First Look: Google Presentations

Google wants to turn your Web browser into an all-purpose application. As if e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, and scheduling weren't enough, you can now also create presentations without leaving your browser, thanks to Google Presentations.

I took a look at the other Google Web applications -- Docs, Spreadsheets, Calendar, and Gmail -- in The Google Office. Since that article was published, Google added the Presentations app to its Web-based productivity suite. Here's a look at what you can expect from this Web-based counterpoint to PowerPoint and Keynote.

As with Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Presentations does not yet work in Safari -- at least not Safari 2. Safari 3 offers partial support, and Google says it's working on full support for Apple's browser. In the meantime, you can use a Mozilla-based browser, such as Firefox or Camino. By signing up for Docs & Spreadsheets with a Gmail account or other Google account, you automatically get access to Presentations as well.

Using Presentations

The layout of the Presentations window approximates that of PowerPoint or Keynote: a scrolling list of slide thumbnails on the left, with the main editing area on the right; formatting controls are on the toolbar at the top. If you've ever created a presentation in another program, most of the controls in Presentations should be self-explanatory. And if you've never used another presentation application before, you can pick up the basics of Presentations in minutes.

Getting Started: To create a new presentation from the main Google Docs page, choose Presentation from the pop-up New menu. Once in Presentations, you can do the same thing by choosing New from the pop-up File menu. You can also import an existing PowerPoint (.ppt) presentation -- though not a Keynote presentation -- by choosing File -> Upload a File from the pop-up menu. Like Google Docs word processor, Presentations also lets you e-mail documents to a special address to import them.

Editing a Presentation: Presentations offers a basic selection of text formatting controls: Choose among six fonts, 14 sizes, and four styles (bold, italic, and underline, in addition to plain), plus a limited palette of foreground and background colors. You can add clickable links to any text, adjust indents and alignment, and create bulleted or numbered lists. Add a graphic by clicking on the Insert Image link. You can move or resize graphics and text boxes by clicking and dragging, or nudge them using the arrow keys on your keyboard. To move an image or text box forward or backward, right-click (or Control-click) on it and choose the appropriate command from the contextual menu.

By clicking on the Change Theme link, you can choose among any of 15 preset combinations of background graphics, fonts, and colors. Backgrounds from imported PowerPoint presentations generally appear approximately as you'd expect, but the only other way to use a custom background image is to place the image manually on each slide.

You can add a slide by clicking on New Slide and choosing any of five standard slide layouts. After selecting an existing slide in the list, you can change its position by clicking on Move Slide Up or Move Slide Down; other links let you delete or duplicate slides.