Keeping your audience engaged is the cornerstone of any successful presentation. PowerPoint has been the mainstay of most presenters because it is realiable and easy to use but it sometimes can seem a bit flat and old fashioned in today’s increasingly connected world.  Recently, Microsoft unveiled it’s latest addition to the Office family; a completely web-centric presentation and content creation tool called Sway.  Sway is available on ioS, the web and is a native Windows 10 application. Microsoft believes Sway will transform the way we create interactive reports and tell stories by using adaptive designs.

At first glance, Sway’s creation options seem to be laid out pretty clearly.  There are shortcuts to the various types of content you can add to each portion of your project.  Besides the expected options like text, pictures and video, Sway also offers content insertion of Tweets, embedded videos and content from other websites.  If you click on “Insert” you will be presented with a list of online sources for your project including YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and your OneDrive account.

Colors and fonts are easily upated and controlled through the Design option and the Navigation tab easily switches between horizontal and vertical layouts. If you are collaborating with others on the presentation, there is a option to invite others to join in, a share menu, and a tracker for who is working on each feature.

Sway’s drag and drop interface makes content creation a breeze. As you work, Sway will suggest content for your project based on previous entries and online sites based on keywords in your project’s title.  Built in algorithms will crop and resize images while you customize your text, add captions, links, and bulleted lists to each design card. Sway can interact with other Office docs allowing you to import presentations already created in PowerPoint so you don’t have recreate all of your content.

Sway allows you to create engaging presentations in an interactive and user friendly interface.  The application has unlimited potential for users to create striking content that pushes the envelope of the typical presentation realm.