 to create powerful slideshow presentations for business of classroom purposes.
"We've been fascinated to learn about the creative and unique ways people are already using Sway. It's great to see many of the uses we had in mind come alive, and it's been great to see new uses we didn't imagine," Microsoft shared.
Coming up with Sway presentations can be very simple. A user just need to drag and drop files, photos, and videos from the computer, or even from the user's social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or cloud storage, then the app's algorithm will arrange the image slides according to image's importance in the slide, as well as the screen size that the user will use for the presentation. It can also group the less important slides in a grid or other arrangements.
It also contains very simple text formatting, unlike the one featured in Office PowerPoint. At the moment, very limited options can be done in the text and formatting of a Sway presentation. The overall look of the presentation can also be customized or pre-selected by Sway. Users can simply choose the Mood option to pick how the presentation should look like, or opt for Remix to let the app choose something random.
Microsoft initially debuted Office Sway on Oct. 1, then the company released an update on Monday saying that the preview for the app is coming in a few weeks. They also released the Sway for iPhone mobile app in New Zealand for testing. The company is planning to release the demo in the U.S. as well as the other English-speaking countries sometime soon.
